Abortion abolitionists: who are they, what drives them, and how do their tactics overlap with those of other far-right movements? Join host, Koki Mendis, and PRA Senior Research Analyst, Cloee Cooper, as we reveal the chilling facts about this…
Introduction
Dear Friends of PRA,
As you have heard, Political Research Associates seeks a strategic, experienced, innovative, and values-aligned Executive Director to succeed Tarso Luís Ramos in 2024 as PRA works to counter the rising tide of…
Watch Now: A Roundtable Discussion Presented by Religion Dispatches
Rage against violence. Rage against oppression. Rage against poverty. Rage against suffering. How do we fuel the struggle for justice with rage?
In this discussion, we explore rage and its potential for transformative racial justice, the…
Featuring civil rights and gun safety advocate Brandon Wolf, Communications Manager of the Transgender Education Network of Texas Gin Pham, PRA Senior Research Analyst Heron Greenesmith, and organizer Kwyn Townsend Riley. In this briefing, we will…
In the same breadth as decrying so called liberal identity politics, the U.S. Right declares itself representative of an oppressed White, Christian social class, fly Blue Lives Matter flags in place of Old Glory, and bedeck themselves in the cultish…
From the candidates in 2022 races carrying the mantle of the Far Right to the treatment of anti-LGBTQ persecution as “phobia,” join PRA Research Analysts Ben Lorber, Habiba Farh, and Heron Greenesmith as they name and explore the language and…
The webinar asked the question: “What’s next for the anti-abortion movement in this post-Roe moment?” with a focus on the ongoing anti-comprehensive sex ed movement, its overlap with the antiabortion and anti-trans/anti-lgbtq movements, and,…
Aidan Orly: We gather this evening in the midst of ongoing and increased assaults on Palestinians around the globe. This is a very raw moment on the heels of the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist with Al Jazeera, and the…
Enduring the End of Roe and Thwarting an Accelerated Push Toward Authoritarianism
For much longer than 50 years, individuals who should be free have been made to endure the cruelty of courts. On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that for now, bodily autonomy is not a protected freedom, instead giving states greater…
On Saturday, May 14, 2022, ten people were murdered and three more wounded by an 18-year-old White man—kitted out in the all-too-familiar uniform of paramilitary tactical gear and semiautomatic military-style rifle—who violently targeted a busy Tops…
Executive Summary
In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service confers tax-exempt status to charitable organizations, allowing them to receive tax-deductible donations. Most donors would assume that an organization that targets marginalized…
In a January 6 PRA briefing, panelists convened to situate January 6th in a longer trajectory of ongoing insurrection and answer the questions that are foremost on our minds. What do we do if we keep losing? What are some of the most significant…
One year after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, PRA hosted a briefing where we provided an overview of convergent forces, how we got to where we are, where we might be headed, and what we can do to defend democracy and promote justice. We…
A Gift Guide and/or Reading List to Close Out 2021
White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
By Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective
Read PRA’s review here.
