The Religious Right in America is lavishly funded and politically
well connected. While the men who lead the fundamentalist Christian
political movement hold different opinions about theology, they share a
deep and abiding hostility to the separation of church and state. They
seek to inject religion into public schools, obtain taxpayer funding
for religious schools and other ministries, roll back reproductive
choice and deny civil rights to gay people. And they enjoy
extraordinary influence in Washington, D.C., and in many state
legislatures.

What follows is a survey of some of the nation’s leading Religious
Right organizations. Collectively, these groups raise more than
three-quarters of a billion dollars annually, the bulk of it
tax-exempt. Budget figures are from public tax documents and are the
most recent available, in most cases from 2009 and 2010.

The Pat Robertson Empire

Christian Broadcasting Network

Budget: $295,140,001

Location: Virginia Beach, Va.

Regent University

Budget: $60,093,298

Location: Virginia Beach, Va.

American Center for Law and Justice:

Budget: $13,375,429

Location: Virginia Beach, Va.

Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism

Budget: $43,872,322

Location: Atlanta, Ga.

TV preacher Pat Robertson has for many years overseen a sprawling
Religious Right empire that includes a global television network, a
university and an influential right-wing legal outfit. Robertson’s
flagship operation, “The 700 Club,” is a daily television program that
mixes news, faith healing, Christian lifestyle features and Religious
Right politics. He calls church-state separation a “myth” and a “lie of
the left.” Despite his extreme views, Robertson remains well connected
with the GOP power structure in Washington, and congressional leaders
and presidential candidates often appear on his show. House Speaker John
Boehner, for example, gave an exclusive interview in February.

Religious Right attorney Jay Sekulow runs the American Center for
Law and Justice (ACLJ), a legal group founded by Robertson in 1991.
Sekulow’s Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, the ACLJ under a
different name, serves a similar purpose. The combined annual budget
for both entities exceeds $55 million.

Regent University was originally founded to offer graduate degrees
in areas Robertson most wants to dominate: government, education, law,
communications, psychology and ministry. It now offers undergraduate
degrees as well (many of them online) and has a satellite campus in
Alexandria, Va., a Washington, D.C., suburb.

The Falwell Empire

Liberty University

Budget:$395,898,255

Location: Lynchburg, Va.

Jerry Falwell Ministries

Budget: $4,208,989

Location: Lynchburg, Va.

Liberty Counsel

Budget: $1,371,795

Location: Orlando, Fla., and Lynchburg, Va.

The late Jerry Falwell, a television evangelist and founder of the
Moral Majority, was a pivotal figure in the history of the Religious
Right. Falwell died in 2007 and left his religio-political empire in
the hands of his two sons, Jerry Jr. and Jonathan. Falwell Jr., who
serves as chancellor of Liberty University, has followed in his
father’s footsteps by advancing a partisan political agenda. In
December of 2007, Falwell issued an e-mail on university letterhead
endorsing Mike Huckabee for president. In 2009, he used university
resources to engineer the defeat of the Democratic member of the House
of Delegates who represented the Lynchburg area.

In April of this year, Liberty hosted “The Awakening,” a conference
that featured former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and U.S. Rep. Michele
Bachmann (R-Minn.), alongside Religious Right activists.

Liberty has experienced huge growth and now has an active online
learning component. Despite Falwell’s anti-government rhetoric, Liberty
students receive nearly half a billion dollars in federal aid every
year.

Jonathan Falwell serves as pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church and oversees the remnants of his father’s TV ministry.

Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group originally founded
by Mat Staver and based in Orlando, Fla. It is now a part of the
Falwell enterprise and operates in conjunction with the Liberty
University Law School, where Staver is dean.

Family Research Council/FRC Action/FRC Action PAC

Combined Budget: $14,569,081

Location: Washington, D.C.

The Family Research Council has become the nation’s top Religious
Right group in Washington, D.C. Led by former Louisiana state
representative Tony Perkins, the FRC seeks to merge fundamentalist
Christianity with government. It opposes individual reproductive
freedom, engages in gay bashing and lately has sought to join forces
with the Tea Party to create a massive, far-right phalanx.

The FRC is so extreme that this year it was designated a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Perkins has a checkered political past. In 1996, while managing the
U.S. Senate campaign of Louisiana state legislator Woody Jenkins, he
paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and notorious white supremacist
David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list. In 2001, Perkins addressed the
Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white
supremacist organization that grew out of the White Citizens Council.

Despite FRC’s unsavory reputation, the group sponsors an annual
“Values Voter Summit” that draws leading GOP congressional figures and
presidential hopefuls.

FRC maintains an “action” arm with a 501(c)(4) tax status that
enables it to be more directly political. It also funnels money to
candidates through a political action committee.

American Family Association

Budget: $21,408,342

Location:Tupelo, Miss.

