Liberty Counsel’s Deep Network of Far Right Faith and Influence
The Christian legal group representing Kim Davis in the new push to overturn gay marriage is affiliated with a number of organizations that influence key American institutions.
Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing Kim Davis’ latest push for the Supreme Court to overturn gay marriage, wants to reshape American society in a far-right Christian image—one in which LGBTQ people are excluded. They’ve been fighting LGBTQ rights for years, from Lawrence v. Texas to Proposition 8 to Obergefell. Along the way, they’ve claimed that gay people “know intuitively that what they are doing is immoral, unnatural, and self-destructive” and that they are “not controlled by reason,” but rather by “lust.”
While the brunt of their work focuses on right-wing litigation, their efforts don’t stop there.
An Uncloseted Media investigation has uncovered that Liberty Counsel operates as an umbrella organization that has either founded or heavily supported a large network of affiliated organizations working to pursue far-right Christian politics by influencing key American institutions.
“What I compare it to are gears in a machine, and each one serves a different purpose,” Anne Nelson, author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” told Uncloseted Media.
These groups use education to spread far-right Christian doctrine, they galvanize churches to become activist hubs and they work behind the scenes to influence Supreme Court justices and other government officials.
All of these groups, many of which are frequently referred to as “ministries,” share the enthusiastic support of Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver and the common goals of fighting against LGBTQ rights, cracking down on abortion, influencing American law and politics and more.
“This array of ‘ministries’ reflects the varied fronts in the religious right’s war against LGBTQ Americans and our freedom,” says Peter Montgomery, research director at People for the American Way, an advocacy group aimed at challenging the far right. He says that this network strategically works in tandem to drum up support among congregations and conservative women and to influence American media, courts and schools.
To make sense of these dizzying connections, we spoke with key experts…
… and we dug into the group’s that are part of Liberty Counsel’s expansive network. Here’s what we found about each of them:
1. Liberty Counsel Action
Liberty Counsel Action is a companion to Liberty Counsel. While the two groups are formally distinct and have slightly different leadership, Mat Staver is chairman for both groups, and they have very similar website architecture. The primary distinction is that Liberty Counsel is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, a designation for religious and charitable organizations, while Liberty Counsel Action is a 501(c)(4), a designation for social welfare groups. While the designations are similar, donations to 501(c)(3) organizations are tax-deductible, but the groups cannot endorse or donate to political campaigns. Meanwhile, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations are not tax-deductible, but they can donate to and endorse candidates.
.jpg){kind=link}
Montgomery says it’s a fairly common strategy for organizations to maintain different groups like this. While Liberty Counsel is able to bring in more money due to tax incentives for donors, Liberty Counsel Action can freely engage in political advocacy.
Some of the group’s campaigns include fighting the Equality Act and calling for Congress to investigate pro-Palestinian student organizations. One of their initiatives this year has been drafting “Abortion in Our Water,” a report that outlines how abortion pills are polluting U.S. water supplies, a claim that environmental scientists have rejected. They’re also currently pushing for Republicans not to “cave to the Schumer Shakedown,” a nickname they’ve used for the ongoing government shutdown
For more direct political action, Liberty Counsel Action also had a super PAC which spent nearly $70,000 on opposing Barack Obama’s reelection.
Montgomery says having these different branches allows Liberty Counsel to achieve more diverse control in politics and the law.
“Some of [their goals] they can achieve through the courts, some of it is gonna be through political advocacy. So then you start an advocacy affiliate, and then you start a PAC because you want to elect people who can help you get this vision of the country,” he says.
2. Faith and Liberty
Founded in 1995, Faith and Liberty—originally named Faith and Action—is a Washington, D.C. based Christian ministry that has historically courted Supreme Court justices and other government officials behind closed doors. The group’s former president, Rev. Rob Schenck, decided to leave the Christian right in 2016 after the movement’s embrace of then-candidate Donald Trump compounded his growing doubts about the ideology.
“MAGA I don’t even define as Christianity anymore,” Schenck told Uncloseted Media. “It’s an apostasy—it’s a defection from the Christian faith. It is, in fact, the diametric opposite of what Jesus taught and modeled.”
Schenck says that the group would host dinners, prayers and other meetings with conservative politicians and Supreme Court justices including Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the late Antonin Scalia, where they would encourage the justices to adopt more radical rhetoric and policies.
