Anti-gay activists cited in a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center include (clockwise from top) James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association; Gary Bauer, president of American Values; and Pat Buchanan, a political commentator and founder of American Cause. (Photos by AP)
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MORE INFO Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
334-956-8200 www.splcenter.org
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2003 that remaining sodomy laws in 13 states were unconstitutional, gay right advocates celebrated one of their largest victories to date in the quest for equality.
But that decision, Lawrence v. Texas, also fueled a large and growing conservative religious movement dubbed “the anti-gay industry” by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, according to Jason Cianciotto, research director for the Policy Institute at the Task Force.
The Lawrence decision, coupled with the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, prompted the religious right to point to the “homosexual agenda” and prompt more virulent anti-gay attacks, said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Montgomery, Ala.-based organization’s recent edition of its quarterly magazine, the Intelligence Report, chronicled the history of anti-gay messages from religious conservatives in a cover story titled, “Holy War: The Religious Right’s Crusade Against Gays Heats Up.”
“Their tone [against homosexuality] has become quite amazing after the Lawrence decision,” said Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report. “What was really striking was while the Klan and neo-Nazis spoke out against the Lawrence decision, the really vicious statements came from well-known leaders of the Christian right.”
After sodomy laws were thrown out and gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, religious right organizations, including the Alliance Defense Fund and Atlanta-based American Vision ratcheted up fund-raising efforts and poured millions of dollars into TV, newspaper and radio ads as part of last year’s successful campaigns to ban same-sex marriage in 13 states, including Georgia.
“They profit from homophobia,” Cianciotto said. “They are using anti-gay rhetoric to line their own pockets. They are the modern-day snake oil salesmen.”
Brandon Vallorani, a spokesperson for American Vision, a group dedicated to Christian Reconstructionism that includes supporting the death penalty for homosexuals, declined to be interviewed. But he added that the Southern Poverty Law Center was “sadly mistaken” for listing American Vision as a hate group.
‘Bailiwick is extremism’
Gay rights organizations such as the Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal have long been tracking anti-gay groups, including Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council. But now the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization known for monitoring hate groups including the Ku Klux Klan, labels them as extremist groups.
Attorneys Morris Dees and Joe Levin founded the center as a small civil rights firm in 1971 in Montgomery, Ala. The organization continues to monitor white supremacist groups as well as the rise of anti-immigration sentiment and other extremist activity. The center never in its 34-year history took aim at the religious right before now, but the rising volume of the national debate over gay marriage puts such groups in the limelight, Potok said.
“Our bailiwick is extremism,” he said. “We’ve avoided the Christian Right in the past, and we don’t feel we’ve expanded to include the Christian Right — we feel very strongly they have entered our world [of extremism].
‘Anti-gay industry’
These organizations represent some of the most influential anti-gay groups operating today, according to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Alliance Defense Fund
Scottsdale, Ariz. www.alliancedefensefund.org
In 1993, a coalition of 35 Christian Right groups founded the Alliance Defense Fund to combat gay-rights victories in the courts. Key founders included D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association and James Dobson of Focus on the Family.
The ADF trains other attorneys “to battle the radical homosexual legal agenda” in free, week-long National Litigation Academies, whose participants commit to “provide 450 hours of pro bono legal work on behalf of the Body of Christ.”
In 2000, the ADF helped defend the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on openly gay scoutmasters, which was upheld by a narrow 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court.
American Family Association
Tupelo, Miss. www.afa.net
Best known for leading boycotts of advertisers in the mass media, including Disney, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and Ford. Its leader is Rev. Donald Wildmon, a former Methodist minister who has led a series of religious-right groups since 1976.
The American Family Association includes a 200-station radio network, about 100 employees and a monthly “AFA Journal” sent to 180,000 people, largely on the basis of anti-gay appeals.
AFA has 21 state directors, including California’s Scott Lively, co-author of “The Pink Swastika,” a book that claims “homosexuals are ...
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