Christian Right

Pro-Family Politics

The Political Convergence of Conservative Catholics and Protestants in the 1980s American Right

Six people sitting around a gingham table cloth on a picnic table with the white house in the background

An excerpt from The Radical Mind: The Origins of Right-Wing Catholic and Protestant Coalition Building that explores how The Family Policy Advisory Board moved forward Christian organizing for “traditional” families in the 80s.

Article

The Neoreactionary Movement Defining the Authoritarian Rise with Steven Gardiner

Inform Your Resistance Season 4: Episode 1

Two men standing in front of projector image. One man is waving at the crowd, the other man is holding a chainsaw

Host Koki Mendis kicks off season 4 with a discussion with Steven Gardiner on the wide-ranging practices, policies, and ideologies underlying the antidemocratic goals of the Neoreactionary Right—and how to resist them.

Podcast

A Televangelist in the White House

The Rise of Paula White and the Independent Charismatics

A woman in a black polo shirt with a pink background

In this excerpt from The Violent Take It by Force, Matthew D. Taylor examines the role of Paula White as a televangelist-turned-advisor for the Trump administration.

Article

Canaries in the Classroom

Public Education and Authoritarian Politics in West Virginia and Kentucky

collage of protestors holding signs in support of public education in front of a green background

In Kentucky and West Virginia, attacks on public education by the state and federal governments foreshadow the authoritarian future promised by Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation on a national scale.

Article

You Might Think They're Absurd but They're Quite Serious: Frederick Clarkson on The New Apostolic Reformation

Inform Your Resistance Season 3: Episode 3

A man in a suit talking with his hand raised.

This episode discusses the broad and far-reaching implications the New Apostolic Reformation has for democracy and religious freedom.

Podcast

From the Archives: Nativist Bedfellows by Tarso Luís Ramos and Pam Chamberlin

Inform Your Resistance Season 3: Episode 2

In this episode of Inform Your Resistance, Koki reads Nativist Bedfellows: The Christian Right Embraces Anti-Immigrant Politics by Tarso Luís Ramos and Pam Chamberlain, the fourth in our new From the Archives series. From the Archives features those…

Podcast

From the Archives: The Spirit of January 6

Inform Your Resistance Season 2: Episode 10

In this episode of Inform Your Resistance, Koki reads “The Spirit of January 6th” by Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné, the third in our new From the Archives series. From the Archives features those must read and, now, must listen to pieces from…

Podcast

Why You Should Care about the End Times: Christian Zionism & its Outsized Influence on American Policy with Aidan Orly

Inform Your Resistance Season 2: Episode 6

Two men in suits standing in front of the Israeli and US flags

Koki is joined by Aidan Orly, one of a handful of U.S.-based researchers writing and speaking about Christian Zionism: the right-wing domestic and international movements that use a Christian biblical interpretation to promote and endorse Jewish…

Podcast

Christian Zionism comprises several authoritarian movements, and collectively forms the largest political base of support for Israel in U.S. Learn about the Who and What behind this influential movement.

101

From the Archives: Why Are Gen Z Girls Attracted to the Tradwife Lifestyle?

Inform Your Resistance Season 2: Episode 5

a split screen with a man on one side and a white woman with blonde hair on the other side.

In this episode, Koki reads “Why Are Gen Z Girls Attracted to the Tradwife Lifestyle?” by Marielle Cooksey, the first in our new From the Archives series. From the Archives features those must read and, now, must listen to pieces from PRA’s more…

Podcast

Project 2025: The Plan of the Century with Peter Montgomery

Inform Your Resistance Season 2: Episode 4

Host Koki Mendis talks to Peter Montgomery about Project 2025 the Right’s playbook to remake the U.S. government as we currently know it toward authoritarianism. They discuss the architects of this plan, the people and movements who have signed on…

Podcast

Anti-Trans Legislation and Why It’s a Feminist Issue with Heron Greenesmith

Inform Your Resistance Season 2: Episode 1

A sign that says "Black & Brown Trans Lives Matter."

Host Koki Mendis talks to Heron Greenesmith about the anti-trans organizing and what to expect from the anti-trans movement in the year to come.

