This investigative newsletter features regular reporting on the activities of anti-democratic groups and political and religious trends. Premier issue, April 2000. (order)
The Federalist Society and the Challenge to a Democratic Jurisprudence. January 2001 (43 pages) $15.Targeting the courts, the law schools, and the American Bar Association, the Federalist Society has emerged as an increasingly powerful coalition of conservative and libertarian legal activists developing broad-based challenges to fundamental principles of constitutional law. Federalist Society leaders include Ted Olson, Robert Bork, Ed Meese, and Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch. With 15 practice groups spanning every area of the legal system from civil rights and religious liberties to corporations law and telecommunications, with a presence in 140 law schools across the nation, and backed by millions of dollars from leading right-wing and libertarian foundations, the Federalist Society is quietly and successfully shaping the emerging jurisprudence. (order)
This briefing paper profiles five organizations that are using affirmative action as a wedge issue in order to promote a broader, anti-diversity agenda. These organizations are: the American Civil Rights Institute, the Center for Equal Opportunity, the Center for Individual Rights, the Institute for Justice, and the Civil Rights Practice Group of the Federalist Society. The efforts of these groups threaten racial and gender justice and the broad consensus surrounding diversity in America. (order)
Priests for Life: A New Era in Antiabortion Activism. April 2001 (28 pages) $15.Update and expanded report on Priests for Life (PFL). The Vatican-supported PFL is emerging as a leader within the U.S. antiabortion movement. While Fr. Frank Pavone, international director of PFL, presents a moderate face to the public, he and his organization endorse illegal activities and are linked to extreme elements in the antichoice movement. This report highlights the leadership and structures behind this growing and influential group. (order)
This briefing paper profiles three leading international organizations that seek to roll back reproductive rights and health care provision for women. Human Life International, the Population Research Institute, and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute are examined, along with new developments in the global networking of the wider religious right, as exemplified by the Second World Congress of Families, held in Geneva in 1999. (order)
A study of five conservative, antifeminist women's groups: the Ecumenical Coalition on Women and Society, Christians for Biblical Equality, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the Independent Women's Forum, and the Women's Freedom Network. Exploring their leadership, funding bases, political ties, goals, and initiatives, this paper demonstrates that these groups constitute a potent and growing force. (order)
Background on one of the largest anti-abortion rights organizations in the U.S., the American Life League (ALL), its leaders and various divisions. The report is a response to ALL's opening of two offices in Mexico and its growing activism and cadre recruitment in that country. (order)
(Six-video set) Religious Fault Lines in American Democracy (Approx. 12 hours) $10 per tape, $55/set.This groundbreaking public lecture series on new developments of the religious right, held at Union Theological Seminary in the spring of 2001, is now available on high-quality videotape. Capturing the impassioned and eloquent speeches of such national and religious leaders as Welton Gaddy, James Lawson, Ellie Smeal, and Beverly Harrison, this six-part series is a valuable educational tool for churches, classrooms, and personal education. (order)
An in-depth study of the right-wing currents within the Presbyterian Church, complete with more than 600 footnotes. The report details the efforts of these currents to gain influence in the church through wedge issue campaigns against women, gays and lesbians, and the church's broader social justice tradition. The report begins with conservative currents in the 1930s and traces their evolution to the founding of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and other contemporary organizations. Preface by Anne Hale Johnson, Chair of the Board of Union Theological Seminary. Foreword by The Reverend Dr. Robert W. Bohl, former moderator of the church. The report was researched by IDS Religion and Democracy Program Associate Dr. Lewis C. Daly, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary. (order)
Important background to the anti-gay ecclesiastical trials that took place in the fall of 1999 within the Presbyterian Church (USA). In the trials, driven by the rightist Presbyterian Coalition, conservatives attacked holy union ceremonies for gay couples and sought to enforce the church's ban on gay ordination. (order)
An expose of the plan by the Presbyterian Coalition, the key alliance of rightist factions within the Presbyterian Church (USA), to take over the church, purge its more liberal elements, and turn it into a conservative evangelical denomination. (order)
This report explores the leadership, financial backing, organizational structure, and political strategy of the conservative men-only religious revival network, Promise Keepers, which preaches submission of wives to their husbands. The report explodes a series of myths about the organization and exposes its anti-democratic agenda. (order)
This powerful documentary is a companion to the written report of the same title. (order)
This video features fascinating and disturbing interviews with leaders and members of women's groups whose goal is the submission of women to male authority. (order)
