Global Right | Political Research Associates

PRA tracks the influence of the U.S. Right globally and the exchange of ideologies that threaten human rights. Most notable has been our research on how U.S.-based religious conservatives are building organizational strength to promote homophobia and attacks on reproductive rights in sub-Saharan Africa.

Profiles on the Right: World Congress of Families

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.

"Natural Family" Advocates Push Their Views in Russia

In 2007, Allan Carlson, president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society and founder of the World Congress of Families (WCF), published The Natural Family: A Manifesto alongside Paul Mero, head of the conservative, Mormon-backed…

U.S. Conservatives and Russian Anti-Gay Laws - The WCF

Earlier this week, representatives of anti-choice and anti-LGBTQ groups from Russia, Italy, Spain, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand, France, Serbia, and the United States (including the infamous Scott Lively) convened in Moscow to make plans for…

How Well-Meaning Social Justice Groups Are Misinterpreting Kuwait's "Gaydar Testing"

An interesting aspect of journalism and blogging is the filter through which the information is processed. Journalists have the ability to impact opinions about and perceptions of certain issues. Coming from a solid journalist, this can provide us…

Register to Attend Our "God Loves Uganda" Screening

Join PRA For The Special Boston Screening! Inspired by PRA’s research and starring our religion and sexuality researcher, Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, God Loves Uganda exposes how the U.S. Christian Right exports hateful ideology and militant homophobia to…

The Making of God Loves Uganda: A Web Exclusive Interview with Roger Ross Williams

Roger Ross Williams is a television and film writer, director, and producer whose most recent project, the documentary God Loves Uganda, focuses on the work of American evangelical Christian missionaries in Africa. Williams decided to focus on…

Profiles on the Right: Dr. Richard Land

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…

Dangerous Liaisons: New SPLC Report on Danger to LGBTQ People in Belize

The influence of U.S.-based Christian Right groups on the criminalization of homophobia has recently expanded to Belize, which has become a hotbed for anti-LGBTQ activity, according to new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center: Dangerous…

Zimbabwe's Upcoming Elections: Corruption, Homophobia, and U.S. Conservatives

On Wednesday, Zimbabweans will head to the polls to elect a new president. In May, current President Robert Mugabe, a dictator infamous for his human rights abuses, signed a new constitution that will usher in much-needed reforms, including a more…

Profiles on the Right: Andrea Lafferty

Andrea Sheldon Lafferty is a former Reagan and Bush administration official and current Executive Director of the Anaheim, CA-…

Sharon Slater: Going Global with a “Pro-Family,” Antigay Agenda

The following article is adapted from PRA’s 2012 report, Colonizing African Values. Sharon Slater co-founded Family Watch International (FWI) with the goal of defending “fundamental institutions and values that are so critical to any society.”

Brazilian Evangelical Lawmakers Push Gay Conversion Therapy Bill

Though opponents of the discredited “ex gay” movement achieved a partial victory last week in the United States when Alan Chambers announced the closing of his organization, Exodus International, the battle over the legitimacy of a gay cure is only…

New Report Details Human Rights Violations Against LGBTQ Africans

All eyes were on Uganda in 2009, when the Parliament tried to pass a bill making homosexuality punishable by death in certain cases. Since then, however, it has become increasingly evident that discrimination against LGBTQ people in Africa is far…

Brazilian Evangelical Presidental Candidate Meets Pushback

In January, I wrote in PRA’s Public Eye quarterly that Rev. Everaldo Dias Pereira, vice president of the conservative evangelical Christian Social Party (PSC), was being tapped by group of Brazilian pastors to run for president in 2014. Last month,…

International Day Against Homophobia: Have You Seen God Loves Uganda?

