Christian Right

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 cases—largely involving schools—and advise congress on legislation that can impact religious freedom. Its website provides resources for issues regarding public schools and universities, faith-based organizations, health care rights, and religion clause theory.

Ralph Reed is doing a kind of constitutional drag performance for the press, dressing his religious values in secular sequins and pearls, but we all know what’s beneath the costume, right?

It’s clear that much of the power American culture warriors have in Uganda comes from the money their ministries pour into the country along with their missionaries. At the massive Miracle Center Cathedral, the biggest megachurch in Uganda, the high-living pastor is quite frank that “American money helped us build this church,” adding, “whatever you see here is the fruit of American labor.”

“I’m not the author of scripture,” Daly confides to NPR’s Rachel Martin.

On March 18th, Max Myers officially kicked off his campaign for Pennsylvania governor at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia. Touting himself as a moderate Democrat, Myers failed to mention his leadership in a politico-religious movement that believes in casting out “gay demons.”

The New Apostolic Reformation is a Christian Right movement that is different from previous evangelical movements. It is rapidly gaining influence in the United States and around the globe, and it aims to advance a right-wing social and economic agenda.

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 the leadership of William Mumma. The organization bills itself as the intellectual leader of the right-wing “religious liberty” campaign, and has litigated landmark cases, including the 2014 McCullen vs. Coakley case which allowed for “sidewalk counselors” to wait outside abortion clinics.

Did you know that the same Christian-right legal organization responsible for drafting the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the U.S., also supports the constitutional criminalization of homosexuality in Kenya and Zimbabwe and has now set its sight on Brazil, home of the world’s largest LGBTQ Pride parade?

The irony is that the hire seems a mirror-image mimicking of what conservatives typically allege of the university hiring process: that only liberals/radicals, regardless of scholarly accomplishment, need apply.

Rebuffing the religious right? Don’t count on it.