Family Research Council facts for kids
Logo of Family Research Council
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| Founded | 1983 |
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| Founder | James Dobson |
| Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit organization |
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Area served
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United States |
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Key people
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Revenue
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$12,065,844 (2016 FY) |
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Employees
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85 |
| 2016 FY Tax Return | |
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: embryonic stem-cell research, 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 claim that the children of same-sex parents suffer from more mental health problems.
FRC was formed in the United States in 1981 by James Dobson and incorporated in 1983. In the late 1980s, FRC officially became a division of Dobson's main organization, Focus on the Family; however, after an administrative separation, FRC became an independent entity in 1992. Tony Perkins is its current president. FRC is affiliated with a lobbying PAC known as FRC Action, of which Josh Duggar was the executive director from 2013 until 2015.
The FRC is active outside of the United States; in 2010, FRC paid $25,000 to congressional lobbyists for what they described as "Res.1064 Ugandan Resolution Pro-homosexual promotion" in a lobbying disclosure report. Uganda would go on to pass the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a bill which would have imposed either the death penalty or life imprisonment for intimate relations between persons of the same sex. On 1 August 2014, however, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the act invalid on procedural grounds.
In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center classified FRC as an anti-LGBT hate group due to what it says are the group's "false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science" in an effort to block LGBT civil rights. In 2012, the FRC's headquarters were attacked by a gunman, resulting in an injury to a security guard, in connection with this designation.
Contents
History
The Council was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1983. James Dobson, Armand Nicholi Jr., and George Rekers were some of its founding board members. In 1988, following financial difficulties, FRC was incorporated into Focus on the Family, and Gary Bauer joined the organization as president. FRC remained under the Focus on the Family umbrella until 1992, when it separated out of concern for Focus' tax-exempt status. Tony Perkins joined FRC as its president in 2003.
On June 18, 2013, Josh Duggar was named executive director of FRC Action, the non-profit and tax-exempt legislative action arm of Family Research Council. Duggar resigned his position on May 21, 2015.
Politics, policies and positions
Tony Perkins has blamed the constitutional separation of church and state for encouraging the rise of ISIS and similar Islamic extremist groups.
The FRC has opposed efforts to make the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine mandatory for school attendance. HPV is a virus that can cause cervical cancer. FRC defends its position on the basis of the rights of parents and because of its support for abstinence prior to marriage.
It supports a federal conscience clause, allowing medical workers to refuse to provide certain treatments to their patients. It also advocates for abstinence-only sex education, intelligent design, prayer in public schools and the regulation of indecent programming on broadcast and cable television. It opposed the expansion of civil rights laws to include gender identity as illegal bases for discrimination.
Family Research Council supports the requirement of a one-year waiting period before a married couple with children can legally get a divorce so that they can receive marital counseling, unless the marriage involves domestic violence. FRC also supports permanently eliminating the marriage penalty and estate taxes.
The Council opposes stem-cell research which involves the destruction of human embryos and funding thereof. (It advocates for research solely using adult stem cells.) It opposes legal recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships in the form of marriage or civil unions. It formerly opposed all forms of gambling. The Council has questioned whether humans are mainly or completely responsible for climate change, and has opposed other evangelicals who accepted the scientific consensus on it.
Statements on homosexuality
The FRC maintains that "homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed", and asserts that it is "by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects." The Council also asserts that "there is no convincing evidence that a homosexual identity is ever something genetic or inborn". These positions are in opposition to the consensus of mainstream psychological and medical experts that homosexuality is a normal, healthy variation of human behavior.
Certain FRC statements and positions have been criticized by its opponents as based upon pseudo/junk science; according to Wired, the group has misrepresented data and mis-designed sociological studies in order to negatively depict LGBT people.
FRC also states that "[s]ympathy must be extended to those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attractions, and every effort should be made to assist such persons to overcome those attractions, as many already have".
In 2017, at the council-sponsored Values Voter Summit, a tote bag was distributed to all attendees that included a copy of a flyer entitled "The Health Hazards of Homosexuality" written by MassResistance, which the SPLC has also designated as a hate group.
Same-sex marriage cases
The FRC, on January 28, 2013, issued an amicus brief in support of the Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act cases before the Supreme Court, arguing for the court to uphold DOMA banning federal recognition of same-sex unions and Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California. On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Windsor that the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally discriminated against gay and lesbian couples, and in Hollingsworth v. Perry that Proposition 8's proponents had no standing to defend the law, leaving in place a lower-court ruling overturning the ban.
Publishing and lobbying activities
Family Research Council is a member of ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition formed to sponsor California Proposition 8 to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples only, which passed in 2008 (but was later struck down as unconstitutional by a federal court in California).
Justice Sunday
Justice Sunday was the name for three religious conferences organized by FRC and Focus on the Family in 2005 and 2006. According to FRC, the purpose of the events was to "request an end to filibusters of judicial nominees that were based, at least in part, on the nominees' religious views or imputed inability to decide cases on the basis of the law regardless of their beliefs."
Values Voter Summit
Every fall, FRC Action (the political action group affiliated with FRC) holds an annual summit composed for conservative Christian activists and evangelical voters in Washington, D.C. The summit has been a place for social conservatives across the nation to hear Republican presidential hopefuls' platforms. Since 2007 a straw poll has been taken as a means of providing an early prediction of which candidate will win the endorsement of Christian conservatives.
Ugandan Resolution
In 2010, FRC paid $25,000 to congressional lobbyists for what they described as "Res.1064 Ugandan Resolution Pro-homosexual promotion" in a lobbying disclosure report. The US House of Representatives resolution condemned the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a bill which, among other things, would have imposed either the death penalty or life imprisonment for intimate relations between persons of the same sex.
Following exposure of the lobbying contribution in June 2010, FRC issued a statement denying that they were trying to kill the bill, but rather that they wanted to change the language of the bill "to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right." They further stated, "FRC does not support the Uganda bill, and does not support the death penalty for homosexuality – nor any other penalty which would have the effect of inhibiting compassionate pastoral, psychological, and medical care and treatment for those who experience same-sex attractions or who engage in homosexual conduct". The Ugandan Resolution was revived by Uganda's President Museveni in 2012. On 1 August 2014, however, the Constitutional Court of Uganda ruled the act invalid on procedural grounds.
The FRC used one of Museveni's speeches in an e-mail to its supporters praising Uganda's commitment to Christian faith and "national repentance" around the time that he reintroduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
List of presidents
- Gerald P. Regier (1984–1988)
- Gary Bauer (1988–1999)
- Kenneth L. Connor (2000–2003)
- Tony Perkins (2003–present)
See also
In Spanish: Consejo de Investigación Familiar para niños
- Christian Coalition of America
- Christian right
- Christian Voice (United States)
- LGBT rights opposition
- Moral Majority