Originally formed to advocate for censorship of racy TV shows, the
American Family Association has branched out and now covers a range of
Religious Right issues. The group was founded by the Rev. Donald
Wildmon, a Methodist minister, and was originally called the National
Federation for Decency. It advocated boycotts of companies that
advertised on programs it considered salacious.

Wildmon has now turned day-to-day operations of the group over to
his son, Tim. An AFA staffer, Bryan Fischer, has become notorious for
making outrageous statements. Fischer calls church-state separation a
“myth” and an invention of Adolf Hitler. He believes that the First
Amendment protects only Christians and members of other faiths receive
religious liberty as a courtesy. The AFA is stridently anti-gay and is
the leading group promoting the Religious Right’s phony claim of a “war
on Christmas.” It continues to boycott companies that refuse to buckle
under to its demands.

The AFA has underwritten a series of “pastor policy briefings” in
Iowa, California, Texas and other states intended to organize
fundamentalist churches into a potent political machine.

The group says it owns and operates nearly 200 radio stations across the country.

Alliance Defense Fund

Budget: $30,127,514

Location:Scottsdale, Ariz.

Formed by a group of TV and radio preachers in 1993, the Alliance
Defense Fund was conceived as a funding pool for organizations that
worked in the courts to promote theocratic views and undermine
church-state separation. After a few years, the organization began
engaging in direct litigation and formed a network of sympathetic
attorneys nationwide.

ADF President Alan Sears says there is no such thing as church-state
separation in the Constitution and that the bricks in the church-state
wall are being removed “one by one.” The organization attacks public
education and opposes legal abortion and gay rights.

Outside of court, the ADF has worked to lure evangelical churches
into a vast right-wing political machine. It sponsors “Pulpit Freedom
Sunday,” a ploy to openly defy federal tax law by encouraging pastors
to endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit. (While the ADF claims
to be nonpartisan, all the project’s participating clergy in 2008
endorsed Republican John McCain or opposed Democrat Barack Obama.)

Focus on the Family

Budget: $130,258,480

Location: Colorado Springs, Colo.

Focus on the Family was founded by child psychologist James Dobson
to advocate for “biblical” solutions to family problems. Although it
poses as a family-oriented ministry, the group has always been
political. Vociferously opposed to church-state separation and secular
government, the massive fundamentalist ministry has a worldwide
presence.

Dobson, who has since retired from the group, remains an influential
radio broadcaster and has authored several books. He still appears on
the air daily with his son, Ryan. Dobson frequently attacks
church-state separation and once said “The separation of church and
state is not in the Constitution.”

FOF’s current president is Jim Daly. Although Daly said he wanted to
tone down some of the ministry’s harsh attacks on gays and others,
much far-right political content remains. FOF has a network of 35 state
“family policy councils” that lobby in the state capitals.

Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

Budget:$3,236,000

Location: Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.

The lobbying arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the
nation’s largest Protestant denomination, takes stands virtually
identical to the Religious Right. Southern Baptists claim 16 million
members. The SBC’s government action office presses for
school-sponsored religion, tax aid to religious schools, reductions in
gay rights, limits on legal abortion and other far-right social issues.
Commission President Richard Land has stated, “When we convince a
majority of Americans that we are right, that’s not called a theocracy,
that’s called the democratic process.”

Although many Baptists have historically supported church-state
separation, the SBC in the early 1980s became the target of a takeover
by Religious Right-style fundamentalists. Once in power, this bloc
began endorsing various proposals to merge church and state (such as a
school prayer amendment to the Constitution). Land works hand in glove
with Religious Right organizations to promote a theocratic agenda.
Despite the denomination’s tax-exempt status, he openly meddles in
Republican Party politics.

Traditional Values Coalition

Budget: $9,888,233

Location: Anaheim, Calif.

Founded originally to work on “culture war” issues in California,
the Traditional Values Coalition eventually expanded to become a
national organization. Known for its gay bashing and attacks on Islam,
TVC claims to work with 43,000 churches nationwide. The group was
founded by the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, who once said, “A dangerous
Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition has formed – and we’d
better be willing to fight it with everything in our power.”

In 2000, Sheldon accepted money from gambling interests connected to
lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Sheldon, whom one lobbyist referred to as
“Lucky Louie,” told Religious Right activists he was blocking the
spread of legalized gambling, although the lobbying firm he was working
for was actually trying to spread internet-based gambling.

Sheldon’s daughter, Andrea Lafferty, serves as TVC executive
director. She is as partisan and as shrill as her father. When
Democratic Party officials announced that U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz (D-Fla.) would become party chair, Lafferty pounced.

“Way to go DNC,” Lafferty snarled in a press release. “You found the
candidate who best fit your profile for DNC Chairman: a junkyard dog
who is mean, nasty, shrill, able to screech at a moment’s notice,
aggressive, and of course able to manipulate the facts and always
uncompromising.”

