Pray Vote Stand, the Family Research Council’s annual conference for religious-right activists,convenes in Washington, D.C. this week. Formerly known as the Values Voter Summit, this year’s gathering features Christian nationalist speakers and Republican politicians and offers attendees an opportunity to get trained to run for their local school board, a major focus of right-wing groups looking to build political power and mobilize conservative voters in 2024.
Another Pray Vote Stand sponsor promoting school board takeovers is the Colorado-based Truth & Liberty Coalition, which is offering a breakout session on “changing the culture through the local church.” The Truth & Liberty Coalition is the creation of dominionist and Christian nationalist leaders Andrew Wommack, Lance Wallnau, David Barton, and others.
The Family Research Council is an anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ, advocacy organization that in 2020 sought and received IRS status as a church with its president Tony Perkins as its religious leader, an inherently dishonest strategy that other religious-right organizations have employed to shield themselves from scrutiny and oversight. Right Wing Watch reported in 2018 that Focus on the Family, another large religious-right nonprofit that once housed FRC, had convinced the IRS to allow it to classify itself as a church.