The book, coauthored by an international group of…
Even as we reel from one of the most deadly and destructive years in recent memory for anti-LGBT advocacy, we must start preparing for the next. On December 9, PRA hosted an invaluable conversation about the past year and what we expect to see in…
Anti-Sex Work Feminists have a (deadly) listening problem: a problem listening to the people whose lives and livelihoods have been made economically and socially precarious by the state and made subject to daily violence by its carceral arm. In this…
The inhumane treatment and deportations of Haitian refugees from our southern border underscores what we already suspected: that the U.S. anti-immigration movement, which thrived under President Trump, has yet another champion in President Biden and…
Anti-Muslim racism and policing has been a facet of U.S. White supremacy since the dawn of the Atlantic slave trade. In the two decades following 9/11, anti-Muslim racism and state violence enacted on Muslims has been a core component of the U.S.…
Save the Date
From the Rise of the New Right to Trump’s America: Forty Years of Right-Wing State Infiltration and Left Resistance
Date/Time TBA
Previous Webinars in the Series…
Under the perceived threat of a Democratic administration stymieing the war of attrition against reproductive rights, the anti-abortion movement continues to strategize for a post-Roe future. From the growth of the abortion abolitionist movement to…
The myth of American Exceptionalism is well-understood to be just that, a myth. But the pandemic-induced national recession has thrown into high relief the true American Exceptionalism: life lived in a constant state of precarity. Precarity…
The Christian Right and anti-trans activists have united behind a single-minded agenda to prevent children from accessing life-saving trans-affirming healthcare and living full, authentic lives. On May 13th, PRA hosted a roundtable discussion with…
From ecofascism to science denialism and the lobbying power of extractive industries, the Right does not present a unified opposition to climate action. Social justice organizers have a four-fold task: build buy-in on the urgency of addressing…
There is no question that social media has been a meteoric tool of the Right: propelling Donald Trump to office in 2016, mobilizing his supporters to mount a nationwide resistance to the outcome of the 2020 election, and fueling the growth of far-…
Supporters of President Trump storm the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
While “Back the Blue” sentiment reigned supreme in the MAGA movement…
Anthony Crider is a professor of Astrophysics at Elon University in North Carolina. He is also a photographer with a keen eye for capturing just the right moment. Photographing both social justice protests and far-right mobilizations, Crider has…
On January 17th, PRA convened a panel of organizers and experts to reflect on the January 6th insurrection, far-right mobilizing throughout the 2020 election season and into 2021, and the implications of an emboldened Far Right for racial justice…
In the run-up to the 2020 election, Political Research Associates warned that Trump would never concede defeat and that his volatile mix of supporters would take to the streets to contest the results if he lost at the polls. We recognized the danger…
A Roundtable Discussion with Political Research Associates
Click Here for Recording
Religious freedom is one of the most liberatory ideas in human history, a cornerstone of U.S. democracy, a central issue of our time, and doggedly undermined by the Christian Right.…
On Tuesday, November 17, 2020, PRA convened social justice movement leaders and PRA partners to reflect and strategize together as we discussed what it will take to build real multi-racial, feminist democracy for the long-haul. Reflecting on this…
SAFETY ADVISORY
November 5, 2020, 12:30 PM ET
A broad array of right-wing groups, from well-funded FreedomWorks, Turning Point Action, and Tea Party Patriots, to the far right QAnon conspiracy network, are mobilizing “Stop the Steal” and “Protect…
PRA Statement on the Election and Threats to Democracy
Early this morning, and without any legitimate basis, President Trump declared electoral victory and decried voter fraud. Political Research Associates, among other observers, had warned of such moves. So far, the president appears to be following…
As we draft this memo in the days immediately prior to Election Day 2020, there are dozens of articles and opinion pieces pointing out possible “chaos” or “nightmare” scenarios related to the 2020 elections and what could happen in their wake.…
Why this Guide
Since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, PRA has documented more than 150 incidents of armed far-right actors showing up at racial justice protests.
They have threatened and harassed racial justice protestors…
The murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020 marked the beginning of a dramatic surge in racial justice and politics accountability protests. The Black Lives Matter movement that was at the heart of those…
In response to the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police, racial justice groups have mobilized tens of thousands of protestors to take to the streets and demand justice nationwide. Local and State officials have…
Reflections from Pittsburghers on the Impact of the 2018 Synagogue Shooting
Meanings of October 27th is an oral history project that explores Pittsburghers’ experiences of and reflections on the October 27th, 2018 synagogue shooting that took eleven lives.
How the Christian Right Built Capacity to Undo Roe State By State
Executive Summary
The progressive movement and advocates for reproductive rights, health, and justice have been caught off guard by a movement that has adapted to a changing political, social, and cultural landscape. The Christian Right has remained…
The contemporary anti-immigrant movement, which has established influence at various levels of the administration, has promoted and attempted to litigate changing the census to reveal citizenship status for nearly 40 years.
