[16][17] AFA has been listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)[10] since November 2010 for the "propagation of known falsehoods" and the use of "demonizing propaganda" against LGBTQ people.

[17] Chief among its efforts were to promote the recognition of Christmas in seasonal print advertisements; the criminalization of homosexuality,[22][23][24] and censorship of television programming;[25][better source needed] and to oppose same-sex marriage, as well as equal-rights and hate-crime legislation that would include sexual orientation and gender identity among the protected categories.

[26][27][28] and advocating The AFA has a history of activism by organizing its members in boycotts and letter-writing campaigns aimed at promoting socially conservative values in the United States.

These organizations include: 7-Eleven, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Airlines, American Girl, Blockbuster Video, Burger King, Calvin Klein, Carl's Jr., Chobani, Clorox, Comcast, Crest, Ford, Hallmark Cards, Hardee's, Kmart, Kraft Foods, S. C. Johnson & Son, Movie Gallery, Microsoft, MTV, Paramount Pictures, Time Warner, Universal Studios, DreamWorks, Mary Kay, NutriSystem, Old Navy, IKEA, Sears, Procter & Gamble,[32] Target, Walt Disney Company, and PepsiCo.

[43] In 2003, the AFA, with the American Decency Association, Focus on the Family, and Citizens for Community Values, lobbied and boycotted Abercrombie & Fitch, calling on "A&F to stop using blatant pornography in its quarterly catalog".

[38][47][48] After meeting with representatives of the group, Ford announced it was curtailing ads in a number of major gay-themed publications, due not to cultural but to "cost-cutting" factors.

In October 2008, AFA announced the end of its boycott following the declaration to be "neutral on same-sex marriage or any 'homosexual agenda' as defined by the American Family Association" by McDonald's in a memo to franchisees.

The series explains the AFA's position against the drive towards political correctness, and how various factors, such as hate crime laws and other discriminatory actions, are threatening the Christians' existence.

[65] Wildmon has been accused of saying that he believes Hollywood and the theater world are heavily influenced by Jewish people, and that television network executives and advertisers have a genuine hostility towards Christians.

AFA sent out an "Action Alert" to its members to email, write letters, or call their senators to oppose the Hindu prayer, stating it is "seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god.

[7][85][86] On the October 11, 2005, AFA broadcast, Tim Wildmon agreed with a caller that cable networks like Animal Planet and HGTV featured "evidence of homosexuality and lesbian people" and added that "you have to watch out for children's programs today as well because they'll slip it in there as well.

[90] The AFA's founder, Don Wildmon, was "instrumental" in initially setting up the Arlington Group, a networking vehicle for social conservatives focusing on gay marriage.

[91] In 2012, the group started and then backed off from a failed campaign against the hiring of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson for department store chain J. C.

[93] At a taping of her show, DeGeneres informed her audience of the fizzled effort: "They wanted to get me fired and I am proud and happy to say J. C. Penney stuck by their decision to make me their spokesperson.

After protests from the public, including celebrities Ellen DeGeneres and William Shatner, Crown Media reversed their decision and stated they would reinstate the ads.

[101] In 2015, the organisation officially repudiated views of former director of issues analysis Bryan Fischer, including the claim that black people "rut like rabbits"; that the First Amendment applies only to Christians; that Hispanics are "socialists by nature" and come to the U.S. to "plunder" the country; that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian, and that "Homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.

"I was surprised that they completely lied about what Mix It Up Day is", Maureen Costello, the director of the center's Teaching Tolerance project, which organizes the program, told The New York Times.

"[111] In October, Bryan Fischer was taken off air during a CNN interview with Carol Costello for repeating his belief that "Hitler recruited homosexuals around him to make up his Stormtroopers.

[122] In March 2013, Fischer compared homosexuality to bank robbery when Senator Portman announced his views on same-sex marriage had changed due to having a gay son.

[132] In order to avoid being categorised as a hate group by Israel, the AFA issued a press release denouncing some of Fischer's views, rejecting his claim that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian, and stating: "AFA rejects the statement by Bryan Fischer that, 'Homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.'

In 2007, Bryan Fischer, former Director of Issues Analysis for the AFA,[137] hosted Scott Lively at an event promoting the message that "homosexuality was at the heart of Nazism".

"[143] In 2013, Fischer claimed that "Homofascists" will treat Christians like Jews in the Holocaust[144] and later that year he repeated on American Family Talk that Hitler started the Nazi party "in a gay bar in Munich"[142] and that he "couldn't get straights to be vicious enough in being his enforcers.

234-99 "calls for the Religious Right to take accountability for the impact of their long-standing rhetoric denouncing gays and lesbians, which leads to a climate of mistrust and discrimination that can open the door to horrible crimes such as those committed against Mr. Gaither"[148] and Resolution No.

[147] In 1998, multiple organizations voiced criticism of a series of AFA-sponsored full-page newspaper advertisements that promoted religious ministries involved in the ex-gay movement.

[159] The gay rights website GoodAsYou.org, which "has long chronicled the AFA's practice of changing AP copy to suit its conservative agenda", spotted the errors.

[166] The Southern Poverty Law Center, in a 2005 report, stated that the AFA, along with other groups, engaged in hate speech to "help drive the religious right's anti-gay crusade".

[174] J. Matt Barber of The Washington Times said that the SPLC was "marginalizing" themselves by giving the AFA the same hate group designation shared by the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

[175] Tony Perkins, the president of Family Research Council (FRC) – an organization also named a hate group – asked the SPLC to strike the new designation, but they held their position.

[178] The advertisement stated the "undersigned stand in solidarity" with the organizations designated as hate groups, and that they "support the vigorous but responsible exercise of the First Amendment rights of free speech and religious liberty that are the birthright of all Americans".

[180] Jillian Rayfield of Talking Points Memo noted the irony in the website calling the SPLC a "radical Left" group "spreading hateful rhetoric" yet elsewhere declaring that the debates of the Christian right "can and must remain civil – but they must never be suppressed through personal assaults that aim only to malign an opponent's character".