Podcast

A militant wing of the anti-abortion movement has long looked to the 19th century anti-slavery abolitionists for inspiration and guidance, organizing under the banner of “abortion abolitionists.” This movement distinguishes itself from the self-…

101

Uncovering Right-Wing Funding

Inform Your Giving: Right-wing Funding Session 1

Two people holding a sign that says "Boycott" at a protest

This article is an excerpt of a longer discussion about right-wing funding, part of our Inform Your Giving series.

Article

Christian [Home] Schooling and How It Advances the Christian Nationalist Project with Dr. Chrissy Stroop

Inform Your Resistance Season 1: Episode 4

A palette with paints in it and a paper with a rainbow painted.

Host Koki Mendis and guest Dr. Chrissy Stroop, peel back the layers of Christian dominionism, and explain how this ideology is deeply woven into the fabric of Christian homeschooling. Here, Dr. Stroop recounts her experiences in Christian schools…

Podcast

Inside the National Conservatism Movement to Reshape the Right with Ben Lorber

Inform Your Resistance Season 1: Episode 3

A Man in spectacles with greying hair talking at a podium that says "National Conservatism"

Host Koki Mendis and guest PRA Senior Research Analyst, Ben Lorber, pull back the curtain on the National Conservatism Conference 2022 (NatCon 3), a gathering of far-right politicians, intellectuals, and influencers in Miami, FL. Listen in as Ben…

Podcast

Abortion Abolitionists with Cloee Cooper

Inform Your Resistance Season 1: Episode 1

A group of people holding up signs in front of the capitol building

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…

Podcast

Organizing for the Year Ahead: Countering Anti-LGBTQ Persecution and Violence in 2023

Watch Now: A PRA Roundtable

A group of friends of varying genders making a toast

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…

Webinar

Embodying White Christian Supremacy: From Deputizing Citizens to Flying the Blue Lives Matter Flag

Watch Now: A PRA Roundtable

A woman wearing a Make America Great Again cap carrying an image of Jesus wearing a MAGA hat with "WWG1WGA" on his lapel

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…

Webinar

Combating Anti-Transgender Disinformation

Anti-LGBTQ Organizing 201

Strategy and Implementation It can be difficult to think of responses to common anti-transgender disinformation in the moment. Responding directly to anti-trans talking points may also provide attention and validation to the disinformation,…

101

Dominionism is one of the most significant, yet little-known ideological forces in the U.S. and increasingly, globally. This theological idea has been gathering strength for a half century and is transforming conservative evangelical Christianity…

101

PRA’s animations explain PRA’s coalition work, our wins, and the core concepts behind some of our deeper research topics.

Explainer Video

Christian Right Denialism is More Dangerous Than Ever

A Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation

An illustration of mountains with the seven mountains described.

While the Christian Right has been an increasingly powerful factor in American politics for decades, it has benefited from a strangely persistent culture of denialism. We needn’t review the …

Report

He's on a Mission From God: Pennsylvania GOP Candidate Doug Mastriano's War With the World

Exclusive: Pa. GOP candidate closely linked to Christian extremists who want "spiritual warfare" against America

A bald man in a suit, standing in front of an American flag, talking into a mic.

An animating element of politics in the age of Trump is that some people are increasingly living out religious metaphors. These metaphors are derived from contemporary understandings of the Old Testament by new elements within Christianity. This has…

Article

The Sovereignty Strategy

Anti-abortion Politics in the Americas

People sitting on stairs. Three people hold signs in Portugese, written with blue ink on white paper.

Opposition to reproductive and sexual rights is at the heart of authoritarian and theocratic politics around the world, including in the United States. The Trump-Pence administration worked hard to build a…

Article

Building Broad Coalitions

A Roundtable on Confronting Christian Zionism

Hills and dunes surrounding houses with tin roofs.

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…

Webinar

Who These are the sectors of the Right setting the cultural context and organizing against LGBTQ people, rights, and equality. Christian Right Christian Right advocacy organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage…

101

Self-Described "Christian Fascist" Movement is Trying to Sabotage LGBTQ Pride Month

Last Weekend's Vicious Episode in Dallas Wasn't Isolated — It was Part of a Coordinated Far-Right Assault

A table with plastic cups that have stickers on them that say "Pride." One of the cups has a rainbow flag in it.

