Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins (b. 1963) became president of the Family Research Council in 2003, succeeding Gary Bauer. Perkins had served in the Louisiana House of Representatives (1996–2004) and had a background in law enforcement and military service. His arrival at FRC marked a shift from Bauer's primarily policy-focused leadership toward more explicit cultural and political warfare. In 1996, Perkins managed Woody Jenkins's U.S. Senate campaign. According to a Federal Election Commission conciliation agreement, former Klan leader David Duke recommended a phone-bank vendor, Impact Mail; Perkins signed its contract; and the campaign paid it $82,500 through its media firm, disguising the vendor on its disclosure reports. The campaign admitted the false reporting and paid a $3,000 civil penalty. Perkins has said he did not initially know of Duke's connection to the vendor. The SPLC documented the payment as part of its case for FRC's hate group designation. Under Perkins, FRC: 1. Expanded its annual Values Voter Summit into the flagship event of the evangelical-Republican political calendar, drawing Republican presidential and congressional candidates as speakers every year. 2. Maintained and defended FRC's publications linking homosexuality to pedophilia, disease, and social pathology despite the SPLC's 2010 hate group designation, which FRC rejected as an attack on its beliefs. 3. Became one of the primary institutions coordinating evangelical voter mobilization for Republican candidates, including the Trump campaign. 4. Expanded FRC's state policy council network — affiliate organizations in roughly 40 states that advance FRC's legislative priorities at the state level. 5. In 2020, obtained IRS reclassification of FRC as a 'group of churches,' ending its public Form 990 filings. Perkins has argued consistently that America was founded as a Christian nation and that Christian principles should govern American law and public life. His relationship with Trump: Perkins was a member of Trump's evangelical advisory board during the 2016 campaign and has maintained a close relationship with Trump's political operation. He was a consistent Trump defender through the Access Hollywood tape controversy and the subsequent Trump administration. In the Trump era, Perkins has been one of the most reliable institutional voices arguing that evangelical Christians must support Trump as a matter of Christian civic duty. FRC's 2020 church reclassification is significant: church status exempts it from filing the public Form 990, so its finances are no longer publicly disclosed. Forty House Democrats asked the IRS to review the designation in 2022.

Themes this entry appears in

• Anti-LGBTQ
• Christian Nationalism
• Political Strategy
• Anti-Democratic

Connections from Tony Perkins

• influenced → Family Research Council (2003) — Tony Perkins became FRC president in 2003 and has led it continuously through the SPLC's 2010 hate group designation (which FRC rejected), through the Trump era evangelical mobilization, and through FRC's 2020 reclassification as a 'group of churches' under IRS rules, which ended its public financial disclosures. Under Perkins, FRC became the most operationally central organization of the anti-LGBTQ Religious Right establishment.

Sources

• Democrats call on IRS to review Family Research Council's 'church' status — Religion News Service (via ChurchLeaders) (2022)
• Conciliation Agreement, MUR 4872 (Jenkins for Senate 1996 and Woody Jenkins) — Federal Election Commission (2002)
• The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart (2020), pp. 90–115
• Anti-Gay Groups — Southern Poverty Law Center (2010)
• Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation — Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020), pp. 240–265