Does Family Research Council deserve "hate group" designation?

Although the Family Research Council is angry over its inclusion on a hate-groups list published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, columnist Tim Rutten argues that the organization has earned the designation because it has gone beyond simply expressing its views about homosexuality. 

"It is perfectly possible for a church or an organization associated with a denomination or religious tendency -- as the Family Research Council is with evangelical Protestantism -- to oppose, say, marriage equality as a departure from tradition and traditional notions of civic virtue without defaming gays and lesbians as a group," Rutten writes.