Tag Archives: Group: Family Research Council

Todd Starnes at Townhall: Religious liberty groups have grave concerns after they learned the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group that compared Christian evangelism to “rape” and advocated that military personnel who proselytize should be court martialed.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense…Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis…”.

NY Times: The vote reflected not only the rapidly shifting tides of public opinion on same-sex marriage, but also the influence of a new Republican advocacy group called the American Unity Fund, which spent weeks helping the state’s gay rights organization cultivate Republican senators.

Washington Examiner (includes video): Family Research Council (FRC) officials released video of federal investigators questioning convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins II, who explained that he attacked the group’s headquarters because the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified them as a “hate group” due to their traditional marriage views.

Rob Schwarzwalder at Life News: Abortion champion Andrew Rosenthal, who happens to be editorial page editor of what historically has been the nation’s flagship daily, The New York Times, has written a peevish, “how dare you question the Great Oz”-type op-ed defending his paper’s insubstantial coverage of the Kermit Gosnell trial.

Washington Post: Some social conservatives are threatening to decamp from the Republican Party if officials do not recommit to their issues.

Florida Baptist Witness: Kellie Fiedorek, litigation counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), said this is a time of “great peril” for religious adherents. In particular, business owners with religious convictions about business, marriage and family are the targets of attacks for refusing to violate their beliefs, she said. “You couldn’t expect an African-American photographer to take a picture of a family who is in the KKK, who is going to wear long white robes and pointy hats,” Fiedorek said. “Similarly, you couldn’t expect a Jewish … baker to bake a cake with swastikas on it and have it say, ‘Happy Birthday to Hitler.’”

USA Today: Disparaged as bigots, these diverse voices say they’re simply defending American society.

CNSNews: Calling it “The Great Crossover,” a report by academics and social activists shows that for the first time in history the median age of American women having babies is lower than the median age of marriage – 25.7 and 26.5, respectively.

Family Research Council: Just two days ago, news outlets were plastering its poll results of “record” backing for same-sex “marriage” on their websites–only to see the support vanish as quickly as it appeared. Today, the Reuters Corporation released the results of an even bigger poll than the Post’s and found that only 41% of America supports the case being made by Ted Olson and David Boies at the Supreme Court.

Windy City Times: A network of conservative Christian organizations has successfully fought pro-choice and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) civil rights legislation by claiming that such policies infringe on “religious liberty,” according to a major new report released today. The report, by Dr. Jay Michaelson, Religious Liberty Fellow at Political Research Associates (PRA), is entitled Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights . . . Key players in reframing the debate include the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). According to the report, these organizations, supported by Catholic organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, aim “not simply to win religious exemptions to the law, but to contest the authority of secular law itself.” They are allied with such conservative evangelical organizations as Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom . . . The report is available for download here www.politicalresearch.org/resources/reports/full-reports/redefining-religious-liberty/ . | Larger report on the same topic available at ValleyNewsLive via PR Newswire: As New Pope Inaugurated, New Report Exposes Catholic Church’s and Right’s ‘Religious Liberty’ Campaign Against Gay, Reproductive Rights

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Over 20 groups are asking U.S. Secretary of State to end the U.S. obstruction over abortion at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Here is the letter sent today . . . It is especially shocking that the U.S. called for deleting a reaffirmation that every human being has the “inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons.” This contradicts a foundational principle of citizens and civilizations worldwide. [Piero Tozzi of Alliance Defending Freedom is one of many signers]

Religion Dispatches: Kellie Fiedorek of the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) reprised arguments she made at a recent Family Research Council event, characterizing the bill as an effort to expand “sexual liberty” at the expense of religious liberty. She said the bill’s lack of provisions to allow social service agencies, judges and clerks, and individual business owners to discriminate against gay couples was evidence of an “intent to legislative prejudice” against people who have religious objections to same-sex marriage.

Tony Perkins at Townhall: Bullying knows no boundaries. It’s not just boys on the playground or people at work; it can even be organizations on the national stage as was revealed in a federal court room on February 6th.

Information about the Family Research Council webcast and video is here. It runs just over 61 minutes. An extensive description of the event begins: “Religious liberty in America has long been a cherished freedom. In recent decades, reaction to displaying that religion in the public sphere has grown increasingly hostile. What is being done about this slow and methodical attack on the First Freedom? Come hear from those who have battled on the front lines of this issue and have sought to protect the liberty our forefathers handed down. From prayer in schools to speaking against sin in a public place, there are numerous ways that religious liberty has been attacked. It is imperative that we make ourselves aware of the battle fronts and support those who stand as sentinels against encroachment on our first freedom. Join FRC for an informative and important discussion on religious liberty with Kellie Fiedorek, Ken Klukowski, and Adele Keim.”

