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Founded | September 27, 1995[1] |
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Founder | Linda P. Harvey |
Type | Nonprofit 501(c)(3) |
31-1597212 (EIN) | |
Location | |
Key people | Linda Harvey, President |
Revenue | $23,047 (2011) [2] [3] |
Website | missionamerica |
Mission: America is an American Christian right organization based in Columbus, Ohio and founded in 1995 that seeks to "cover the latest cultural and social trends in our country and what they might mean for Christians." [4] The organization publishes articles on its web site about its views on homosexuality and paganism. [5] Mission: America's founder and president, Linda Harvey, is an outspoken critic of LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage. [4]
The Southern Poverty Law Center designated Mission: America as an active anti-gay hate group in March 2012 based on its particular anti-LGBT rights stances. [6]
According to founder Linda Harvey, Mission: America was founded with the objective of equipping "Christians with current, accurate information about cultural issues such as feminism, homosexuality, education and New Age influences." [7]
Harvey is a radio talk show host on WRFD in Columbus, and also writes commentary for WorldNetDaily. In January 2008, she authored Not My Child; Contemporary Paganism & New Spirituality. The book discusses the author's view that "casual occultism permeates youth culture" and suggests tips for parents as well as classroom lessons.[ citation needed ]
The group's "School Risk Audit" program was conducted jointly by Mission America, the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and other groups. It was launched in April 2006. [8] Its stated purpose is to assess what it sees as schools' promotion of homosexuality such as anti-bullying programs that include acceptance of different sexual orientations, and non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation. The plan has received support from Exodus Mandate, an evangelical Christian group supporting home-schooling.
In March 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated Mission America as an active anti-gay hate group. [9] The group has denied this characterization. [10] Mission America had previously launched a campaign to get the website "Prop 8 Maps" listed by the SPLC as a hate group. [11]
According to Mission America, the organization promotes "Biblical morality", though e-mail, videos and its website, seeking to reach American Christians. [12] A major issue for the organization is what they refer to as the "burgeoning and increasingly fascist 'gay rights' movement". [12]
Harvey criticized author Alex Sanchez' novel Rainbow Boys in her 2002 essay "The World According to PFLAG: Why PFLAG and Children Don't Mix Unless You Happen to Like Child Abuse". [13]
In March 2018, Harvey says homosexuality is God's punishment for abortion. [14]
In speaking against the Equality Act in December 2015, Harvey said that endorsing LGBT equality measures is "the least compassionate, the meanest and most hateful thing you can do" because it will cause more people to think it's okay to be LGBT. [15]
In 2011, Harvey said that gay rights advocates were "masters of demonic manipulation" [16] while speaking as a guest on Peter LaBarbera's radio program. She has also referred to the It Gets Better video project as "wrong, it's evil, it's dark". [17] In that same broadcast, she referred to LaBarbera as her "good friend". LaBarbera heads the organization Americans for Truth about Homosexuality. Harvey opposes efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in Jamaica, promoting a petition that declares Caribbean societies are "under attack" from gay rights supporters. She describes LGBT anti-discrimination orders as "anti-Christian gag orders" whose goal is to "criminalize speech and Christian faith." [18]
In August 2011, Harvey stated on her weekend radio show that "There is no proof that there's ever anything like a gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered child, or teen or human," [19] and that openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools. [20]
The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American evangelical 501(c)(3) non-profit activist group and think-tank with an affiliated lobbying organization. FRC promotes what it considers to be family values. It opposes and lobbies against: access to pornography, embryonic stem-cell research, abortion, divorce, and LGBT rights—such as anti-discrimination laws, same-sex marriage, same-sex civil unions, and LGBT adoption. The FRC has been criticized by media sources and professional organizations such as the American Sociological Association for using "anti-gay pseudoscience" to falsely conflate homosexuality and pedophilia, and to falsely claim that the children of same-sex parents suffer from more mental health problems.
The American Family Association (AFA) is a conservative and Christian fundamentalist 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States. It opposes LGBT rights and expression, pornography, and abortion. It also takes a position on a variety of other public policy goals. It was founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon as the National Federation for Decency and is headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi.
The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) was an American conservative Christian organization. It was founded in 1980 at Anaheim California by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon to oppose LGBT rights. Sheldon's daughter, Andrea Sheldon Lafferty, was initially the executive director and presently serves as president. TVC was influential in the 1980s and 1990s in lobbying for government policy based in Christian fundamentalism.
