National
Family Research Council remains in federal charity program
‘Government is assisting hate groups with obtaining donations’
The Family Research Council, led by Tony Perkins, is part of the Combined Federal Campaign, which facilitates donations made by federal employees to charitable groups. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has declined a request that it expel the anti-gay groups Family Research Council and American Family Association from a federal employee charitable giving program known as the Combined Federal Campaign or CFC.
OPM, which is headed by John Berry, an out gay man, responded to a request for the ouster of the two groups from the CFC by senior federal employee Gary Cunningham and other federal employees. Cunningham argued in a posting on the CFC’s Facebook page that the two organizations are designated as “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil rights organization.
“That basically means that the federal government is assisting hate groups with obtaining donations,” Cunningham said in his posting. “If you think this is outrageous, like I do, PLEASE write CFC and OPM and tell them to take them off.”
In a reply on the same Facebook page, OPM states, “All charities included in the CFC National Capital Area are vetted and approved by OPM. Each Charity must meet the federally-mandated requirements of the CFC.”
The OPM statement, which doesn’t identify the person posting it, adds, “The ideology of a charity is not considered. No federal tax dollars are provided to any charity through the CFC. Donors can select which CFC charities they wish to contribute to and exclude charities they do not want to support.”
Cunningham, joined by several other federal workers, made the request for removing the Family Research Council and the American Family Association from the CFC on grounds that the organizations were listed as hate groups at least two weeks before Herndon, Va., resident Floyd Lee Corkins II allegedly shot a security guard on Aug. 15 in the lobby of the Family Research Council building in downtown D.C.
D.C. police and the FBI said Corkins shouted words to the effect of “I don’t like your politics” seconds before shooting the guard in the arm, inflicting a non-life-threatening wound. Authorities said the guard wrestled the gun from Corkins, preventing him from gaining access to the upper floors, where he may have intended to kill FRC employees.
The following day, FRC director Tony Perkins accused the Southern Poverty Law Center of giving someone like Corkins a “license” to unleash a violent attack against FRC by improperly designating FRC and other organizations as hate groups.
Perkins’ comments triggered a national debate over whether organizations such as FRC should be designated as hate groups based on disagreements over their positions on public policy issues without evidence that they may be promoting or encouraging violence.
A Southern Poverty Law Center official strongly disputed Perkins’ accusation that the group created a climate that prompted Corkins to commit a violent act, saying the group has denounced violence throughout its 40 years of civil rights activism.
The Southern Poverty Law Center official said it designated FRC as a hate group not because of the positions it holds on issues, including its opposition to same-sex marriage, but because it relentlessly defames LGBT people by releasing false or misleading information that, among other things, links homosexuality to pedophilia.
With that as a backdrop, the request by Cunningham and other federal workers that OPM drop organizations listed as hate groups from the Combined Federal Campaign appeared to take on a greater significance.
The CFC bills itself on its website as the world’s largest charitable giving program. It says that in 2010 federal workers donated more than $281.5 million to charitable organizations in the U.S. and abroad. A federal advisory committee reviewing the CFC this year reports that in more than 50 years since the CFC was created, federal employees donated more than $7 billion to thousands of national and local charitable groups.
CFC rules posted on its website state that the main eligibility requirement for a group to become part of the CFC is it must first obtain a tax-exempt status from the IRS known as a 501 (c) (3) charity. Other requirements include certain financial accountability standards to ensure that most of the organization’s revenue obtained by donations goes to a charitable cause rather than to salaries and overhead expenses. Groups admitted to the CFC must also file an annual IRS 990 financial disclosure form that is available for public inspection.
“OPM does not consider a charitable organization’s political activity or viewpoint when making eligibility determinations,” said OPM spokesperson Brittney Manchester. “Giving to charities through the CFC is a matter of personal choice for federal employees, who have the option to ensure that their contributions go only to the specific charities they designate.”