Christian Post: In addition to Klukowski, the other two guest speakers were Adele Keim, legal counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Kellie Fiedorek, litigation counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom . . . Fiedorek spoke to those gathered about the various legal suits coming up against Christian businessmen by gay rights groups. These included a photographer sued for refusing to take photos at a gay union ceremony and a baker sued for refusing to provide a cake for a gay union reception.

TheHayride.com: Louisiana Family Forum joined Alliance Defending Freedom in filing an amicus brief with the Louisiana Supreme Court in support of the Louisiana Student Scholarship for Educational Excellence program. [more]

Christian Newswire: Representatives of Priests for Life, Alliance Defending Freedom, 40 Days for Life, the Family Research Council, Students for Life, Operation Rescue, Rock for Life, the Christian Defense Coalition, the National Black Pro-Life Union, the Maryland Family Alliance, the Archdiocese of Washington DC, several local churches and pastors, and many others will join the Maryland Coalition for Life on Monday.

Fox News: The U.S. military ordered soldiers to remove a cross and a steeple from atop a chapel and to board up cross-shaped windows at a remote American forward operating base in Afghanistan.

Politico: “I’m personally grateful to Speaker [John] Boehner for being willing to defend the law, but it’s clear GOP elites don’t want to talk about it and want to keep it as quiet as possible,” said Maggie Gallagher, a founder of the National Organization for Marriage and a fellow at the conservative American Principles Project. “That’s so obvious, I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise.”

Baptist Press: The United States must make the fight against persecution a priority, religious liberty advocates said recently.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: Floyd Corkins, the volunteer at a gay-rights organization who attempted to commit mass murder at the Christian conservative Family Research Council (FRC) because of FRC’s stance on social and religious issues, has been indicted on charges of domestic terrorism. It is the first such indictment ever handed down by a grand jury in the nation’s capital.

The Church Report: Virginia man accused of shooting a security guard inside the headquarters of a conservative Christian lobbying group was indicted on a local terrorism charge, marking the first time in a decade that a person has been prosecuted under the statute, prosecutors said Wednesday.

FRC: Alliance Defending Freedom and the Jubilee Campaign together with Tom Hungar of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher today filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Sherley v. Sebelius, which seeks to end federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. Of the petition David Prentice , Ph.D., senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Life and Bioethics, made the following comments . . . | Also at Meldicka.net

FRC Blog: Recall that abortion disproportionately impacts the African American community. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that black Americans had a staggering 42% of all abortions in America in 2008 (the most recent year for which abortion data is available) yet according to the Census Bureau, African Americans composed only 12.6 percent of the total population.

WorldNetDaily: “Religious hostility is the red light on the dashboard that tells us we have a problem and that violence will come next if not fixed,” Shackleford says.

The Washington Post reports (video embedded).

Peter Sprigg at LifeSiteNews: Because the study undermined the politically correct claim that such children are “no different” from children with heterosexual parents, and because it reinforced a key point made in defense of the natural definition of marriage as the union of man and woman (namely, that kids need both a mom and a dad), it became urgent for pro-homosexual activists to discredit the study and, if possible, destroy Regnerus.

Christian Post: The National Black Church Initiative has announced the organization of security for its president, the Rev. Anthony Evans, in light of the shooting at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. last month, and to protect its leader from possibly being “harmed by the forces of evil that support same-sex marriage.”

The Hill: Priebus has been the most welcoming chairman for all groups, including gays and lesbians,” said Kabel. “For the first time, Log Cabin was given official connections at platform, was given hotel rooms, they didn’t have to scramble around to find another hotel, they were given an allotment of RNC hotel rooms and also passes. That’s the first time that’s happened.” And party leaders have tried to distance themselves from the work of the convention’s platform committee, which is dominated by conservatives.

See also: GOP Chair: Doesn’t matter if Akin tied in Missouri, we are not sending him “a penny”

LifeNews: The new survey conducted by Wenzel Strategies of likely Missouri general election voters shows that Senate candidate Todd Akin has regained his lead over Senator Claire McCaskill by a 45% to 42% margin, with 13% undecided. It also shows Akin leading by 10 points among independent voters.

