Banking Bust

Conservatives need not apply:

Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization SPLC attacked, has raised the alarm about financial institutions denying banking services to customers based on their religious or political affiliations. ADF has pointed to numerous instances of what it describes as debanking, though the banks in question claim the denials of service were not religiously or politically motivated. SPLC not only took the banks’ word for it, but acted as though its own calls for financial institutions to stop “funding hate” did not amount to a debanking pressure campaign. “By conflating the market consequences for supporting hate and extremism—such as customers choosing not to patronize and shareholders not investing in corporations that do business with extremist groups—ADF has perpetuated a false conspiracy theory that claims big government and big corporations are victimizing conservative Christians,” the SPLC’s R.G. Cravens wrote. Cravens faulted ADF for supporting the Fair Access to Banking Act, which Cravens said would “coerce banks and financial institutions to violate their corporate DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] values, forcing them to do business with hate and extremist groups.”

Darn that fairness...