The Family Research Institute (FRI), originally known as the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS), is an American socially conservative non-profit organization based in Colorado Springs, Colorado which states that it has "...one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy, and drug abuse". The FRI is part of a sociopolitical movement of socially conservative Christian organizations which seek to influence the political debate in the United States. They seek "...to restore a world where marriage is upheld and honored, where children are nurtured and protected, and where homosexuality is not taught and accepted, but instead is discouraged and rejected at every level." The Boston Globe reported that the FRI's 2005 budget was less than $200,000.
"Gay agenda" or "homosexual agenda" is a pejorative term used by sectors of the Christian religious right as a disparaging way to describe the advocacy of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual sexual orientations and relationships. The term originated among social conservatives in the United States and has been adopted in nations with active anti-LGBT movements such as Hungary and Uganda.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is a United States coalition that promotes Christian right values internationally. It opposes divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, while supporting a society built on "the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage". WCF comprises organizations in several countries, and most of its member partners are strongly active campaigners against abortion rights and same-sex marriage. WCF was formed in 1997 and is active worldwide, regularly organizing conventions. Its opposition to gay marriage and abortion has attracted criticism.
MassResistance is an American organization that promotes anti-LGBT and socially conservative positions. The group is designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in part for claims linking LGBT people with pedophilia and zoophilia, and claims that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth were created by homosexual activists to normalize and "lure" children into homosexuality.
Scott Douglas Lively is an American activist, author, and attorney, who is the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, an anti-LGBT group based in Temecula, California. He was also a cofounder of Latvia-based group Watchmen on the Walls, state director of the California branch of the American Family Association, and a spokesman for the Oregon Citizens Alliance. He unsuccessfully attempted to be elected as the governor of Massachusetts in both 2014 and 2018.
The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society is a socially conservative U.S. think-tank and advocacy group that opposes abortion, divorce, and homosexuality, promoting instead the "child-rich, married parent" family.
The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) is a right-wing United States-based advocacy group, founded in 1997, in order to affect policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. It was formerly known as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. The 501(c)(3) organization is anti-abortion and anti-LGBT.
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) is a socially conservative advocacy group of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals in the United States, founded in 2002. The group advocates against abortion rights and rights for LGBT people, and promotes conversion therapy. As of 2022, its membership has been reported at about 700 physicians.
Bryan Jonathan Fischer is the former Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association (AFA). He hosted the talk radio program Focal Point on American Family Radio and posted on the AFA-run blog Instant Analysis.
Peter LaBarbera is an American social conservative activist and the president of the anti-gay organization Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH).
Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) is an organization which describes its mission as "exposing the homosexual activist agenda". AFTAH rejects the idea that sexual orientation is innate and believes that people can "leave the homosexual lifestyle". AFTAH contends that there is a fundamental conflict between gay rights and religious freedom. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated it as an anti-LGBT hate group.
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) is a Christian organization based in Tinley Park, Illinois. Founded in 1990, its stated mission is "upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois", and it is affiliated with the American Family Association. The organization's legislative arm is the 501(c)(4) lobbying group Illinois Family Action, founded in 2010. The organization's executive director is David E. Smith, who in 2006, succeeded Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.
Parents Action League (PAL) is a citizens organization started in 2010 to oppose changes in the Anoka-Hennepin (Minnesota) School District 11 policy which limited discussions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues in district classrooms. PAL's roots go back as far as 1994, when one of its most-vocal members, Barb Anderson, successfully influenced the school district's board to exclude homosexuality from its sex-ed curriculum.
Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment (HOME) is an American pro-heterosexuality, anti-homosexuality organization founded by Wayne Lela and based in Downers Grove, Illinois. The organization's aim is "to use science, logic, and natural law to expose all the flaws in the arguments homosexuals use to try to justify homosexual activity". The organization has been designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center "based on their propagation of known falsehoods".
SaveCalifornia.com is an American conservative activist group founded in 1999 by Randy Thomasson as part of Campaign for Children and Families (CCF). The organization is active in influencing public policy on various social issues, and has opposed California's FAIR Education Act.
Family Watch International (FWI) is a fundamentalist Christian lobbying organization. Founded in 1999, the organization opposes homosexuality, legal abortion, birth control, comprehensive sex education, and other things that it regards as threats to the divinely ordained "natural family." It has a strong presence in Africa, where it promotes conservative policy and attitudes about sexuality through its United Nations (UN) consultative status.