Rep. Mark Pocan challenges the new narrative around the National Prayer Breakfast

Far-right MAGA Christians have already signaled that they’re fine with women and girls being forced to give birth to their rapists’ babies. And they’re more than okay with singing hosannas to a proud p-ssy grabber who made those forced-birthers’ wildest dreams come true in 2022. But they can’t—most of them, anyway—be copacetic with calls to literally kill LGBTQ+ people for existing, can they?

We live in a liberal democracy, after all. For now, anyway. And if you’re going to arrest Elton John for high crimes, it should be for that maudlin “Candle in the Wind” remake, not for being gay. 

And yet we now live in a country where a National Prayer Breakfast that was founded by a virulently anti-LGBTQ+ group—which may still have ties to the event—attracts politicians from both parties and people from all walks of life. And Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan, chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, has some lingering questions about it.

Last year, the annual National Prayer Breakfast—which takes place on the first Thursday in February—broke from its founding group and longtime sponsor, The Fellowship Foundation, popularly known as “The Family.” Why? Simply because it kept getting infiltrated by Russian spies, and organizers apparently supported making homosexuality a capital crime (in Uganda, not here—for now). And, needless to say, that made many Democratic lawmakers uneasy. 

But Pocan remains skeptical in the wake of this schism. In a new letter to Fellowship Foundation President Katherine Crane, the congressman, who is gay, is demanding answers. Noting The Family’s support for Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act—which criminalizes advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and allows the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”—Pocan asked The Fellowship Foundation to ‘splain itself.

At Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast in 2023, which the Fellowship Foundation helped support—including by flying in Rep. Tim Walberg to speak—speakers called LGBTQI+ advocates “a force from the bottom of Hell,” said they would “destroy” “the forces of LGBTQ,” and spoke in support of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

In addition, Rep. Walberg told the participants to “stand firm” in response to international pressure against Uganda, though he later said his statement was not in support of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, as imposing the death penalty against LGBTQI+ people is antithetical to Christian values. [Ugandan] President [Yoweri] Museveni later said at the breakfast that there are Americans who “think like us,” illustrating how proponents of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda point to certain American’s statements to justify their own support for this draconian law.

Domestically, there has also been significant concern about the Fellowship Foundation’s support for anti-LGBTQI+ causes. Last year, the U.S. National Prayer Breakfast was split into two events because of concerns over the Fellowship Foundation’s involvement. Questions, however, have continued to be raised about the Fellowship Foundation’s continued involvement with the National Prayer Breakfast despite this split.

Indeed, it’s The Family’s potential continued involvement with the National Prayer Breakfast that seems particularly concerning to Pocan. In his letter, Pocan asks Crane to respond to a list of questions involving the group’s stance on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act, any support it may be lending to virulent homophobes in Uganda or elsewhere, and The Family’s current ties to the National Prayer Breakfast.

While the group is no longer officially the event’s sponsor, questions were raised last year about The Family’s lingering connections to the breakfast following the split.

The Washington Post, Jan. 26, 2023:

[Freedom From Religion Foundation] President Annie Laurie Gaylor told [Religion News Service] in an email that her organization welcomes the changes, but said, “it does look as though the creation of a new entity to sponsor the prayer breakfast is essentially a subterfuge, because the folks running the NPB Foundation are all connected with the Fellowship.”

[...]

In a statement to RNS, [author Jeff] Sharlet pointed to reporting showing how, among other things, the board of the new foundation includes many people with ties to the International Foundation.

As Sharlet, who wrote 2009’s “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,” told The Post, “Any step toward reducing this mostly off-the-books weeklong lobbying festival is good news. On the other hand, the change appears largely cosmetic.”

Of course, cosmetic makeovers are dandy if you’ve been wearing the wrong color palette for your complexion, but these folks would presumably reject the “Queer Eye” guys’ help—and, regardless, you can’t possibly trowel enough pancake makeup on a Republican to hide an ugly, homophobic heart. 

Significantly, The Family—which was profiled in an eponymous 2019 Netflix docuseries—has, according to Sharlet and others, for decades acted behind the scenes and under the radar to influence American politics.

That influence persists: Since 1953, no sitting president has ever skipped it, and President Joe Biden will attend again this year. So it’s understandable that Pocan wants answers about The Family’s current connections to the National Prayer Breakfast and its founders’ apparent support of draconian anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives around the globe.

Because if American conservatives are really against the death penalty for gay people, and would prefer to live in a liberal democracy where everyone’s constitutional rights are preserved and protected, now would be a great time to say so—loud and proud. It really shouldn’t be too much to ask. Then again, lots of things that used to be spoken only in hushed, conspiratorial tones are just blurted out these days.