Family Research Council

The Family Research Council (FRC) was founded in 1981 by Focus on the Family chairman Dr. James Dobson. It is a homophobic right-wing fundamentalist Christian advocacy group. It is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[1]

Gay free zone
Homophobia
Fighting the gay agenda
Judge not
That ye be not judged
v - t - e
Not just a river in Egypt
Denialism
♫ We're not listening ♫
v - t - e
Not to be confused with the Family Research Institute.

Foundation

The initial concept of the FRC originated during the 1980 White House Conference on Families, which was actually a series of seven conferences held around the country. Originally, the Conference was intended to examine the strengths and weaknesses of all family units, but during the committee formation process, conservatives were able to block the nominations of most moderates from the Conference.[2] As a result, the Conference focused on the strengths of "traditional" family units (married husband and wife with kids) and the weaknesses of "non-traditional" family units (single parents, unmarried parents, gay parents, and so on).

Dobson was one of the committee members, and organized the FRC shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan. In 1983 he incorporated the FRC as a non-profit corporation along with notable chickenhawk Gary Bauer, and psychiatrists Dr. George Rekers of the University of South Carolina and Dr. Armand Nicholi, Jr. of Harvard University. Bauer secured early funding from Edgar Prince, father of Blackwater founder Erik Prince.

Things FRC have proven they hate, even though they try to say they're not a hate group

The Family Research Council's headquarters is in Washington, DC.

Shooting

In August 2012, a gunman opened fire on the headquarters, injuring one guard. Never missing a chance to engage in some convenient demagoguery in the wake of an averted tragedy, Tony Perkins blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center for creating the hostile atmosphere for such an incident despite the fact that the SPLC documented several public statements that caused it to designate the FRC as a hate group and not because they "disagree with them on public policy" as Perkins claimed.[5][6] On the other hand, according to Perkins maybe it's all just Obama's fault. Rick Santorum assisted with the wholesale blaming of convenient scapegoats on this occasion and even threw in a genuinely idiotic non-sequitur an observation concerning Chick-fil-A for good measure.[7] Considering how Perkins and the FRC strongly supported Uganda's genuinely homicidal law criminalizing homosexuality,[8] though, the phrase "selective outrage" just might not be harsh enough.[9]

Other inane bullshit

Keeping in line with his prior reputation as a truly deluded goofball, Gary Bauer decided to make use of the shooting of Pakistani women's rights activist Malala Yousafzai by Taliban thugs to blame the parties he thought were responsible — namely, Sandra Fluke and the "American left". There's probably no microscope powerful enough to find a shred of logic in that argument, of course, but when has that ever stopped Bauer before?[10]

In June 2013 Bauer asserted that the Supreme Court's decision against the Defense of Marriage Act would lead to anti-gay "activists" going to jail for merely expressing their opinion publicly, which would seem to set a new personal record by Bauer for pulling a nonsensical conclusion out of the thin air it was apparently based on.[11]

And then there's former member Josh Duggar.[12][13] Oops.

Support for Wesley Goodman

In 2017, it was revealed that Perkins knew that a candidate he was supporting for the Ohio legislature, Wesley Goodman, had fondled a male 18-year old college student in his sleep.[14] Perkins indicated privately that he would address this issue but instead attempted to cover it up.[14]

gollark: Its main feature is (was) just that it is (was) easy to use. But they made the config weirder and more complex in v2 and convoluted the architecture a lot, so I went back to nginx, which is harder but less so and also maybe faster.
gollark: Somewhat, yes.
gollark: The configuration for HTTPS is mildly more irritating, but I can live with it.
gollark: It turned out it didn't, and caddy v2 has annoying things, so nginx it is.
gollark: Well, caddy v1 was apparently "deprecated" - there were annoying warnings about this on the site before there was even a non-release-candidate v2 - and I had an issue, so I thought "hmm yes maybe a newer webserver would fix this".

See also

References
  1. SPLC Responds to Attack by Family Research Council
  2. Brozan, Nadine. "White House Conference on the Family: A Schism Develops; The 'Moderate' Grouping 'Advocacy' Is Disavowed," New York Times, 7 January 1980. (The Conference convened in June, 1980.)
  3. Most likely because it plays into the global warming as eugenics meme, as in this FRC mailing reprinted by The American Prospect
  4. FRC Calls Islam a 'Fanatical Religion,' Attacks White House Event with MuslimsRight Wing Watch
  5. Family Research Council. SPLC web site
  6. Setting the Record Straight on the FRC's 'Hate Group' Designation, Right Wing Watch
  7. Tony Perkins says there is a 'Clear Link' between the FRC Shooting and Obama Administration Policies, Right Wing Watch
  8. See the Wikipedia article on Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
  9. FRC Defended Ugandan ‘Kill the Gays’ Bill, Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  10. Gary Bauer Attacks Sandra Fluke over Shooting of Pakistani Education Activist, Right Wing Watch
  11. Bauer: Anti-Gay Activists May Be Thrown in Jail Following DOMA Ruling, Right Wing Watch
  12. Gawker.com: archive.is, web.archive.org The Web Has Known About Josh Duggar for Years. When Did TLC Find Out?], Gawker
  13. Flashback: Duggars Call LGBT People A Threat To Child Safety; Duggar Resigns From FRC, Right Wing Watch
  14. How a conservative group dealt with a fondling charge against a rising GOP star by Kimberly Kindy & Elise Viebeck (November 17, 2017) The Washington Post.
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