Time published an article documenting the Family Research Council's (FRC) annual “Watchmen on the Wall” conference, glossing over the anti-gay hate group's extreme positions.

In a May 30 story titled “Watchmen on the Wall: Pastors Prepare to Take Back America,” Time correspondent Elizabeth Dias offered a profile of FRC's annual “Watchmen on the Wall” conference. The article offered a one-sided depiction of FRC's  efforts “advocate for... Biblical values,” framing the group's struggle as an effort to fight back against a culture in which “religion is losing its public influence” (emphasis added):

[A group of 50] pastors had come to the nation's capital as part of the annual “Watchmen on the Wall” Washington briefing, a conference sponsored by the Family Research Council to connect pastors with policy makers and legislators and to encourage the pastors to advocate for those Biblical values FRC believes should be advanced in America.

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This year's briefing focused on defending the idea that marriage only should exist between a man and woman and on countering what many conservative Christians believe are widespread attacks on Christian religious liberty. “There is an all-out assault on Biblical marriage, with judges overturning the will of the vast majority of voters in some states [...] Religious organizations and Christian-owned businesses are being forced to provide insurance plans that cover abortions and abortion-inducing drugs or face fines and punishment...and the list goes on,” FRC president Tony Perkins wrote in a welcome letter to attendees. “It would appear that lawlessness has been unleashed upon our country and culture as we witness an unprecedented and outrageous abuse of power by governing authorities.”

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For many of them, the battle goes beyond politics: it is spiritual warfare. As senior FRC fellow E.W. Jackson preached to the gathering, the ACLU and the Foundation for the Freedom from Religion, in trying to stop Christian prayer at public events, represent a movement “not simply [of] human beings who disagree with us--it is demonic power moving to shut down the power of God.”

The article failed to note that the FRC is a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)-designated anti-gay hate group, owing to the malicious anti-LGBT rhetoric of FRC figures like FRC president Tony Perkins, who has endorsed a Ugandan bill that would have imposed the death penalty for homosexuality, asserted that gay people face “eternal damnation,” and compared gays with terrorists. Along with other FRC personalities, Perkins has accused gay men of preying on children and condemned efforts to curb anti-LGBT bullying as part of an effort to “recruit” children “into that lifestyle.”

Dias' piece was primarily framed in terms of what the FRC “believes,” but it's problematic when news outlets take anti-gay groups' appeals to Christianity at face value. Groups like FRC rightly deserve to be held accountable when they're profiled by national media outlets, and that includes informing readers about the anti-LGBT extremism that motivates their promotion of “Biblical values.”