Today, President Trump visited Pittsburgh, PA after a violently antisemitic attack at Tree of Life synagogue left 11 dead on Saturday. The shootings are the deadliest attack on Jews in the United States. Jewish leaders affiliated with Bend the Arc…
On July 17, the Oregon Secretary of State’s office approved signatures for Initiative Petition 22, a ballot measure that could repeal the state’s so-called sanctuary law. Oregon voters will now vote in November whether to keep or repeal the 1987 law…
The racism, nationalism, and misogyny driving the Trump administration’s assault on immigrants is evident to all but a willfully ignorant majority on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Whether in exclusionary policies like the…
Hamid Khan, a coordinator with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition—as well as a Political Research Associates board member—has long been active in the immigrants’ rights debate, having immigrated to the United States from Pakistan in 1979. As a board…
Steven Anderson is a virulently anti-LGBTQ preacher from the United States, who has compared gay people to ax murderers and Adolf Hitler, believes that all gay people should be executed, and admitted he would reject his children if they were …
DSM is an ex-gay ministry that promotes homophobia under the guise of offering counseling, support, and healing for “men and women seeking Jesus in light of unwanted same-sex attractions.”
Human Life International (HLI) is a Catholic organization with a long history of vicious and hyperbolic attacks on LGBTQ and reproductive rights. It opposes contraception, in-vitro fertilization, comprehensive sex education, and abortion in all…
The Center for Family and Human Rights, known as C-Fam, is a fierce and active opponent to LGBTQ rights and has considerable international influence, particularly in the United Nations.
MassResistance is a Massachusetts-based anti-LGBTI group with an expanding global presence. The group supports activists around the world in combatting LGBTI equality “without compromise.”
While casting themselves as ambassadors of goodwill, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) are global purveyors of a rigidly right-wing political and social agenda. By vastly expanding the U.S. Christian…
CitizenGO describes itself as a “community of active citizens who work together, using online petitions and action alerts as a resource, to defend and promote life, family, and liberty.” The right-…
Contact: Greeley O’Connor, g.oconnor@politicalresearch.org, 617.666.5300
(BOSTON) The U.S. Far Right has killed nearly 450 people since 1990. Heather Heyer of Charlottesville, Virginia is the…
From politicians to preachers, the work of the U.S. Right has far-reaching consequences. These readings will examine the role of the U.S. Christian Right in the exportation of American culture wars. We begin with Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma’s…
The steady expansion of both the power and use of law enforcement in multiple areas of life reflects (and institutionalizes) right-wing worldviews regardless of the political party or identity claims of the speaker. These readings explore the…
Since a re-design in 2013, The Public Eye has featured the work of activist artists both on the covers and inside. Here’s a look back at what some of our featured artists had to say about the “Art of Activism”:
An online video call discussion on anti-racist resistance with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, Political Research Associates, and Rural Organizing Project.
From “school choice” schemes and the neoliberal privatization movement to the influence of the Christian Right on curriculum and school policy, public education is a key battleground.
The more recent trend in anti-reproductive justice attacks is a state-by-state approach designed to gradually chip away at existing rights. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the 40+ years since Roe v. Wade, states have enacted over 1,000…
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is an international legal organization serving at the frontlines of the Christian Right’s effort to redefine religious freedom and insert its anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice agenda into every element of government and…
As progressives contemplate how to build a movement for justice that can effectively counter such forces, it is necessary to understand how the Corporate Right—what we might term the Chamber of Commerce wing of the conservative movement—is…
Opposition to LGBTQ equality has long been both a fundamental value and useful political tool for many American conservative organizations, especially those associated with the Christian Right. Even as visibility and mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ…
Whether it’s a spree killing, a vandalized mosque, or a bias attack on a queer teen, Americans are quick to chalk it up to hate. The label “hate crime” invites us to blame overwrought individuals acting on extreme personal prejudice, making it seem…
Male supremacism, enshrined in the nation’s founding documents, is as fundamental to U.S. history as White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) nativism. The same patriarchal stance—combining race, religion, and nativism—fuels conservative Christian…
Racial inequality remains deeply embedded within U.S. social and economic structures, even as its forms and justifications are in flux. Claims to White racial superiority, though not entirely dead, were largely washed aside by the civil rights…
Neoliberalism is the economic, social, and political analysis that best describes the startlingly unequal distribution of wealth and power in the U.S. today. Neoliberalism, and the policies it undergirds, results from the triumph of capitalism and…
Right-wing populist movements target superficial or false symbols of elite power, reinforces systems of social privilege and oppression, and are built around a backlash against liberation movements, social reform, or revolution.