The Alliance Defending Freedom has posted a short and powerful video titled: Why Marriage Matters (3:25 mins).
It has prompted several attacks some of which are identified below . . . Alliance Alert Editor’s Note: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have repeatedly rebutted the Loving argument raised in the “Lez Get Real” article quoted above.  Here is a recent rebuttal by Alliance Defending Freedom Attorney Jordan Lorence at the Speak Up Movement University Blog titled Interracial Marriage and Mormon Polygamy: ADF Debates the Definition of Marriage at the University of Virginia Law School . . .

Michael Brown at Townhall: Do you realize, Mr. Potok, that by placing mainstream, conservative Christian ministries like the American Family Association and the FRC side by side with legitimate hate groups that you call your whole work into question? Do you realize that millions of Americans, hearing about the SPLC for the first time in the wake of the FRC shooting, will now question the veracity of all your listings, thereby empowering genuine, dangerous hate groups?

Rich Lowry at National Review: What the SPLC is doing is profoundly illiberal. The whole idea of a “hate group” is an organization that is so irrational and beyond the pale that it has no legitimacy. The SPLC brags about shutting down such groups, and rightly so . . . Putting the Family Research Council in the same category is a statement that it isn’t worthy of a democratic society — that its views shouldn’t be debated so much as shunned and marginalized.
This is the trend in the gay-marriage debate. The attempt to punish Chick-fil-A for the opinions of its founder and CEO, although an abject failure for now, will probably be the template of the future. “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views,” William F. Buckley Jr. once said, “but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” The SPLC and its allies on the left won’t be satisfied until there are no other views on gay marriage.

Politico: The Family Research Council offered strong support for Todd Akin on Monday afternoon. “This is an effort to try to direct attention away from … Claire McCaskill, who has been supportive of Planned Parenthood — an organization that’s been under investigation for criminal activity,” FRC President Tony Perkins said in between meetings of the RNC platform committee.

Christian Newswire: Bill Keller, the world’s leading Internet Evangelist and the founder of LivePrayer.com, with over 2.4 million subscribers worldwide reading the Daily Devotional he has written every morning for 13 years on the issues of the day from a Biblcial worldview, is planning to file a $100 million defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling him and his ministry as a “hate group.”

CNSNews: The map and SPLC listing of “hate organizations” equates groups such as the Family Research Council, which promotes the traditional Christian view of marriage and sexuality, with racist groups that violate Christian teaching on human dignity.

Baltimore Sun: But if this incident leads to a protracted debate about how groups like the FRC should be labeled, it presents a risk for marriage equality advocates nonetheless. “Hate group” is a loaded term, and FRC’s designation as such has provided an opening for social conservatives to complain that gay rights groups are the ones who are intolerant.

Maggie Gallagher at FRC: SPLC’s research director Heidi Beirich told Talking Points Memo on November 24, 2010, that there was no difference between Family Research Council and the Ku Klux Klan . . .

LifeNews: The man who is alleged to have shot a security guard yesterday at the offices of the pro-life group Family research Council has been formally charged and new FBI documents present more information.

Wall Street Journal: A security guard at the conservative Family Research Council here was shot Wednesday in an incident being probed as a possible case of domestic terrorism.

Legal Insurrection: It has just been confirmed that Family Research Council shooting suspect Floyd Corkins II had been volunteering at the DC Center for the LGBT Community for the past six months.

LifeSiteNews: Twenty-three organizations supporting gay rights have condemned a shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters Wednesday morning, saying that although the motive of the attack hasn’t been clearly established, the leaders “utterly reject and condemn” such violence.

National Journal: Family Research Council Action, a leading crusader for social conservative values, is sounding the alarm: Support for gay marriage is creeping dangerously close to the Republican platform.

FRC: Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is pleased to announce today that Lt. Gen. (USA Ret.) William G. “Jerry” Boykin has joined Family Research Council as its Executive Vice President. In this role, he will oversee day-to-day operations including policy, finance, development, communications, human resources, facilities, information technology, constituent communications and services.

The Church Report: The Alliance Defense Fund of conservative Christian attorneys. Senior counsel Steven H. Aden: “ObamaCare treats American citizens like subjects. This administration has used health care law to become a dictator of conscience. The court’s decision is alarming and deeply wrong. ObamaCare holds your health care hostage and offers no real choice. Either comply and abandon your religious freedom and conscience, or resist and be fined for your faith. All current ADF legal challenges to the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate will proceed, and we are confident that the Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional.”