On Saturday morning in the Dallas “gayborhood” of Cedar Springs, an LGBTQ bar called Mr. Misster hosted a family-friendly “drag queen brunch” advertised with the tongue-in-cheek slogan, “Drag Your Kids to Pride.” The event was …

Article

"Traditional" Catholics and white nationalist "groypers" forge a new far-right youth movement

Activist arm of right-wing Catholic outlet Church Militant is increasingly entwined with racist "groyper" movement

A group of people standing in front of a church.

The activist wing of Church Militant is called the Resistance network. As of 2020 the outlet said it boasted more than 5,000 members, and claimed to have…

Article

White Nationalists Get Religion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a movement

Nick Fuentes' racist "groyper" movement is building a coalition with far-right Catholics. They have a plan

A split image of Milo Yiannopoulos and Nick Fuentes

Last Sunday, as pro-choice supporters reacted to the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade, a series of videos shot in lower Manhattan went viral. In one, a group of young men stood before an arched wooden doorway…

Article

Protesters standing around a mic, two people holding a banner that reads "no right to discriminate"

As Australia’s first Pentecostal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, perhaps could not help but notice, the events of his first years in office had biblical connotations. “Floods. Fires. Drought. Pandemic. Mouse plague,” Morrison recently quipped to his…

Article

A Twisted Love Story

How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

A man in a black robe and a black hate with a cross on it sitting next to Vladimir Putin on a golden couch.

If someone from 1965 were to arrive in a time machine, there’s likely much about our current state of affairs that would shock them. But I cannot imagine anything that would be more confusing than the love affair between the U.S. Right and Russia—…

Article

CRT and the SBC

Fights over Racism Highlight Southern Baptist Divide

It was late May, but Denny Burk’s mind was on June.^[1] A professor of biblical studies at Boyce College in Kentucky and an associate pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church—both institutions affiliated with the Southern…

Article

Ten Years of Turning Point USA

From Free Markets to Freedom Square

A young white man, Charlie kirk, in a suit, holding a mic.

During an October 2021 “Freedom Night in America” event at Dream City Church, a megachurch in Phoenix, Arizona, Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), talked about Vermont as a new frontier for organizing—and evangelizing—…

Article

Capitol Offenses: January 6th 2021 & The Ongoing Insurrection

PRA State of the Right Report

Introduction: The Insurrection Isn’t Over; Neither is the Attempted Coup The January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol provided the bloody final chapter to Donald Trump’s term as president, as “stop the steal” loyalists from all over the…

Report

Between a Secular Rock and a Fundamentalist Hard Place

The Aftermath of Scandal at Liberty University

The letters LU in red on a green mountain

I sometimes joke that Liberty University and I grew up together. My childhood home was about a mile from campus. While Liberty was getting on its feet, so was I. I started kindergarten at a Baptist school and stayed through 9^th grade. I…

Article

This Year and Next in Anti-LGBT Advocacy

Watch Now: A briefing from PRA

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…

Webinar

Exodus or Transformation

Christian Homeschooling and R.J. Rushdoony’s Legacy in the Age of COVID

The word In God We Trust engraved in a stone staircase

On a March 2021 episode of the popular Christian radio show and podcast Stand in the Gap Today, a former Pennsylvania legislator exhorted Christian parents to “leave Egypt behind” and seek out the “Promised Land.”^[1]…

Article

Christian Right Bill Mill, Project Blitz Hasn't Gone Away

It's Just Gotten More Secretive

Older woman standing in crowd with both hands raised

In the Fall of 2019, the secretive Christian Right state legislative campaign, Project Blitz, became even more of a secret. When RD first reported on Project Blitz in April 2018 the website featured…

Article

A Storm is Coming

Horror and Hope in QAnon Apocalypticism

A woman in front of the U.S. Capitol building, wearing a red hat, holding an image of Jesus wearing a Make America Great Again hat, and WWG1WGA on his shirt

On October 28, 2017, the now infamous “Q” posted for the first time on 4chan in a chat thread titled “Calm before the Storm.”^[1] The thread’s title seemed to reference a puzzling statement President Trump made while…

Article

Black and white circle with text in middle reading "Seven Spheres of Society"

The city of Spokane, Washington sits at the eastern edge of the state—a mountain range and a cultural world away from the Pacific coast. It looks eastward to Idaho and Montana, and south to Eastern Oregon, where far-right secessionist movements have…

Article

White Evangelical Racism

Author Q&A with Anthea Butler

A woman wearing a red hat, holding a paining of Jesus wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

One of the myths that Anthea Butler, author of White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) discovered in her research is the “conceit that the Religious Right, fundamentalism, and…

Q&A

New Anti-Trans Promise

An Ohio state legislator may have leaked a new set of anti-trans “principles” endorsed by three major anti-LGBT organizations.

