PRA Staff in Action

• On November 2, PRA Executive Director Katherine Ragsdale shared her insights on faith, choice, and religious freedom at a forum sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, the American Constitution Society, and the Federalist Society on an upcoming Supreme Court abortion debate. The forum, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., was covered live by CSPAN and picked up by over 70 other outlets.


• Before the December release of our UNdoing Reproductive Freedom report on the growing lobbying of Christian Right groups at the United Nations, PRA researcher Pam Chamberlain conducted workshops on the topic at the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education in New York City and at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change Conference. Her research, highlighting the growing effort of conservative NGOs promoting their anti-abortion, anti-contraception agenda at the United Nations, received broad media attention, including: townhall.com, opendemocracy.net, WBAI in New York, and Danish National Radio.


• In January, Research Director Tarso Luís Ramos was one of 20 national mentors at the third annual Young People For National Summit for Progressive Leaders and Activists in Washington, D.C. The summit brought together 180 student leaders from across the country for learning and strategizing on ways to enhance their collective social justice work in 2007.


• In March, Pam Chamberlain and Tarso Ramos presented a workshop on "Right Wing Intersections: Race, Gender and Sexuality" at the Facing Race conference sponsored by the Applied Research Center in New York City.


• On March 30, Researchers Chip Berlet and Pam Chamberlain presented some of PRA's most popular workshops at the Hampshire College Reproductive Rights Conference. Chip was a panelist in the opening plenary, "Resisting the Right," and Chip and Pam later presented PRA's "How the Right Took Power" workshop twice to accommodate the demand at the conference.


• Just in time for tax day! Public Eye Editor Abby Scher reported on the Christian Right's growing effort to dismantle the progressive tax system for the half-hour, nationally syndicated radio show Making Contact. The in-depth report built on the investigation of Rich Meagher published in the Winter 2005 Public Eye called "Tax Revolt as a Family Value: How the Christian Right is Becoming a Free Market Champion."