Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights organization, posted an alert on its blog Tuesday: “Paul Ryan Speaking at Hate Group’s Annual Conference.” 
 
 The “hate group” that the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate would be addressing? The day after the gay rights group’s alert went out, 28-year-old Floyd Lee Corkins II walked into the Family Research Council’s Washington headquarters and, according to an FBI affidavit, proclaimed words to the effect of “I don’t like your politics” — and shot the security guard. Corkins, who had recently volunteered at a gay community center, was carrying a 9mm handgun, a box of ammunition and a backpack full of Chick-fil-A — the company whose president recently spoke out against gay marriage. While blaming Corkins for the shooting, Perkins also faulted the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights organization that tracks and litigates against hate groups. The National Organization for Marriage, which opposes gay marriage, is right to say that the attack “is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.” 
 
 Gays and lesbians are winning the fight for equality by example and persuasion.  As authorities revealed details about the Family Research Council shooting, the head of the influential conservative organization blamed the attack on "reckless rhetoric," but then delivered his own politically-charged remark, saying critics gave the accused gunman "a license to shoot an unarmed man." Corkins faces charges of assault with intent to kill and bringing firearms across state. Late Thursday, the law center fired back at Perkins, defending its categorization of the FRC as a hate group because it “has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people.” The center said that Perkins should stop putting out “claims that are provably false” about gay people. If the FRC wants to stop being labeled a hate group, it must stop doing and saying hateful things," Wayne Besen, the founding executive director of Truth Wins Out, a non-profit group that fights anti-gay sentiment, said in a statement.
– The Family Research Council was quick to blame the shooting at its offices on its arch-rivals at the Southern Poverty Law Center, releasing a statement accusing the SPLC of giving the attacker "a license to shoot an unarmed man" by calling the FRC a "hate group." That's going too far, writes Dana Milbank at the Washington Post, but the Council does have a point. We "need to be careful about hurling accusations that can stir up the crazies." "This shooting should remind us all … that while much of the political anger in America today lies on the right, there are unbalanced and potentially violent people of all political persuasions," Milbank writes. He doesn't agree with the FRC on gay rights, "but it's absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as ... the Ku Klux Klan." Gays and lesbians are slowly winning over the public by example. Their supporters "gain nothing by sticking inflammatory labels on their opponents." Click for Milbank's full column.