Man standing next to a woman at a podium speaking into microphone

Amid a spate of legislation in early 2021 targeting trans-affirming health care for youth and trans and gender nonconforming athletes, Ohio…

Article

Still Here

The Christian Right in the 2020 Election

A white woman with blond hair, kneeling with her arms in the air, a Trump flag tied around her neck and hanging down her back

Even amid Trump’s defeat, the 2020 election proved that the Christian Right may still be the most powerful, best-organized faction in American politics. The popular stereotype notwithstanding, the election demonstrated that the Christian Right is…

Article

The Family Research Council (FRC), a leading organization of the Christian Right has long featured Christian nationalist ideology in its materials and events — including speakers at its annual political conference, the Values Voter Summit. But…

Article

Mission to Destroy Public Education Rebrands Under COVID-19

Understanding the Christian Homeschooling Movement

As we speculate about the ways that our world will be different when we emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to keep…

Article

Homeschooling During COVID-19?

Be Aware of Outreach by Evangelical Homeschooling Organizations

Adult man works on laptop and looks after two children reading nearby in room.

With so many schools closed across the country and so many parents working from home to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus, families are desperate for resources. In response, homeschool organizations like the conservative evangelical-affiliated…

Article

The Mission Field Hospital

Samaritan’s Purse Brings Its Dual Agenda to New York

As New York City passes the grim milestone of 1,100 deaths, the city’s battle against the COVID-19…

Article

The story on NPR’s website first introduces the Buckley-Becker family with a beautiful portrait of the young, middle-class, White couple and their children. In the photo, the father, Paul Buckley, holds their toddler son Mason, whom he and his wife…

Article

Project Blitz by Any Other Name

Strategy Call Reveals a Shift to Stealth Mode Amid Escalating Rhetoric

Randy Forbes and Lea Carawan on Truth & Liberty Livecast

Randy Forbes, the founder of the Christian Right state legislative campaign Project Blitz, recently told affiliates on a recorded conference call that they are “trying to respond to attacks on faith,” which he described as a problem of “geometric…

Article

A remarkable thing has happened since the Baptist Joint Committee launched an unprecedented campaign called …

Article

title card for netflix the family docuseries

The five-part, original Netflix documentary “The Family,” is about a secretive, international religious network that has profoundly influenced governments in the U.S. and around the world for many…

Book Review

Playing the Long Game

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…

Report

Ronald Reagan gives his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, July 1980.

Trump’s election was less an aberration than a reflection of changes in the New Right coalition, which brought business elites, evangelicals, and neoconservatives together under the Republican umbrella in the late 1970s and has underpinned the party…

Article

The Christian and business Right has been steadily building political, policy and legislative capacity in the states since the 1980s. Since 2016, a Christian Right state legislative campaign called Project Blitz has become part of this …

Article

A professor offers a prayer during a rally by the LGBTQ Christian community at Azusa Pacific University to show support after the school reinstated a ban on same-sex relationships, October 1, 2018. Credit: Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

When Gary Campbell enrolled in Baptist Bible College (now Clarks Summit University) in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, in 2001, he knew he was gay. He was among those students who, in an effort to repress their sexual orientation, choose the…

Article

It’s notable that anti-trans feminists are employing similar racist dog-whistles that have been used by the Right for centuries to create out-sized fear and outrage among their constituents and followers to justify the out-sized time and energy…

Article

Losing their Religion

A Roundtable Discussion

In the 1980s, the Moral Majority helped usher in an era of politicized Christianity in the United States. The breadth of Christian Right activity since then, from the evangelical Right, to fundamentalist homeschooling, to cross-denominational…

Webinar

Pure by Linda Kay Klein

Book Review

Evangelical “purity” culture, roughly defined, is the belief that Christianity requires sexual abstinence before (heterosexual) marriage, especially for girls and women, and promises sexual fulfillment to those who save sex until marriage.