The right to believe differently from the rich and the powerful is a prerequisite for free speech and a free press. Separation exists not to limit religious expression, but to safeguard against creeping religious supremacism and the theocratic…
The Alt Right, short for “alternative right,” is a loosely organized far-right movement that shares a contempt for both liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism; a belief that some people are inherently superior to others; a strong…
Engaging Trump, Defending Human Rights, and Preventing Authoritarianism
The bigotry and false solutions championed by President Donald Trump are not a new phenomenon in American politics. Indeed, the idea that one person’s dignity requires another’s subjugation has been a central contradiction in this country’s founding…
Political Research Associates (PRA) joins more than a dozen local social justice organizations in criticizing the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School for providing a platform to members of president-elect Donald Trump’s…
The Right’s many groups organize on a wide variety of specific issues, from education, the environment, civil and human rights, immigration, and criminal justice to developing new constituencies such as fathers and conservative people of color.
Oral argument on motions for summary judgment in Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Lively, a federal lawsuit in which Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), is suing Scott Lively, a U.S.-based anti-…
No one organization “controls” the Right. No single funder is “behind” the Right. Some large organizations are important, but many others appear to be more influential than they really are. Recognize that there are multiple networks of organizations…
Today Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts think tank that monitors right-wing movements, warned that the surprise acquittal yesterday of seven militia members on conspiracy and weapons charges in connection with their armed occupation of…
Last week, about a hundred people gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, for the African Regional Conference of Families, a regional conference for the World Congress of Families (WCF). The WCF, a U.S.-based international coalition of Religious Right groups…
Today Political Research Associates in partnership with Rural Organizing Project released Up in Arms: A Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Movement, a groundbreaking report and toolkit designed to support public officials and community activists under siege…
Amelia Spinney, a visual artist and arts educator in the greater Boston area, created the cover image for the Fall 2015 issue of The Public Eye. Spinney describes being politicized as an artist and a person in two particular moments. When they were…
From its headquarters in Rockford, Illinois, WCF pursues an international anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ agenda, seeking to promote conservative ideologies—and codify these in regressive laws and policies—that dictate who has rights as “family,” and who…
IFA has become the lead organization that is fighting to block legislation that would promote fair labor standards and hold franchisors (or brands) accountable for labor violations.
This interview with PRA founder Jean Hardisty was published in our Fall/Winter 2011 newsletter, celebrating PRA’s 30th anniversary. It is republished here in honor of Jean, who passed away in March
It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that PRA’s founder and President Emerita, Jean V. Hardisty, passed away early Monday morning. Jean was a force in the lives of all who knew her. A visionary, she anticipated many of the political and…
Political Research Associates’ senior fellow for religious liberty, Frederick Clarkson, joined The David Pakman Show to discuss Religious Freedom Day, and how the definition of religious freedom laid out by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison is now…
When Meredith Stern (whose artwork is also featured on the front cover) chooses where to live, she embraces the “act locally, think globally” ethos. That’s why, once she put down roots in Providence, Rhode Island, the printmaker and collage artist…
On last week’s Human Rights Day (Dec 10), PRA’s senior religion and sexuality researcher Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma spoke on a panel at the United Nations about LGBTQ and intersex people’s experience of family and the role of the family in the fight…
For more than 30 years, David Bacon has been writing about and photographing people who are displaced by poverty in Mexico and choose to cross into the United States in search of a better life.