“We would tell [the justices] over and over again: The people love you when you are bold and uncompromising and unapologetic, so be strong—we are with you, we’re behind you,” Schenck says, adding that his former organization was internally nicknamed the “Ministry of Emboldenment.”
Other activities of the ministry included outreach to young people at colleges and youth programs with an eye toward recruiting future right-wing political and judicial figures. This included hosting events and offering internships for conservative teenagers in the U.S. Capitol.
Schenck says attendees of these events would discuss how the federal government works, “meet the conservative justices, sit in on cases relevant to our Christian conservative agenda, and attend lectures about the judicial branch sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society.” Schenck says he later saw many of these individuals in the Capitol, and that the group encouraged their federal judge contacts to prioritize graduates from conservative Christian universities for clerkships and other staff positions.
While Schenck intended to dismantle Faith and Action following his shift in beliefs, he allowed the group to be acquired by Liberty Counsel in 2018 after pressure from the board and donors.
In 2022, Rolling Stone reported that Schenck’s successor—Peggy Nienaber—was caught on a hot mic bragging about praying with Supreme Court justices prior to their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which cited a brief filed by Liberty Counsel. Staver told Rolling Stone that these allegations are “entirely untrue.”
Schenck says Nienaber—who was his deputy when he led the company—always had a great ability to get into rooms with America’s key lawmakers.
“Peggy was very good at what she did, and she was particularly skilled at gaining access to people who had all kinds of defensive measures to protect them from the public … or from people that they did not want to entertain,” he says. “It would shock me if Mat [Staver] did not deploy her for those purposes, and I do know she had well-established relationships inside the Supreme Court, certainly inside … the Republican sides of both houses [of Congress].”
In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel says, “Mat Staver has not spoken to Rob Schenck since 2017, and he has no knowledge of what Peggy Nienaber does and what she does now is vastly different than what she did when she worked for him. … It is preposterous to think a Supreme Court Justice can be influenced. We have no such agenda. We do litigate in the courts and have been successful at all levels by advocating for correct legal principles.”
3. The Salt and Light Council
The Salt and Light Council trains U.S. pastors on how to start a “Biblical Citizenship Ministry” at their churches. These ministries are meant to encourage congregations to engage in politics to “defend and promote life, natural marriage, [and] our constitutional and religious liberties.” The group was founded in 2008 by Dran Reese, and it became a ministry of Liberty Counsel in 2013. While the group now appears to operate independently, Staver remains chairman of its board.
Pastors who sign up to start a Biblical Citizenship Ministry pick someone from their congregation to lead it, send them to attend The Salt and Light Council’s trainings and then receive two topics a week to bring to their congregants, with the group also promising legal support from Liberty Counsel for these pastors.
Salt and Light chapters, which now exist at over 120 churches and synagogues in 30 states, are frequently active in anti-LGBTQ activism: Reese has been caught spreading false stories about sexual harassment by trans girls in bathrooms, and the group has fought to protest Drag Queen Story Hours and cancel LGBTQ-friendly book fairs.
Perhaps most influentially, the group is a part of the Remnant Alliance, a Texas-based coalition of far-right Christian groups that have been collaborating to swing school board elections and implement policies such as LGBTQ book bans across the state.
Montgomery says the group’s decentralized model allows them to operate on a surprisingly efficient budget.
“[It] doesn’t have a huge budget, doesn’t have a huge staff, because it’s mostly about encouraging local churches to start their own chapters and do their own thing,” he says. “The council provides them with resources, like brochures on issues or voter guides.”
4. We Impact the Nation (WIN)
Founded in 2005 as Women Impacting the Nation, this group is a project of Boca Raton-based conservative activist Sue Trombino. Prior to its rebranding to We Impact the Nation in 2024, the group became a project of Liberty Counsel for a few years beginning in 2011.
During this time, Liberty Counsel sponsored WIN’s annual conference called “For Such a Time as This,” featuring scripture readings and baptism and offering renewed commitments to faith and service.
As recently as September, WIN distributed copies of “Take Back America,” a book written by Staver that argues that “God is the foundation of good government and national prosperity” and that “we need God in America again.”
Today, the group hosts talks, conferences and local chapter meetings with the goal of activating women to be conservative activists. They are most active in Southeast Florida, where they host monthly meetings and were a significant player in the campaign which defeated a constitutional amendment that would have protected abortion in the state.
