The Southern Poverty Law Center released its list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups. In 2019, there was a 42 percent increase going from 49 to 70.

Texas has the second highest number of anti-LGBTQ groups with 8 after California’s 9. One of those groups, Mass Resistance, has a chapter in Dallas.

Fort Worth is also home to a chapter of Mass Resistance. Stedfast Baptist Church is a home-based Fort Worth hate group.

Probe Ministries is based in Plano.

The other anti-LGBTQ hate groups in Texas are Mass Resistance, Austin; Tom Brown Ministries, El Paso; Mass Resistance, Houston; and Concerned Christian Citizens, Temple.

In contrast to the increasing presence of anti-LGBTQ hate groups in Texas, Mississippi only has one group and Alabama has none on the list.

According to the report, “Anti-LGBTQ groups on the SPLC hate list often link being LGBTQ to pedophilia, claim that marriage equality and LGBTQ people, in general, are dangers to children, that being LGBTQ itself is dangerous, support the criminalization of LGBTQ people and transgender identity, and that there is a conspiracy called the “homosexual agenda” at work that seeks to destroy Christianity and the whole of society.”

Most of the groups are right-wing Christian but National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a reparative therapy organization that claims to convert people using science. Some groups included on the list use deceptive names like American College of Pediatricians. Perennial national anti-LGBTQ hate group favorites still listed include American Family Association, Family Research Council and Westboro Baptist Church.

— David Taffet