PRA’s executive director Tarso Luís Ramos joined The David Pakman show to discuss how SCOTUS’ Hobby Lobby decision actually restricts religious liberty.
“Despite the rhetoric of Christian Right groups, the battle for the meaning of religious…
PRA’s executive director Tarso Luís Ramos appeared on The Real News Network to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. “The decision effectively transforms the Framer’s notion of religious liberty as a shield against…
PRA had the opportunity this last week to work with HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, discussing the U.S.-based conservative evangelicals who are responsible for exporting the culture wars to Uganda and other African nations.
This issue’s cover artist, Rommy Torrico, is the graphics and new media director for the Collier County Neighborhood Stories Project (CCNSP), based in southwest Florida.
After the Obama administration announced new sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations in Uganda on Thursday, PRA applauds the plan for targeted sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations in Uganda…
PRA fellow Rachel Tabachnik joined Between These Lines host Scott Harris to discuss the rising tide of violence and violent rhetoric among the Religious Right.
PRA’s senior religious and sexuality researcher, Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, joined David Pakman this week to discuss the origins of American culture warrior’s involvement in the persecution of sexual minorities and women in Africa.
American Culture Warriors in Africa: A Guide to the Exporters of Homophobia and Sexism is the groundbreaking new book designed to educate U.S. audiences and motivate all people of conscience to take action that interrupts the persecution of women…
PRA’s senior researcher Kapya Kaoma joined ITN News’ Channel 4 (England) in a spotlight feature about Scott Lively’s involvement in the creation of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The piece includes PRA’s exclusive video of Lively…
PRA’s senior religion and sexuality researcher Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma published an Op-Ed in the LA Times this morning, detailing U.S. conservative evangelical involvement in the spread of anti-gay legislation across the world.
While U.S. right-wing pastors are desperately trying to go back and claim they had no involvement in the creation of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Rev. Kaoma has undercover video footage proving that not only did they encourage anti-LGBTQ…
Jay Michaelson, author of Political Research Associates’ explosive report Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Liberties, joined CNN to discuss how Arizona’s SB1062 is only the beginning of the Right’s push to…
Political Research Associates’ Senior Religion and Sexuality Researcher, Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, joined The Real News Network to discuss how U.S. conservative evangelicals are the real culprits behind Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Law.
Jay Michaelson, author of Political Research Associates’ Redefining Religious Liberty: the Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights, joined NPR to discuss how the Right has twisted the meaning of “religious liberty” to advance a bill in Arizona that…
Despite promises not to sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill until he had heard from U.S. scientists, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has broken that promise and put the lives of every LGBTQ Ugandan in jeopardy.
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni is walking a political tightrope on the backs of LGBTQ Ugandans. In declaring that he will sign Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Museveni seeks to solidify his crumbling political power while putting the blame for…
PRA’s Jay Michaelson, author of the groundbreaking report Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights, joins local NPR outlet WNPR News to discuss how anti-LGBTQ laws aren’t limited to Russia, they’re cropping…
Gathering outside the Ugandan embassy in Washington D.C., Victor and other members of the KDA protested against Uganda’s pending anti-homosexuality law and the exportation of homophobia by U.S. evangelicals to Africa.
PRA research fellow Rachel Tabachnick is featured heavily in the latest article on AlterNet.com, discussing her report exposing Ron Paul’s involvement in creating and pushing the movement for nullification.
Check out the snippet below, and don’t…
Political Research Associates’ researchers Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma and Cole Parke discuss how U.S.-based conservatives are working directly with the governments of nations like Russia and Uganda to bring about anti-LGBTQ legislation.
