Introduction
Hate groups may place a threat for the population as they often engage in dangerous activities; in some cases, their actions are illegal. This paper discusses one of such groups located in the US, addressing its purpose and operations. The report also reflects on how organizations should manage hate groups and provides suggestions for the elimination of their negative impact on employees and other stakeholders.
Alliance Defending Freedom
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a hate group, the goal of which is to recriminalize homosexuality in America and abroad, defend sterilization of trans people, and fight against non-traditional sexuality. The group tries to rationalize hate by stating that homosexuality can ruin society; that this sexual orientation is unnatural, harmful, dangerous, and threatening for the population (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.a.). To market hate, ADF presents its actions as the advocacy for freedom and the sanctity of life. The organization has published several books and engaged in various court cases in America and abroad to support its hateful beliefs. In addition, ADF has launched educational campaigns aimed to “combat the homosexual agenda” (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.a.).
ADF’s website reveals that the organization strives to promote its prejudice about nontraditional sexual orientations being the wrong ones. The company has more than 3,300 allied attorneys and over 300 supporting organizations (Alliance Defending Freedom, 2019). The website also shows the biased perspective of ADF, as it advocates for the right of all people to live freely but strives to deprive the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community of this right. The organization is homophobic and transphobic; it supports a stereotypical opinion that homosexuality is unnatural, which is a false statement (Gavrilets, Friberg, & Rice, 2018).
Managing Hate Groups
Southern Poverty Law Center’s website shows that there is a large number of hate groups active nationally and locally, over 1000 of them were tracked in 2018 (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.b.). These groups engage in various activities, such as anti-immigrant, neo-Nazi, white nationalist, racist, and holocaust denial ones. Black nationalist hate groups are the most present across the country (Southern Poverty Law Center, n.d.b.).
It is vital for managers to be aware of these groups because it is necessary for companies not to support the participants of hate movements. It means that the representatives of the organizations should avoid working with people that belong to such groups and analyze employees’ behavior and online presence to determine their reliability (McDonald, Thompson, & O’Connor, 2016). It is necessary to mention that hate groups may affect a business significantly, especially if its operations are related to the issues they fight against. For example, hate groups, such as ADF, may file a suit against organizations that sell products for the LGBT community. Moreover, they may threaten the employees and customers, which can have an adverse impact on the company’s performance and profile.
To ameliorate these impacts, it is vital for managers to develop a support system for their employees and other stakeholders. To counteract, businesses should prove that hate groups’ operations are harmful, supporting their claims with evidence. It is also necessary for companies not to engage in illegal activities; this way, hate groups will not have any legal grounds for filing a suit against them.
Conclusion
Hate groups, such as ADF, are a significant concern of today’s world. They may engage in various harmful actions and follow the wrong ideologies. For managers, it is necessary not to support the representatives of such groups and not to work with them. To eliminate the impact of hate groups, businesses should develop support systems for employees and stakeholders, and avoid engaging in illegal activities.
References
Alliance Defending Freedom. (2019). Who we are. Web.
Gavrilets, S., Friberg, U., & Rice, W. R. (2018). Understanding homosexuality: Moving on from patterns to mechanisms. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 47(1), 27-31.
McDonald, P., Thompson, P., & O’Connor, P. (2016). Profiling employees online: Shifting public–private boundaries in organisational life. Human Resource Management Journal, 26(4), 541-556.
Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.a.). Alliance Defending Freedom. Web.
Southern Poverty Law Center. (n.d.b.). Hate map. Web.