designated as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.The Fort Lauderdale-based Coral Ridge, which has since been renamed D.
James Kennedy Ministries, has attempted to sue the SPLC for that designation, but a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in late 2019.
The ministry has since appealed that decision to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.Kennedy, one of the nation’s prominent televangelists, frequently railed against LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage, even penning a book, What’s Wrong With Same-Sex Marriage?, using Scripture to justify those arguments, in 2004.