Family Research Council
The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American evangelical 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.
Logo of Family Research Council | |
| Founded | 1983 |
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| Founder | James Dobson |
| Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit organization |
Tax ID no. | 52-1792772 (EIN) |
| Location |
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Area served | United States |
Key people |
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Revenue | $12,065,844 (2016 FY) |
Employees | 85 |
| Website | frc |
| 2016 FY Tax Return | |
| This article is part of a series on |
| Conservatism in the United States |
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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 sexual 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.