LGBTQ Equity

New Report!

Globalizing the Culture Wars
U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia

A groundbreaking investigation by Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Political Research Associates exposes how the U.S. Right mobilizes African Protestant clergy to protest any movement towards LGBT equality in U.S. mainline churches while promoting an agenda that criminalizes homosexuality in Africa. Read more...

Take Action:Political Research Associates is calling on Pastor Rick Warren to oppose an antigay bill currently being debated in the Ugandan legislature promoted by his allies. Read more...

New From Public Eye Magazine

Following the Leaps and Bounds of Anti-Gay Logic
Fish Out of Water
Directed by Ky Dickens
Documentary by Yellow Wing Productions, 2008.

Reviewed by Jaime Coyne

Inspired by the director’s devastating experience of coming out to her sorority sisters at Vanderbilt University, this documentary examines the seven Bible verses often cited by the Christian anti-gay movement. Some people spout that being gay is wrong because “it’s in the Bible,” but few of those asked off the streets in this documentary knew what the Bible said on the topic.

On June 26, 2008, 1,000 ministers, mostly from evangelical congregations, met by conference call to discuss tactics for passing Proposition 8, a ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage in California by amending the state constitution. The call was convened by Pastor Jim Garlow from the 2,500-member Skyline Church in San Diego County. The ministers on the call had a far reach: they lead congregations representing about one million people, and Garlow alone provides radio commentary to 629 stations each day.
Read more...

Culture Wars, Evangelicals, and Political Power
lessons from the 2008 Presidential Election
by Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson
The Public Eye magazine, Winter 2008 (Web Only)

It would be nice if conservative White evangelicals called off the Culture Wars that they started and continue to aggressively pursue. It would be even nicer if liberal (and even some progressive) pundits stopped prematurely announcing the end of the Culture Wars and the demise of the Christian Right. Neither is likely to happen any time soon.
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Pushed to the Altar:
The Right Wing Roots of Marriage Promotion
by Jean Hardisty

The George W. Bush Administration has abandoned proven poverty reduction strategies and instead is encouraging women - especially welfare recipients - to marry their way out of poverty. This groundbreaking new report by PRA President Emerita, Dr. Jean Hardisty, traces the influence of right-wing fatherhood groups and Christian Right organizations on the Administration's "marriage promotion" programs, and the channeling of millions of federal dollars back to these groups despite rules guiding the separation of church and state. Jointly published by Political Research Associates and the Women of Color Resource Center.

• View the Executive Summary
• Order the Report
• Listen to Dr. Hardisty on Bush Administration marriage promotion initiatives (August 2007)

Heritage is Hip to Culture
Think Tank Turns to Family Values
by Pam Chamberlain
The Public Eye magazine, Winter 2007

The Heritage Foundation is known for winning the ear of Presidents for its conservative economic policies. But in June of 2006, Heritage launched a website, familyfacts.org, offering tidbits of research promoting traditional families and the social value of religion. Why have photos of smiling parents and children replaced the staid blue and white Liberty Bell that has represented Heritage for nearly 35 years?
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Gay Conservatives: Unwanted Allies on the Right
by Pam Chamberlain
The Public Eye magazine, Summer 2007

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 that represents the dilemma of gay conservatives: they want to be players on the Republican team, but who is willing to put them in the lineup?
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The gay rights movement in the United States is often traced to June 27, 1969, in New York City, when police raided a Greenwich Village bar, the Stonewall Inn, and bar patrons rebelled in protest. Seven years later, in 1976, in Dade County, Florida, Anita Bryant led the first religious campaign against gay rights. Her campaign (run by Bryant, her husband Bob Green, and a political operative named Ed Rowe, who went on to head the Church League of America briefly and later Christian Mandate) opposed a vote by the Dade County commissioners to prohibit discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing, public accommodation, and employment. Bryant promoted a successful referendum to repeal the commissioners' vote, and her campaign gained strength and notoriety.

by the end of the 1970s, a political movement was born that incorporated conservative Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals as full partners in opposing gay rights and abortion. Homophobia has become a deep current in the Christian Right, part of a "pro-family" campaign that champions families with a strong father and that enforces a Biblically mandated heterosexuality. With the "ex-gay movement," the Right has taken a pseudo-scientific turn using therapy to rescue gays from what the Right sees as an unnatural perversion.

Gay Conservatives
by Surina Khan
The Public Eye magazine, Spring 1996