Book Review

The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds), founded in 2002 in opposition to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) support for adoption by LGBTQ couples, was cited in one of several articles published by right-wing news outlets in late…

Article

Insurgent Supremacists

Author Q&A with Matthew N. Lyons

Confrontation at the stairs leading into Emancipation Park during the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” Rally.

This September, Lyons spoke to David Neiwert, researcher and author of Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, about his new book.

Q&A

Bringing Bad Sex Ed Back

Trump’s Rebranding of Abstinence-Only

Chalkboard with text that reads "Sex Education"

In a private session intended to set language for gender equality policies and to brief non-governmental organizations on U.S. priorities for women’s issues, a senior advisor from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Bethany Kozma…

Article

On November 6, Massachusetts voters will decide several ballot measures, including Question 3, which asks voters to overturn public accommodations protections in the Bay State based on gender identity.

Article

Two protesters hold signs at a rally for trans rights

On October 21, The New York Times reported receiving information from the White House that details how the Trump Administration proposes to impose a multi-agency re-interpretation of “sex” under several civil rights laws to mean “[t]he sex listed on…

Article

The New Southern Strategy

How Christian Persecution Became White Supremacy’s Newest Disguise

Donald Trump shakes hands with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins at the 2017 Value Voters Summit, Friday, Oct. 13, 2017, in Washington.

On Election Day, White evangelicals turned out in force for Trump, with over 80 percent voting for the Republican ticket. Their game-changing status became undeniably clear, but so did an unsavory truth about their “values voter” identity. For all…

Article

The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing think tank that claims to be “the most influential conservative group in America.” Its mission is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited…

Profile on the Right

Demonstration against marriage equality in Strasbourg, France, February 2013.

Last March, on a cold, early spring afternoon in New York City, a bright orange tour bus wended its way from Trump Tower, down Second Avenue, eventually parking in front of the United Nations’ glass-walled Secretariat Building. Wrapped around the…

Article

The People’s Pope?

How the Vatican's Position on Gender Threatens Human Rights

Pope Francis arrives at Copacabana beach for a welcoming ceremony for World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In September 2016, Sharon Slater of the U.S.-based Christian Right group Family Watch International issued a special appeal to a crowd of African conservatives, including Kenya’s Catholic Conference of Bishops, which was sponsoring the gathering.…

Article

Profile on the Right: Steven Anderson

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 …

Profile on the Right

Profile on the Right: Desert Stream Ministries

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.”

Profile on the Right

Profile on the Right: Human Life International (HLI)

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…

Profile on the Right

Profile on the Right: Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam)

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.

Profile on the Right

Profile on the Right: MassResistance

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.”

Profile on the Right

An illuminated "on air" sign and a microphone

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…

Profile on the Right

Profile on the Right: CitizenGO

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-…

Profile on the Right

An orange HazteOir/CitizenGO bus in Spain

CitizenGO Africa recently announced that Nairobi, Kenya would be the first city on the continent to host the so-called #FreeSpeechBus. The bus, infamous for its explicitly anti-transgender messages, will likely roll through Nairobi in conjunction…

Article

Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)

The depth and breadth of White evangelical support for Donald Trump before and since his election has perplexed most observers. But a team of sociologists, freshly-analyzed data in hand, may have the answer that has eluded journalists, scholars, and…

Article

Religious Freedom is the Cornerstone of Our Democracy

Religious freedom is a central issue of our time. It has figured prominently in recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a major theme of the presidential election of 2016. And it has been a major theme of the Christian Right in both…

Article

Tony Perkins speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington D.C. on October 7, 2011. Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

Paul Rosenberg recently published an essay at Salon that challenged the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation. The occasion was the then-forthcoming annual celebration of Religious Freedom Day, which commemorates the…

Article

Two men in suits and glasses standing in front of a background saying "FRCAction"

Originally published in 2011, the Culture Impact Team Resource Manual—which includes, among other things, sample voter guides and instructions for church-based voter registration drives—has served as the primer for church-based, Christian Right…

Article

“And yet” … Trans Existence in the Face of Religious Right Erasure

Twenty-five years ago, the Roman Catholic Church offered a rare acknowledgment of error. It admitted that it was wrong to have condemned one of the great fathers of modern science, Galileo Galilei. In 1632, Galileo was summoned to Rome and forced to…