The group has also historically been active in spreading anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, advocating for bathroom bans as early as 2013, arguing against conversion therapy bans, and calling for funding to be cut to groups that disobey Trump’s executive orders against “gender ideology.”
5. Covenant Journey Academy
Covenant Journey Academy is an online K-12 school that incorporates Christianity into its curricula. Founded by Staver and launched by Liberty Counsel in 2023, the group targets parents who want to homeschool their kids and is billed as an alternative to “woke” public schools. The academy is now accredited in its home state of Florida and is even eligible for a state scholarship program.
Each of the academy’s courses features what they call “Biblical Integration.”
One Bible class for middle schoolers called Lightbearers promises that students will “learn how to apply their Christian faith to every area of life and study” and covers topics such as “abortion, apologetics, cults, evolution, feminism, homosexuality, naturalism, moral relativism, pluralism, relationships, and socialism.” Staver has promoted Covenant Journey Academy as a way for parents to avoid “LGBT propaganda” and “LGBTQ grooming.”
6. New Revolution
New Revolution is a publishing service owned by Liberty Counsel that helps produce media for Christian organizations.
The group has published a book depicting foundational sex researcher Alfred Kinsey as a “mad scientist” and “pervert extraordinaire;” and Kim Davis’ memoir, which they say “goes behind the scenes to reveal how God gave this unlikely candidate a platform to defend marriage and religious freedom.”
In February, they advertised their services to other far-right groups at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention.
7. National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC)
NHCLC is an organization that represents Hispanic Christian churches, with 18 chapters across the country. While this group has never been formally controlled by Liberty Counsel, they maintain close ties: Staver sits on the board, the groups frequently collaborate on projects, and in 2014, Liberty Counsel described itself as the NHCLC’s “legislative and policy arm.”
The organization and its founder, Samuel Rodriguez, have been some of the most influential voices in building support for Trump and the Republican Party among Latino voters, as well as in defending the administration’s recent immigration crackdowns. Rodriguez’s connections are particularly deep, having served as a faith advisor in the White House under George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Now, as a member of Trump’s White House Faith Office, Rodriguez told the New York Times that he and other faith leaders have “unprecedented access” to political power. Throughout this time, he has opposed marriage equality and protections for LGBTQ immigrants.
8. Covenant Journey
Covenant Journey is a ministry of Liberty Counsel which hosts Christian-focused religious tours of Israel. Some have compared the organization to a Christian version of Birthright, a program that takes non-Israeli Jewish people on tours of the country.
Liberty Counsel initially began hosting these “holy land tours” in 2011 under a different group called Liberty Ambassador Counsel, which was founded following a conversation between Staver and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “with the goal of strengthening [participants’] Christian faith and equipping them to be goodwill ambassadors for Israel.”
By 2014, they rebranded to Covenant Journey, and after winning a fight for control of the project over pro-gay Republican businessman Paul Singer, they have hosted the tours since then.
The group’s website says the tours are “only for Christian college-age students who (1) have leadership potential and (2) have some level of support for or interest in Israel.” They include visits to multiple sites of Biblical significance in East Jerusalem and parts of the Palestinian West Bank, which the International Court of Justice argues is illegally occupied by Israel.
Covenant Journey promises that the tours will include “expert briefings from Israeli leaders in government, national security, and technology.” Some alumni of the trip include Republican political strategist and former Matt Gaetz staffer Luke Ball and Republican Florida politicians Jennifer Sullivan and Gavin Rollins.
Kaell says that holy land tours organized by Christian groups are mutually beneficial: The Israeli government gets more tourism to boost public relations among U.S. Christians, while the Christian groups use the tour sites as living proof of the events described in the Bible, thus reinforcing their religious, political and social beliefs.
9. Christians in Defense of Israel
Christians in Defense of Israel was founded by Ed Hindson, the late televangelist and dean of Liberty University’s School of Divinity, and have said they have 90,000 supporters. The group focuses on pro-Israel advocacy and became a ministry of Liberty Counsel in 2014 when Hindson had a “sincere desire to expand [his group’s] influence.”