As many of us enjoy the long weekend, we are called to remember Dr. King’s extraordinary role in the movement that dismantled Jim Crow segregation and secured civil rights for African Americans. But we also remember MLK’s broader vision for…
Fred Clarkson and Rachel Tabachnick discuss a push for a Constitutional Convention which would strip power away from the United States and feed it to conservatives in state legislatures.
PRA fellow Rachel Tabachnick is appearing in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine, discussing how the Religious Right has successfully integrated its unpopular social agenda…
Jay Michaelson, author of Political Research Associates’ report Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights, joined NPR’s All Things Considered program over the weekend to discuss the Right’s claim that individuals’…
The Uganda Parliament has passed the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill, first proposed in 2009 and condemned by the international human rights community, President Obama, and other international dignitaries.
The JBS was a major force in the battle against the Civil Rights Movement, and has recently made a comeback, largely via the Tea Party movement and as part of the Ron Paul Revolution.
The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) was founded o organize county sheriffs around a mission similar to Oath Keepers—that is, to refuse to enforce laws that they believe are unconstitutional.
NOM’s mission is to defeat same-sex marriage at the polls, in the legislature, and in the courts, from state to state and across the country. The group functions as an organized infrastructure that coordinates state and federal initiatives into a…
Though based in Illinois, the World Congress of Families (WCF) has a global mission. It seeks to spread anti-choice, anti-LGBTI policies and ideas worldwide, as well as a conservative definition of the family.
Dubbed by Time Magazine as “God’s Lobbyist,” Dr. Richard Land is the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of Southern Baptist Convention, and serves as the Commissioner on…
Jim Daly is President/CEO of the evangelical, socially conservative public policy nonprofit Focus on the Family (FOF), which was founded by one of America’s most influential and hard-line Right Wing Christian conservatives, James Dobson. In 2004…
SOMERVILLE, MA: Despite the Wednesday announcement that the prominent U.S. “ex-gay” organization Exodus International would be closing its doors permanently, a vibrant global network remains committed to the discredited project of converting LGBTQ…
Tony Perkins is the president of the Washington D.C.-based Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian lobbying group that describes a LGBTQ lifestyle as “unhealthy” and “destructive” to “individuals, families, and societies.” The FRC, perhaps the…
Peter LaBarbera is president of American’s For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), a single-issue group whose only goal is “…exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda.” Over the course of LaBarbera’s career, he has held positions at many…
Maggie Gallagher is an anti-LGBTQ pundit and president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which advocates a hard-line conservative agenda on marriage, sex, divorce law, and pregnancy. She is also well-known as a co-founder of the…
The documentary God Loves Uganda, which depicts the role of American conservative evangelicals in generating vicious antigay campaigns in Uganda, has received acclaim at film festivals across the…
On April 12th, Political Research Associates (PRA) debuted its 2013 Defending Reproductive Justice activist resource kit at the annual Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference.
