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Amid its quindecinnial anniversary of publishing anti-Muslim hate, Family Security Matters bids farewell

The anti-Muslim hate group Family Security Matters (FSM) is calling it quits. After 15 years of aggregating and publishing anti-Muslim screeds, the group’s leadership announced Wednesday they would be halting day-to-day operations.

Since the early aughts, FSM has served as a mouthpiece for anti-Muslim and far-right figures, giving them a web platform to promote their ideas as well as amplifying conspiracy theories cultivated in the greater anti-Muslim movement — all in the name of “national security.”

Founded in 2003, FSM originally worked in close partnership with Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP). In the early years, FSM was essentially a de facto arm of CSP, another anti-Muslim hate group, disseminating the group’s material and ideas to a broader audience. CSP specifically hoped to use FSM to reach the then-burgeoning “security mom” demographic — a women’s movement focused on national security that was born in the post-9/11 era.

At the time, FSM’s founder and longtime leader Carol Taber was a prominent voice in “security mom” circles. Taber admitted to being inspired by Gaffney’s work and the two recognized a mutually beneficial partnership. Taber and Gaffney also most certainly found common ground in racist “birther” conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama. In 2005, FSM became its own independent entity, however, the rhetoric promoted by the group remained the same.

“We've had an absolutely fantastic run,” the FSM staff wrote on its farewell blog, “we have met important, committed and consequential people in this fight to preserve western civilization.”

Over the years, FSM has published thousands of articles from dozens of authors. Some of which being from well-established anti-Muslim luminaries like Brigitte Gabriel, Ryan Mauro, Robert Spencer and Clare Lopez. All of whom used the platform to promote everything from conspiracy theories about Muslims in America to advocating for racial and religious profiling.

In a 2015 article, Daniel Greenfield, an employee of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a frequent FSM contributor, wrote, “Trump isn't a threat to national security. Muslim immigration is.”

FSM has also featured work from lesser known contributors. The rhetoric from these authors, however, has been no less deplorable.

One of the contributors over the years has been Paul Hollrah, a former government relations executive and two-time U.S. electoral college member. In a 2016 article, Hollrah wrote, “Fighting and attacking others with knives and other sharp objects appears to be in the Muslim DNA.”

In 2007, Philip Atkinson, another FSM contributor, wrote, “The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead.”

FSM has also featured the writings of white nationalist Robert Weissberg, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois. Weissberg is a regular speaker at white nationalist events, including the annual American Renaissance and H.L. Mencken Club conferences. Rhetoric that would be popular at such conferences was prevalent in Weissberg’s articles at FSM. In a 2009 piece, he engaged in demographic alarmism, lamenting that “Western civilization is slowly disappearing as better educated people fail to reproduce themselves.”

“In much of Western Europe,” Weissberg added, “the fertility rate is less than 1.40 and this low figure already includes impoverished, large-family immigrants from Muslim nations who seem unwilling or unable to assimilate into the prevailing First World culture (and some who wish to destroy it altogether).”

Now, more than a decade after the “security mom” first appeared on the scene, FSM is closing up shop.

“But for now, it's time for the next generation to step up to the plate,” FSM staff concluded their goodbye blog. “And we welcome their arrival with open arms.”

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