Phelps says that being called a hater does not trouble him.

"It is a matters of supreme irrelevancy to me what the response is to this simple gospel message that I've been preaching for 50 years," he says.

"That's my job, child. Don't you understand that?" he adds.

Finding the Center

All groups spreading hate messages get catalogued on Hatewatch, but Goldman says he believes the white supremacist groups are the most dangerous.

"Their rhetoric is a little more aggressive," he says.

Potok says he believes the "Patriot movement" is greater concern.

These groups, which include militia organizations, common law courts and conspiracy theorists, represent the "clearest threat," he says.

"This is not be label all followers as racists or criminals. However, within that movement there is a percentage--be that one or 10 percent--who are clearly inclined to violence," he says.

Klanwatch lists patriot groups separately from hate groups because their rhetoric is not explicitly racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic. For these groups, he says, the enemy is "the federal government or its minions or some shadowy world conspiracy."

Patriot groups are not listed on Hatewatch because they do not meet hate speech criteria.

Though the ADL and Klanwatch have noted a decline in active hate groups over the last few years, Goldman says he believes they have moved to the Web.

And, he says, their presence in cyberspace does not mean they should be taken any less seriously as a real world threat.

"If someone says they want to kill Jews, I'm going to take them at their word," he says.

Containing Hate