Coral Ridge Ministries

Budget: $17,263,536

Location: Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Coral Ridge Ministries was founded by D. James Kennedy, a TV
preacher who died in 2007. Stridently fundamentalist and far-right on
the political spectrum, Kennedy insisted that separation of church and
state is not in the Constitution and was known for his attacks on
evolution.

Coral Ridge also produced a number of books, DVDs and pamphlets
attacking church-state separation. It was known for insisting that
America was founded to be a “Christian nation.” Since Kennedy’s death,
the ministry has continued pumping out right-wing political material.
Its website looks more like a far-right political site than a portal to
a ministry.

Today the operation is run by Kennedy’s daughter, Jennifer Kennedy
Cassidy. Jerry Newcombe serves as host of Kennedy’s program, “The Coral
Ridge Hour.”

Faith & Freedom Coalition

Budget: Unavailable

Location: Duluth, Ga.

The Faith & Freedom Coalition is a relatively new Religious
Right group founded by Ralph Reed, former executive director of the
Christian Coalition. The organization already has developed enough
clout to sponsor an Iowa forum for would-be Republican presidential
candidates in March of 2011.

Reed, who became a political consultant after leaving the Christian
Coalition, formed the group after his attempt to launch a political
career in Georgia collapsed when his ties to disgraced casino lobbyist
Jack Abramoff became an issue and after writing an unsuccessful
political thriller called Dark Horse.

Although the Coalition is of modest size now, the group is just
getting started. Reed’s proven ability to organize the Religious Right
faithful and raise money make this an organization to watch.

During his time with the Christian Coalition, Reed was known for his
intemperate, often violent, imagery. (He once bragged about leaving
political opponents in “body bags.”) Time has not mellowed him. During
the March forum, Reed discussed the possibility of “replacing the
government by force.”

The line is apparently part of Reed’s stock speech. He also used it
at an earlier gathering of Tea Party activists, telling the crowd,
“[W]e have not only the right, but the moral obligation to overthrow
that government by force if necessary, and form a new government that
will protect our rights.”

WallBuilder Presentations/WallBuilders

Budget: $1,091,531 (plus proceeds from a for-profit arm)

Location: Aledo, Texas

WallBuilders is an organization founded by David Barton, a Texan who
makes his living promoting bogus “Christian nation” history to
fundamentalist groups. Barton insists that church-state separation is a
myth and was never the intention of the founders. He markets books,
DVDs and other materials that promote this view and speaks in
fundamentalist churches and other venues.

Barton helped rewrite Texas’ social studies standards, which
downplay church-state separation and elevate the “Christian nation”
view. Barton does not have a degree in history (his degree, from Oral
Roberts University, is in Christian Education), but he poses as a
historian.

Despite his lack of legitimate academic credentials, Barton’s
profile has increased recently due to a number of appearances he made
on the Glenn Beck program on Fox News Channel. Time magazine in 2005
named him one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals in America.

Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential
aspirant, is a huge Barton fan. Addressing a Religious Right gathering
earlier this year, Huckabee opined that all Americans should be forced
“at gunpoint…to listen to every David Barton message.”

The budget figures for WallBuilder Presentations are somewhat
misleading. This organization is a small non-profit Barton runs – but
he makes most of his money through a separate organization called
simply WallBuilders. This group, which is a for-profit business, is not
required to make its financial statements publicly available.

Concerned Women for America

Budget: $11,772,009

Location: Washington, D.C.

Formed more than 30 years ago to counter the growing women’s rights
movement, Concerned Women for America claims to be the largest women’s
organization in the country. The organization, founded in 1979 by Tim
LaHaye and his wife Beverly, focused originally on opposing passage of
the Equal Rights Amendment.

When that issue became less prominent, the group began taking on
other matters, such as opposing gay rights and legal abortion as well
as attacking alleged “secular humanism” in public schools. In 1984, the
group sponsored a legal challenge brought by a Tennessee woman who
claimed textbooks used in her child’s school promoted humanism. A
federal court initially ruled in favor of the woman, but the decision
was overturned on appeal.

In the 1980s, CWA even branched into international affairs,
launching a special project to attack Nicaragua’s Sandinista
government. Today, the group focuses mainly on opposing abortion, gay
rights and public education, although it often attacks the United
Nations and has increasingly engaged in Muslim bashing.

Like a lot of Religious Right organizations these days, CWA has been
adding fiscal issues to its agenda, demanding that government reduce
spending. Its current targets include Planned Parenthood, the National
Endowment for the Arts, Public Broadcasting and NPR.

Tim LaHaye went on to write a successful series of apocalyptic
pot-boilers called “Left Behind” and now lives in semi-retirement with
his wife. Although Beverly LaHaye is still listed as CWA’s chair, the
group’s president is now Wendy Wright. The organization claims 500,000
members.

It sponsors a legislative action committee that is a 501(c)(4)
organization and an allied political action committee that in 2010
spent nearly $300,000 endorsing conservative candidates

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story/150809/the_12_worst_%28and_most_powerful%29_christian_right_groups?paging=off