On June 13th, the Feminist Majority Foundation, joining other national women’s rights, religious, lesbian/gay/bisexual, and domestic violence organizations, condemned the hidden agenda of the all-male, religious right organization, the Promise Keepers. “Some reactionary male want-to-be-patriarchs — the so-called Promise Keepers — are preaching to football stadiums of men that men must resume their rightful place at the head of their household,” said Alice Cohan, Feminist Majority Foundation Director of National Programs, “The submission of women is at the core of all these attacks on women’s rights and is a backlash to the changed role of women in every facet of our society.”
“Despite their best attempts to hide an anti-women, anti-abortion agenda, one must only examine the major leaders and funders of the Promise Keepers’ movement to uncover their real goals. Their empires have been built on misogyny, not ‘brotherly love.’ Pat Robertson, the religious right media mogul and founder of the Christian Coalition, provides major coverage of the Promise Keepers through the 700 Club. James Dobson, whose organization Focus on the Family is one of the largest religious right entities in the country, kept Promise Keepers afloat financially in the early years. Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade for Christ empire has lent at least 85 full-time staffers to Promise Keepers’ national headquarters in Colorado. Another leading supporter is Gary Bauer, head of the anti-abortion and anti-lesbian/gay Family Research Council,” said Cohan.
Serving as Promise Keepers National Spokesperson is Mark DeMoss of the DeMoss family, whose foundation pours millions of dollars into religious right causes including the anti-abortion Life, What A Beautiful Choice advertisements. Finally, there is Bill McCartney, former football coach and founder of Promise Keepers. McCartney is militantly opposed to women’s reproductive freedom, and has been a featured speaker at events of the anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue. During an Operation Rescue rally, which was trying to close a local women’s clinic, McCartney declared that abortion had become ‘a second Civil War.’