The group’s activities center on publishing pro-Israel media and organizing marches and other events. They gained attention in 2017 for producing a 13-part TV series called “Why Israel Matters.” They’ve also made booklets like “Why Islamists Hate Israel” and “Big Lies: Answers to the Top 10 Slanders, Smears and Libels against Israel.” They continue to publish regular opinions about the Middle East to their website, where they frequently advocate against the recognition of Palestinian statehood.
They’re currently pushing for legislation that would prohibit “official United States documents and materials” from using the name “West Bank,” and for Israel to re-conquer Gaza.
They’ve also organized recent major protests against the International Court of Justice’s genocide trial over Israel’s attacks on Gaza since 2023, and they have maintained ties with the Israeli government, with Staver meeting Benjamin Netanyahu as recently as February.
In his writings on Israel, Hindson, who passed away in 2022, has argued that the Bible should be interpreted to understand a Jewish Israel as crucial to the end times. Kaell says that this ideology, which some scholars refer to as Christian Zionism, has been increasingly influential among the evangelical right, and that its theological basis often leads supporters to have more radical views than many Jewish Zionists.
In emails to Uncloseted Media, representatives of Covenant Journey and Liberty Counsel say that Hindson “is not part of the Christians in Defense of Israel ministry.”
“We should always be aware that [their support] is always ambivalent, because it’s only if the state of Israel or if Jews do what those Christians think they should be doing in order to further the Christian need and narrative,” Kaell says. “Their vision will align with some Israelis who also believe God promised this land, as in what is today Palestine on the West Bank. … So [they] don’t just support Israel all the time, they’re supporting certain policies and things happening within Israel.”
10. Liberty Relief International
Liberty Relief International is a charity ministry focused on “helping persecuted Christians throughout the world.” The group was founded in 2014 to support Christian relief efforts in response to ISIS’ invasion of Iraq, and they have persistently spread anti-Islam rhetoric. A 2015 press release positioned their goal as “helping the victims of Islam”; a more recent one was titled “The Worst Persecution Worldwide Takes Place in the Name of Islam”; and a third was titled “A Horrific Peek into the Minds of Islamists.”
Kaell says that spreading rhetoric about the persecution of Christians abroad allows right-wing evangelical groups to promote the belief that Christians are persecuted in the U.S. as well, a belief that Liberty Counsel espouses, which helps fuel their attacks on LGBTQ rights and other far-right targets.
“Over the last 20 years or so, there’s a lot of this idea that white evangelical men are the most persecuted of Americans, and that they are being stifled, and that they are not being given their due, and that something’s being taken away from them,” Kaell says. “What feeds into this narrative is the idea that evangelical Christians elsewhere are also persecuted, so that white evangelicals in the United States are one of a larger global set of persecuted Christians.”
Additional Groups
Liberty Prayer Network is a prayer-focused ministry started by Liberty Counsel in 2013. Headed by Maureen Bravo, the network hosts weekly international prayers for the success of Liberty Counsel and the goals of the Christian right.
Uncloseted Media also found documents for The Best Foundation, an organization whose stated purpose is “to support Liberty Counsel, Inc. … by making grants in support of Liberty Counsel, Inc.’s exempt activities.” The group does not list any actual grants it has made, and their only visible activity is that they hold partial ownership of Gulf Medical Holdings, LLC, the company of inventor Vance Shaffer.
Covenant Journey, Liberty Relief International, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, The Salt and Light Council, Covenant Journey Academy, We Impact the Nation, and Faith and Liberty did not respond to requests for comment. Liberty Counsel Action did respond only to confirm that they no longer operate Liberty Action PAC.
Additional reporting by Sam Donndelinger.
If objective, nonpartisan, rigorous, LGBTQ-focused journalism is important to you, please consider making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Resource Impact, by clicking this button:
A great story! Thank you!
Thank you for this info. As a Christian by my own accord, my parents didn’t “make” me go to church, I sought my faith as a young girl going to youth groups, where we actually had community programs where us less fortunate got to play, meet friends, go to camps, go to field trips. I know the message was clear to learn about God. But I never came across a church that forced me into anything, luckily, because I know it can get bad. When we have a separation of church it protects us from people who preach their Christian’s when highly likely their message is insincere, and I believe the founding fathers and every generation that followed also took notice that not all who preach are honest. So I appreciate this article because it deeply pains me how people can turn God into profit and send a much different message than the one I learned growing up. It’s absolutely scary that we will continue to have abuse of power in religion to the end of time. No one is ever held responsible for this abuse until it is too late.