Research

Pushed to the Altar

The Right-Wing Roots of Marriage Promotion

Pushed to the Altar tells the story of how a right-wing social movement took power in the Bush administration and installed unproven anti-poverty policies to fulfill ideological valorization of the two-parent, heterosexual family. The…

Heritage is Hip to Culture

Think Tank Turns to Family Values

The Heritage Foundation’s headquarters sits two blocks from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., a symbolic representation of its intimate access to Congress and public policymakers. Heritage’s rise to prominence has paralleled the rise to power of…

Article

Living in the Gap: The Ideal and the Reality of the Christian Right Family

“Models of idealized family structure lie metaphorically at the heart of our politics,” writes linguist George Lakoff in his 2002 book Moral Politics. “Our beliefs about the family exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of…

Article

First Amendment Blues

Police Tactics Suppress Free Speech

Three of the cops had jumped out of the white nondescript van and attacked me. They were all wearing ski masks and dressed as anarchist black bloc protesters. I threw up my hands and offered no resistance.

Article

Male Victims of Abortion

New Theme of Right to Life Committee

A man wearing sunglasses holding a sign that says "Men Regret Lost Fatherhood"

They pledged to “Bring life to the heart of America and bring the heart of America to Life.” In 72 workshops, five plenaries, and three worship services, more than 500 members of the National Right to Life Committee gathered in Kansas City, Missouri…

Article

The Libertarian Theocrats

The Long, Strange History of R.J. Rushdoony and Christian Reconstructionism

In their struggle to understand George W. Bush, some liberal intellectuals have looked to the writings of Rousas John Rushdoony, the Armenian-American minister whose championing of a theocratic America influenced some of the nooks and crannies of…

Article

Churches Under Seige

Exposing the Right's Attacks on Mainline Protestantism

In February of the year 2000, in South St. Louis, Missouri, the 300-member Redeemer Evangelical United Church of Christ got a new pastor. His name was George Dohm. Soon after he arrived, he told select members whom he called his “disciples” that…

Article

"Focus" Leader Admits Court Ruling Endangers Women

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…

Article

Gay Conservatives Unwanted Allies on the Right

In the high-adrenaline, and heavily heterosexual, world of Beltway lobbyists, the gay Log Cabin Republicans have their work cut out for them. Ostracized by the Republican Party which continues to receive their fierce loyalty, the LCR is the group…

Article

PRA on the Airwaves

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…

Press Hit

Truth and Reconciliation Comes to the South: Lessons from Greensboro

On November 3, 1979, a caravan of Klansmen and neonazis from Greensboro, North Carolina and the surrounding areas confronted demonstrators preparing for a “Death to the Klan” rally called by the multi-racial Communist Workers Party (CWP) in the city…

Article

Becoming Americano: The Ascent of the New Latino Right

After last year’s elections, Lionel Sosa watched the returns and saw more than 30 years of his life’s work endangered. Sosa, the advertising executive who, along with close ally, Karl Rove (“we’ve been good friends a long, long time”), engineered…

Article

History is Powerful

Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters

The notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is a central animating element of the ideology of the Christian Right. It touches every aspect of life and culture in this, one of the most successful and powerful political movements in…

Article

Religious Liberty Not Threatened By Gay Marriage, says Rev. Katherine H. Ragsdale, Director of Political Research Associates

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…

Statement

Tax Revolt as a Family Value How the Christian Right is Becoming a Free Market Champion

“Death Should Not Be a Taxable Event.” In August of 2005, this headline appeared on the website of the conservative evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family. The accompanying article asked Focus members to persuade their Senators to…

Article

Political Research Associates Report Documents Growing Threat to Reproductive Health Programs at UN from Right-wing NGOs

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.

Statement

Whither the Christian Right?

How Religious Conservatives Succeeded and Failed in the 2006 Elections

It was a scant five weeks until the 2006 midterm elections, and photogenic Christian Right leader Tony Perkins gripped the podium and smiled confidently at the 1700 activists gathered at the Values Voters Summit. Perkins predicted that his new…

Article

Tearing Down the Towers

The Right's Vision of an America Without Cities

The formula that emerged from the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections was provocative: the less dense the population, the more likely it was to vote Republican. Republicans appeared to have lost the cities and inner suburbs, positioning themselves…

Article

Undoing Reproductive Freedom

Christian Right NGOs Target the United Nations

Even as the Right fosters paranoid conspiracy theories about the United Nations implementing a “One World Government,” anti-choice agitators have found a way to use the UN to combat reproductive freedom around the globe. The report reveals how the…

New Report Exposes Christian Right's Midterm Election Strategy

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…

Press Release

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