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…

Zambian Government Cracks Down on Gay Rights Advocates

Following the arrest of a gay rights advocate in Zambia, Political Research Associates’ religious and sexuality researcher Rev. Canon Dr. Kapya Kaoma writes about the attacks on gay people in his home country for the Lukasa Times. Zambian LGBTQ…

Ugandan Pastors Launch Antigay Campaign at David Kato's Grave

On Easter Sunday, Ugandan Pastors Solomon Male and Thomas Musoke launched their “Say No to Homosexuality” campaign outside the gravesite of slain gay rights activist David Kato–purposely selecting the spot to prevent it from becoming “a pilgrimage…

New Report Finds Ex-Gay Movement in Latin America Divided, But Still of Concern

When the Executive Director of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, dramatically announced in January 2012 that he no longer believed there was a “cure” to homosexuality, he allegedly ended his organization’s 35-year-long effort to “convert … LGBTQ…

Divided Ex-Gay Movement Still Encouraging “Conversion” Therapy in Latin America

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…

Making Anti-Gay Christian Right Views Law, at Home and Abroad

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…

Antigay Legal Group Targets Home of World's Largest Pride Parade

From a modest building in a central neighborhood in Goiânia, the capital of the Brazilian state of Goiás, Filipe Coelho is launching the American Center for Law and Justice’s (ACLJ) Brazilian branch, following the example of the Christian Right…

Gospel of Intolerance: U.S. Evangelicals Fund Homophobia in Uganda

Yesterday, the New York Times’ released an eight-minute “Op-Doc” titled “Gospel of Intolerance,” from Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams, exposing “how money donated by American evangelicals helps to finance a violent antigay movement in…

Sundance Film Features PRA Researcher

Tomorrow in Park City, Utah, will be the world debut of God Loves Uganda, a documentary on the U.S. Christian Right spreading homophobia abroad that builds on Political Research Associates’ research.

Scott Lively Held to Account Back Home for Anti-Gay Persecution in Uganda

Yesterday, I and about 40 others crammed into the Springfield, MA, office of Arise for Social Justice, fresh from the first oral hearing of the lawsuit brought by Ugandan gay rights activists against Scott Lively–the notorious holocaust revisionist…

PRA Condemns Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill

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…

Major Christian Right Actors Seek to Criminalize Homosexuality in Africa

On Friday, Andy Kroll at Mother Jones reported that Jay Sekulow and Jordan Sekulow, the father-son team leading the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) — high-profile social conservatives and advisers and supporters of Republican Presidential…

The Culture Wars Come to Zambia

Intercepting the International Human Rights Agenda

On a visit to Zambia in February 2012, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on African countries to stop treating LGBT people as less than human or as second class citizens. He explicitly asked Zambian lawmakers to stop…

Colonizing African Values

How the U.S. Christian Right Is Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa

While U.S. Christian Right leaders made headlines when international pressure forced them to retract support for Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, a new report by Political Research Associates shows that U.S. Christian Right groups…

New Report Exposes U.S. Christian Right Agenda in Africa

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…

The Norway Attacks: "Marketing" the Christian Right Culture Wars

On Friday, July 22, at least 76 people were killed in the Oslo bombing and the shooting rampage at a Labor Party summer training camp for young liberal political activists. Immediately following news of the Norway terrorism, the internet buzzed with…

U.S. Conservatives Who Inspired Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill Must Act Immediately to Stop Its Passage

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…

Lively's Lies: A Profile of Scott Lively

In March 2009, Scott Lively traveled more than 8,000 miles from his home in Springfield, Massachusetts, to talk to a small audience at the Triangle Hotel in Kampala, Uganda, about homosexuality. “My name is Scott Lively,” he began. “I’m married. I…

Political Research Associates Condemns the Brutal Murder of Ugandan Human Rights Activist David Kato

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,…

Who’s Colonialist?

African Anti-Gay Politics In The Global Discourse

In August 2010, more than 400 African Anglican Bishops gathered in Entebbe, Uganda, for their second All-Africa Bishops Conference, which attracted global media attention because of the debates on LGBT rights.

Uganda's Leading LGBT Activist, Frank Musgisha, Touring U.S. To Speak Out Against Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Law Backed By U.S. Right

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…