Ralph Reed

Ralph Reed founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition, or FFC, in 2009. Reed was Pat Robertson’s former protégé who galvanized the Christian Coalition before it was undone by corruption and his questionable partnership with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Reed has resurrected his career with the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which he deems a “21st-century version of the Christian Coalition,” designed to unite and mobilize evangelical and Tea Party voters to form a powerful and effective Christian-conservative voting bloc.

Reed promised his supporters that in 2012, the Faith and Freedom Coalition would “register an estimated one million new faith-based voters and make tens of millions of voter contacts in what may be the largest conservative get-out-the-vote effort in modern political history.” As stated on its website, one of the organization’s goals is to “influence legislation and enact sound policy at every level of government.”

Another stated goal of the organization is to “protest bigotry and discrimination against people of faith.” Yet at its recent annual conference, the Faith and Freedom Coalition featured CSP’s Frank Gaffney, who gave a talk on “Defeating Terrorism and Jihad” featuring co-panelists and frequent allies Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News and David French of the American Center for Law and Justice, both employees of Pat Robertson’s vast evangelical empire. At the conference, Gaffney suggested “it is certainly possible we’d have a Muslim flag flying over the White House,” and hoped FFC would “take up the fight against Shari’ah.”

FFC's 2014 conference "Road to Majority," featured many of the architects and amplifiers of the Islamophobia network such as Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), former Rep. Allen West (R-FL), radio show host Mark Levin, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.