Focus on the Family

Rep. Michele Bachmann will join Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the biggest religious right event of the year. The Sept. 18 Values Voter Summit, hosted by Focus on the Family and several other groups opposed to gay rights, generates controversy just about every year it’s held. In 2006, a speaker decried “faggots” and a gay-rights movement [...]

James Dobson’s Focus on the Family announced Wednesday that it’s cutting 75 jobs due to a decrease in profits and donations, according to the Denver Post. The organization, which works to prevent expanded rights for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, has cut more than 40 percent of its workforce over the last year. [...]

Minneapolis pastor John Piper seems to have sprouted the idea that God sent a tornado to the Minneapolis Convention Center last Wednesday to express his displeasure that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was considering relaxing its teachings on LGBT issues. But his statement has blossomed among theologians and members of the religious right chiming in with their own answers to the question: Did God send the Minneapolis tornado because Lutherans were voting on gay issues?

The Internal Revenue Service’s investigations into alleged tax violations by two Minnesota-based churches have been thwarted by procedural problems. Those cases highlight the special tax-exempt status churches receive under federal law, but also problems at the IRS. While reforms are underway, the religious right is planning to take advantage of a neutered IRS by encouraging a mass law-breaking day when churches endorse candidates from the pulpit.

Focus on the Family, James Dobson’s anti-LGBT empire and the largest organization in the religious right, announced earlier this week that it would be selling off its ex-gay therapy program called “Love Won Out.” The organization says it’s part of an effort to downsize in the wake of record profit losses of nearly $6 million. [...]

The religious right is ramping up its campaign against health care reform, even joining with the “tea party” movement to encourage conservative Christians to swamp town hall meetings. Minnesota’s religious right leaders say that the health care reform package is against God’s plan for health care and that Christians should go to community forums and “read them the riot act.”

Considered by many to be the nation’s most influential evangelical leader, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson is stepping down after founding the organization more than 30 years ago. The Associated Press learned on Friday that Dobson would be relinquishing his spot as chairman of the evangelical Christian organization, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. Dobson [...]

The religious right’s favorite bogeyman, Hollywood, brought out the fury Sunday evening when Milk, a film about murdered gay man Harvey Milk, won two Oscars including Sean Penn for Best Actor. The fact that the film had been in consideration at all prompted anti-gay protesters outside the Kodak Theatre, but it was the acceptance speeches that really got the religious right worked up.

Sen. Norm Coleman’s record of opposing abortion rights as well as opposing benefits for same-sex couples has garnered him the support of the religious right’s most influential figure: James Dobson of Focus on the Family. The PAC for Focus on the Family is sending out mailers in Minnesota criticizing Al Franken and praising Coleman. The mailer also gives lukewarm support to Sen. John McCain and rails against Sen. Barack Obama.

It must have seemed an attractive idea at the time. But a much-heralded push to organize mass violations of an IRS ban on political endorsements in churches seems to be attracting few takers. And the IRS has already pledged to review complaints about any churches that do participate.