Paul Cameron is a psychologist who claims homosexual people are a danger to public health and the social fabric of America. His studies explicitly argue that homosexuality is a disturbing psychological illness. Cameron often makes links between…
In the spring of 2012, a group of ministries previously affiliated with Exodus International, one of the most prominent “ex-gay” organizations in the United States which has since closed its doors, broke away to launch the Restored Hope Network.…
Boston, MA, April 2, 2013: Exodus International, the U.S. network of Christian ministries prominent in the “ex-gay” movement, dramatically changed its position in January 2012 when Executive Director Alan Chambers announced that he no longer…
The Christian Legal Society (CLS) is a Christian legal advocacy group active in the Right Wing’s redefining “religious liberty” campaign. Since 1980, CLS has operated a Center for Law and Religious Liberty, which has sought to argue high-profile…
Named for the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, the Becket Fund was founded in 1994 by attorney Kevin ‘Seamus’ Hasson. Originally nonpartisan and an advocate on behalf of many religious interests, the Becket Fund has become more conservative under…
As a new pope with hardline stances against reproductive and LGBTQ rights is inaugurated, a new report documents how a network of conservative Christian organizations, beginning with a group of ultra-conservative Catholic organizations, has…
The purported goals of the American Family Association (AFA) are to protect “traditional moral values” and to combat “the radical homosexual agenda,” with considerable emphasis on the latter in recent years. It was formed in 1977 by evangelical…
Joseph Nicolosi is the founder and director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, CA. The clinic specializes in Nicolosi’s pseudo-scientific and discredited “reparative theory,” a theory that treats homosexuality as a psychological…
For over a decade and a half, same-sex marriage advocates experienced a long and almost unbroken series of defeats at the ballot box, including the passage of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, Maine’s Question 1 a year later, and an anti-gay…
If you’re a regular visitor to Political Research Associates’ website, you’ll notice we’ve done more than a little sprucing up around here. In fact, we’ve built a completely new site from the bottom up, so that visitors like you can more easily…
Political Research Associates condemns the criminalization of sexual minorities and calls on American and international religious and political leaders to denounce the reintroduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, which reportedly passed…
Thousands of potential campaign volunteers will throng the halls of the Christian Right’s Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C. tomorrow and Saturday — and Political Research Associates will be there too, blogging about how the Christian Right is…
Today, Political Research Associates (PRA) released its new report, Colonizing African Values: How the U.S. Christian Right is Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa (pdf), which exposes the U.S. Christian Right’s growing infrastructure for…
On the heels of President Barack Obama’s public statement favoring marriage equality, a new Political Research Associates (PRA) report indicates that homophobia remains one of the most successful right-wing tools for mobilizing electoral …
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill will be debated in Parliament today and voted on tomorrow, Wednesday May 11. The bill, thought by many to have been shelved, had in fact remained before a committee of Uganda’s parliament. There were hearings on…
Right-wing attacks on organized labor and working people are nothing new. This page is a starting point for connecting to resources and conducting research into this problem. Recognize that the Right is a complex movement.
There is much overlap and sectors are not mutually exclusive. Methodologies range from cautious moderation, to militant activism, to insurgency, to violence.
Today, in a comprehensive 80-page report that details a systemic failure to regulate content in nationwide counter-terrorism training, Political Research Associates (PRA), exposes the inaccurate and conspiratorial myths that may put the rights of…
David Kato, an openly gay human rights activist and advocacy officer at Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), was attacked in his home in Mukono, Uganda, on January 26, and died on his way to the hospital. Kato had received death threats since October,…
The tragic shooting in Tucson this past weekend claimed the lives of six, including Federal Judge John Roll, and left congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords—-the evident target of alleged gunman Jared L. Loughner—-in critical condition…
On Monday this week, the New York Times announced that its investigation of NYPD “stop and frisk” practices from 2006 through 2010 found police stopped 52,000 people in a small eight-block predominantly black neighborhood called Brownsville. That’s…
The Department of Justice has quietly released the final report on a two-year pilot program on “Suspicious Activity Reporting.” This program, the latest development of the domestic security overhaul following September 11, 2001 is cause for alarm,…
Frank Musgisha, the spokesperson for Uganda’s leading LGBT rights organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), will tour the United States this month to speak about the human rights crisis currently facing queer Ugandans, and the role conservative…
(New York, December 11, 2009) – A United Nations General Assembly panel that met this week broke new ground and helped build new momentum for ending human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, a coalition of sponsoring…
Sexual minorities in Africa have become collateral damage to our domestic conflicts and culture wars as U.S. conservative evangelicals and those opposing gay pastors and bishops within mainline Protestant denominations woo Africans in their American…
Political Research Associates is calling on Pastor Rick Warren to oppose an antigay bill promoted by his allies that is currently being debated in the Ugandan legislature. In March 2008, Warren told Ugandans that homosexuality is not a natural way…
In March 2008, U.S. evangelical leader Rick Warren told Ugandans that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. One year later, U.S. conservative evangelical and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively (a resident of…
The Applied Research Center recently released an 86-page edited volume on race and the 2008 election: Changing the Race: Racial Politics and the Election of Barack Obama. The book features 20 prominent thinkers and activists, including PRA senior…
Since the successful street demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999, police and federal agencies have relied on aggressive and unconstitutional tactics to disperse, disrupt, and dissuade popular protest. Last…
While gender-based discrimination and oppression are nothing new abroad, for the past decade the U.S. Christian Right has been aggressively exporting its campaigns against reproductive rights and gay rights to countries around the world. Recently,…
Efforts to mobilize Ugandans to hunt down and imprison Ugandan gays and lesbians received worldwide attention during a three-day Family Life Network conference held March 3-5 in Kampala. But the media haven’t caught up with the rest of the story:…
For the latest news and insightful analysis about civil liberties, Political Research Associates and Public Eye invite you to visit our new blog, Liberty Beat.
