Research

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

The Public Eye Quarterly Nominated for the 2006 Utne Independent Press Award

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).

Press Release

Laying Siege to the Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi

A Mississippi License plate that says "Choose Life"

On Tuesday, July 18th, for the first time in ten years, protesters arrived on Dr. Joseph Booker’s block in Jackson, Mississippi. They went door to door, ringing bells and telling people that their neighbor, the state’s last abortion provider, is a…

Article

Rights Groups call on Romney to Denounce Bigoted Statements

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…

Press Release

Running Against Sodom and Osama

The Christian Right, Values Voters, and the Culture Wars in 2006

Chip Berlet and Pam Chamberlain explore how the Christian Right fused together an external threat of “Islamofascism” and an internal boogeyman of gay rights to try to help right-wing candidates in the 2006 elections.

Ballot Initiatives on the Right: 2006

In 2004, the Right deployed state ballot initiatives opposing gay marriage to pull out socially conservative voters on Election Day. While this tactic apparently only enjoyed success in the key state of Ohio, it nonetheless helped frame the national…

Article

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