Homophobia, Ideology or Money Making Scam?

by pinkagendist

Westboro Baptist Church Protester

According to the February 17th edition of the Christian Post, religious groups spend 400 million dollars per year in Washington lobbying. They account for 1000 lobbyists living in the DC area alone.
Some of these groups unfortunately focus on a very limited platform that is almost exclusively about persecuting and marginalizing the LGBTQ community and/or limiting contraception and women’s reproductive rights.

Here are some of the biggest and most pernicious:

-The American Family Association has an annual budget of US$14 million and owns 180 American Family Radio stations in 28 states
-Focus on the Family has a budget of approximately 150 million per year.
-Exodus International has an annual budget of 1 million per year
-Concerned Women for America operates with a 10 million per year budget
-Coral Ridge Ministries: 65 million per year
-The Family Research Council spends 14.2 million per year

Now you see, all that money could be used to help the 1.6 million homeless children in America. It could be used to feed the hungry, it could be used to treat the ill, it could be used to offer better education to the poor, it could be used to research cancer, it could be used to improve people’s lives- but instead, it’s used to ensure tax-paying gay citizens do not have the right to sign a legal contract which gives the two signatories certain obligations and guarantees certain rights.

In the prop. 8 campaign in California the religious right wasted 40 million dollars. I wonder what real good that money could have done. But wondering is no use, because I know this isn’t a phenomena that’s likely to end. Throwing fuel on the flames of hatred is a money-maker, it’s what makes possible the donations that account for the mega-budgets of hate groups and mega-salaries of the founders and directors of those groups. Imagine making a living without the need for any sort of qualifications, all you have to do is pick a victim, repeat some junk-science and myths, and line your pockets.

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