The moment Barack Obama took the oath of office as President, many progressives breathed a sigh of relief—however tentative—that the Bush years were finally over. But it was clear within days that the conservatives have not abandoned Washington and…
Political Research Associates, a nonprofit think tank known for its investigations of the U.S. Right and political repression, has received a $500,000 grant to conduct a multi-city investigation of how domestic surveillance changed after September…
Romance and marriage proposals are in the air on Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, cupid isn’t the only matchmaker hard at work this season. An increasing number of low-income women find themselves pushed to the altar – not by their relations or…
BOSTON – This Valentine’s Day, an increasing number of low-income women find themselves pushed to the altar – not by their relations or suitors, but by the federal government. A new report by the think tank Political Research Associates and the…
BOSTON – A new report by the think tank Political Research Associates and the Women of Color Resource Center charges the George W. Bush Administration with politicizing and weakening federal anti-poverty polices by promoting conservative family…
National Lawyers Guild board member Thomas Cincotta will lead Political Research Associates’ (PRA) eighteen-month nationwide investigation of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) collaborations with local, state, national, and private…
The Rev. Jan Nunley, an Episcopal priest, journalist, and author, joined the staff of Political Research Associates on January 5 as director of communication and development.
In 2008, ballot initiatives could impact races up and down the ballot, including the Presidential campaign, by elevating an issue and shaping the debate. Dissatisfied voters in particular may see ballot initiatives as a means to fill the leadership…
Dispute within the Christian Right over the Supreme Court’s April 18 decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act has led to the apparently inadvertent admission by a Focus on the Family official that the ruling could endanger women by…
Just in time for tax day: In a radio collaboration with the syndicated weekly show “Making Contact,” Public Eye Editor Abby Scher investigates how the traditional conservatives in the Heritage Foundation wooed the Christian Right to support tax cuts…
Opponents of gay marriage in Massachusetts are misleading in saying that religious liberty is threatened by its legalization in the state, says The Reverend Katherine H. Ragsdale, an Episcopal priest and director of the Somerville, MA think tank…
A new report by the progressive think tank Political Research Associates documents the growing threat Christian Right NGOs based at the United Nations pose to international policies supporting women’s reproductive health.
Running Against Sodom and Osama: The Christian Right, Values Voters, and the Culture Wars in 2006, a newly released report from Political Research Associates, lays out the Christian Right’s midterm electoral strategy of demonizing gay men and…
The Public Eye, a quarterly published by Political Research Associates covering the US Right, is a finalist for the 2006 Utne Independent Press Award in the category of General Excellence (newsletters).
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Political Research Associates, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action call on Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to condemn bigoted statements made by…
The Repressive Side of Right Wing Populism
What can possibly explain the Reform Party and the discussions about recruiting Pat Buchanan, that include possible support from H. Ross Perot, and Lenora Fulani?
We think the rhetoric of right wing…