Article

Dominionism Beyond the Roy Moore Moment

Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore –– arguably the most openly theocratic candidate to run for a major office in the U.S. in modern times –– almost won. This, despite credible allegations of child sex abuse, a reputation as a serial…

Article

Religious Freedom and the Christian Right's Masterpiece of Manipulation

Throughout history, people have used religion to justify a myriad of injustices. In the United States, for example, some Christians used their faith to defend slavery and segregation, citing scriptural references as moral justification for the…

Article

Will Corporations, The Christian Right, and the Tea Party Get to Rewrite the Constitution?

A return to an earlier constitutional order, in which the federal government’s ability to regulate corporations and protect the public interest is severely constrained, is the end toward which decades of right-wing investments have been …

Article

The Christian Right’s Growing Allegiance to Trump

As Donald Trump exited the stage after addressing the 2016 Values Voter Summit (VVS) in Washington, DC a year ago, the Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” blasted from the speakers. The audience gathered together for the Family…

Article

Prenatal Diagnosis, Reproductive Rights, and the Specter of Eugenics

A raft of state-level legislative and regulatory restrictions on access to abortion followed the “wave election” of 2010. But a closely related trend has gone less noticed: the increasingly successful movement to bar or discourage the practice of…

Article

The Meaning of the Nashville Line in the Sand

The hundreds of Southern Baptist and conservative Reformed leaders who initially signed the recent Nashville Statement, have always opposed all forms of sexuality and gender expressions outside of heterosexual marriage. But in the face of broad…

Article

Captive Audience

How Prison Ministries Prioritize Salvation Over Justice

As bipartisan reform efforts have steadily drifted rightward, the heavy hand of evangelicals in prison reform efforts has created new kinds of problems. In the eight years I spent researching my book, God In Captivity: The Rise of Faith-Based Prison…

Article

Battle without Bullets: The Christian Right and Fourth Generation Warfare

What might have seemed to most to be normal, if unusually acrimonious, political aggression was in fact a classic example of a right-wing strategy developed in the late 1980s: Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). Trump’s rhetoric and policies rightly…

Article

Trading Principles for Power

The U.S. Christian Right's Endorsement of Authoritarian Leaders

On Friday, August 4, Paul Kagame celebrated a landslide victory in Rwanda’s presidential election, securing his third seven-year term as the small, East African country’s leader with nearly 99% of the vote. It was an unsurprising result, given that…

Article

Attacking Trans People in Defense of “Austerity"

On July 24, 2017, the Family Research Council (FRC), a right-wing political advocacy group based in Washington, DC, issued an Action Alert to its members, enlisting their support in denying healthcare to military personnel who are transgender. FRC…

Article

Dancing with Dictators

As was outlined in part one of this series, evidence shows that American corporate entities are taking advantage of the U.S. Christian Right’s pre-existing relationships with political, religious, and business leaders in Africa in order to advance…

Article

Religion, Money, & Politics: An (un)Holy Trinity

As with anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion culture wars, the exportation of American economic ideologies to the Global South (and the strategies and tactics employed to impose them on others) has a long history of violence and destruction. From Nestle’s…

Article

The Right’s Relationship with Climate Denial

In 2015, the United States and China – the two biggest emitters of greenhouses gases in the world – were among 195 countries to ratify the Paris climate accord with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Less than two years later…

Article

Press Release: Judge condemns Scott Lively's efforts to render very existence of Ugandan LGBTIs illegal, finds US law offers no redress

Historic Case Exposes Right-Wing Activist’s Campaign of Persecution in Uganda.

Press Release

Seventeen Years of Tracking the World Congress of Families

PRA first reported on the World Congress of Families (WCF) in 2000, noting its role within the coalition of Christian Right groups that was beginning to emerge as a well-organized and influential force at the United Nations. Writing for The Public…

Article

Between Trump and Putin

The Right-Wing International, a Crisis of Democracy, and the Future of the European Union

Two men in suits leaning over a table shaking hands

One of the more striking features of the 2016 U.S. election was the convergence of the rhetoric and talking points of President Donald Trump and his supporters with those of the Kremlin. And in the tangled and ongoing investigation of Russian…

Article

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