Manchester said Family Research Council and American Family Association have participated in the CFC since 2004. She said OPM Director Berry, who took office in 2009, does not sign off on organizations approved for the CFC.
Leonard Hirsch, president of Federal GLOBE, an LGBT federal workers group, said he agrees with the OPM decision against expelling FRC and the American Family Association from the CFC.
“The rules of CFC, which protect the freedom of speech of any group, are also what protect LGBT groups for coming in,” Hirsch told the Blade.
According to Hirsch, LGBT charitable groups faced some opposition when they initially applied for and later were admitted into the CFC more than a decade ago.
“As much as I respect the Southern Poverty Law Center, and I do enormously, I’m not certain that they should be a screen through which a program like this is put,” Hirsch said. “While they have designated these groups as hate groups that is not the federal designation.”
Added Hirsch, “So do I like it that certain groups are there? No, and there are a whole number of groups that get money from the CFC that I don’t like. However, I support their right within the rules and the guidelines to be there.”
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote in a commentary in the Washington Post on Tuesday that the designation of the Family Research Council as a hate group is justified. Griffin said FRC’s long history of “claiming the mantle of ‘deeply held religious beliefs’” to propagate “lies that denigrate an entire group of people” supports the designation as a hate group.
However, a source familiar with HRC said HRC would not support expelling FRC and other groups from the CFC “because of the implications that it could have for pro-LGBT organizations in an unfriendly administration.”
Among the LGBT advocacy organizations participating in the CFC are Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD); International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Immigration Equality; National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).
Conservative religious-oriented advocacy groups participating in the CFC that oppose LGBT rights, in addition to the Family Research Council and American Family Association, include the 700 Club; Alliance Defense Fund; and Focus on the Family.
National
Man charged in Mall of America shooting plot inspired by Pulse massacre: report
Suspect exchanged hundreds of messages, pledged loyalty to ISIS
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, of Richfield, Minn., on Oct. 7 with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism. Mohamud allegedly planned to carry out a mass-casualty attack in support of ISIS, inspired in part by the Pulse nightclub massacre that took place on June 12, 2016 when then-29-year-old Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 58 – one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, and the deadliest targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a DOJ statement release, Mohamud was arrested on Oct. 6 by the FBI, which had arranged to sell him an AK-47 assault rifle, magazines, and ammunition through an undercover FBI employee. Mohamud was arrested shortly after paying $600 in cash and taking possession of those items; he reaffirmed his intention to shoot people at the Mall of America during the transaction.
“Mohamud allegedly sought to carry out a mass-casualty shooting at the Mall of America, expressing a desire to emulate some of the most horrific ISIS-inspired attacks in the United States, including the atrocities at Pulse Nightclub and 2025 New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg in the statement by the DOJ. “The National Security Division will continue to work closely with the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force to track down and prosecute ISIS-inspired terrorists in the United States.”
According to the complaint, beginning on or about December 2024, Mohamud had exchanged hundreds of messages through multiple social media and messaging apps with a confidential source, and expressed a desire to travel to Somalia to join a designated foreign terrorist organization to fight on their behalf.
The defendant stated many times that if he was unable to travel overseas because of a lack of funds, he planned to carry out a mass-casualty event in Minnesota in support of ISIS.
According to the DOJ, “In July 2026, Mohamud sent messages discussing his intent to carry out a mass-casualty shooting attack at the Mall of America because he claimed it was owned by Jews. He wrote that [he] wanted to kill 30 to 60 people so no one would go there.”
“During the course of his communications, Mohamud stated that he wanted to commit an attack similar to those of the Pulse Nightclub mass-shooting in Orlando, the Bondi Beach mass-shooting in Australia, and the New Year’s Day vehicle-ramming attack in New Orleans.”
This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Ryan White of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar for the District of Minnesota.
California
Calif. GOP gubernatorial candidate ad ‘disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy’
Activists, anti-LGBTQ religious leaders criticized Steve Hilton spot
Two women sit on a bed, a Pride flag hanging behind them. One is nervous; the other tells her to be calm and that she’ll do “all the work.” The music swells. The two hold hands and — fill out a ballot voting for Steve Hilton?
This is the new advertisement from the Hilton gubernatorial campaign that is drawing rebuke from both sides of the aisle, but for very different reasons.
Jorge Reyes Salinas, the communications director at Equality California, said the ad was an insult to the queer community.
“This ad is a disgusting attempt to exploit lesbian intimacy for political attention,” he said. The advertisement plays on media tropes that Salinas says “reduce lesbian and bisexual women … to sexual entertainment,” rather than showing them as well-rounded characters. “Any group of the LGBTQ+ community deserves the same dignity and respect as everyone else,” he said.
The ad is truly hyper-sexualized. It ends with one woman telling the other, “Now lick it.” The two pause and stare before she reveals an envelope to send the ballot, and large text pops up saying, “Just try it!”
Salinas characterized the ad as a desperate attempt to get attention from a candidate who is trailing far behind in the polls in heavily Democratic California. The Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra, who is endorsed by Equality California, holds a 25-point lead over Hilton according to recent polling by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Conservatives have also criticized the ad.
Influential evangelical Pastor Jack Hibbs thought the ad was distasteful and said, “lesbianism among college girls and some high school girls that right now is an actual pandemic of social ill.” Republican attorney general candidate Michael Gates said it undermines “the sanctity of the relationship between parents and their children.” This criticism is rather confusing because although the ad features two relatively young women, they both appear to be adults, not minors.
“The comments from Pastor Jack Hibbs should be criticized because there is nothing wrong with two women being attracted to each other,” Salinas said. “We’re calling out the ad’s stereotypes, while also rejecting the homophobia in the response to it … by other Republicans.”
The backlash from Hilton’s own party and supporters shows that an advertisement full of queer innuendo was ill-considered, considering the national GOP’s attacks on LGBTQ people in recent years. Hilton himself has been campaigning against transgender girls and women competing in school sports and using locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity. This context might be why Hilton’s political base responded to the ad just as poorly as the liberal voters he was attempting to court.
Hilton says the ad is part of a new series rolling out before Election Day, showing stereotypical California liberal archetypes voting for Hilton. He claims these ads are authentically filmed with real actors, as opposed to being A.I. generated, like many of his previous ads. One other advertisement has been released so far by the campaign showing a man at a spiritual retreat also being swayed to vote for Hilton, although it is notably absent of sexual innuendo.
Caleb Kaufman is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Los Angeles Blade. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
2026 Midterm Elections
Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate
President mocked Annie Andrews
President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur against Democratic South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews on Monday as he sought to rally support for Republicans in the state’s Senate race.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Andrews three times, referring to her as “trannie” while promoting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.)’s campaign.
Andrews is running against Graham for a Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.
Earlier this year, Graham was specially appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, who represented South Carolina in the Senate from 2003 to 2026.
Andrews, the Democratic nominee from the state, is a pediatrician that lives in Charleston with her three children. She told NBC News that she will “work with anyone to put South Carolina first.”
“As a mom and a pediatrician, I’m in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina,” Andrews said, adding that “lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together.”
Andrews used the attention from the president’s attack to emphasize what she described as a focus on policy issues rather than the culture wars that have dominated much of the political debate.
“If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you,” she added.
Trump’s remarks have drawn criticism from leaders on both sides of the aisle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump’s words Monday night on social media, calling his attacks on Andrews “despicable.”
“Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who’s always put her community first — and she’s exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate,” Schumer said on X.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, also criticized the president’s attack on Andrews, urging voters to “reject politics based on division and hate.”
“This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better,” Beasley wrote Monday night on X.
South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades.
Andrews’s campaign website does not mention her positions on LGBTQ issues.
The Washington Blade reached out to Andrews’s campaign for comment on Trump’s attack and her positions on transgender rights but did not hear back by time of publication.
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