[27][28] On August 15, 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins II, a resident of nearby Herndon, Virginia, entered the lobby of the FRC's Washington, D.C. headquarters with a 9mm pistol and two magazines with 50 rounds of ammunition.

[33][34][35] Politico reported that "Corkins was carrying 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches that he intended to smear on employees’ faces in a political statement, he told the FBI.

"[48] Potok posted that "The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people — not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage.

"[49] Tony Perkins has blamed the constitutional separation of church and state for encouraging the rise of ISIS and similar Islamic extremist groups.

[51] It supports a federal conscience clause, allowing medical workers to refuse to provide certain treatments to their patients, such as abortion or birth control.

[52][53] It also advocates for abstinence-only sex education, intelligent design, prayer in public schools and the regulation of pornography and other "obscene, indecent, or profane programming" on broadcast and cable television.

[56] It opposed the expansion of civil rights laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity as illegal bases for discrimination.

[57] Family Research Council supports the requirement of a one-year waiting period before a married couple with children can legally get a divorce so that they can receive marital counseling, unless the marriage involves domestic violence.

[61][62][63][64] The FRC maintains that "homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed", and asserts that it is "by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.

[65] These positions are in opposition to the consensus of mainstream psychological and medical experts that homosexuality is a normal, healthy variation of human behavior, and that sexual orientation is generally not chosen.

[67][68][69][70] Certain FRC statements and positions have been criticized as based upon pseudo/junk science;[71][72][73][74] according to Wired, the group has misrepresented data and mis-designed sociological studies in order to negatively depict LGBT people.

"[76] Jointly with Focus on the Family, the Council submitted an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas,[77] the U.S. Supreme Court case in which anti-sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional on privacy grounds.

"[81][82] Perkins' statements have been contradicted by mainstream social science research,[83] and the likelihood of child molestation by homosexuals and bisexuals has been found to be no higher than child molestation by heterosexuals;[5][84][85][73] as Newsweek put it, "[f]or decades, the [FRC] has smeared homosexuals in its publications, insinuating that gay people are more likely to sexually abuse children" and an analysis by John Aravosis [who?]

"[86] Some scientists whose work is cited by the socially conservative group the American College of Pediatricians – which was created following the American Academy of Pediatrics' endorsement of adoption by same-sex couples and to which FRC points for evidence supporting its positions – have said the organization has distorted or misrepresented their work[87] and the organization has been criticized by Psychology Today for making "false statements ... that have the potential to harm LGBT youth".

"[73] In 2017, at the council-sponsored Values Voter Summit, a tote bag was distributed to all attendees that included a copy of a flyer entitled "The Health Hazards of Homosexuality" written by MassResistance, which the SPLC has also designated as a hate group.

[91] An article written by Travis Weber, the director of the Council's Center for Religious Liberty, was highly critical of both Supreme Court decisions.

[94] FRC is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025,[95] a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.

[104] The FRC used one of Museveni's speeches in an e-mail to its supporters praising Uganda's commitment to Christian faith and "national repentance" around the time that he reintroduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

[105] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated FRC as a hate group in the winter 2010 issue of its magazine, Intelligence Report.

"[107][108] The report said FRC senior research fellows Tim Dailey and Peter Sprigg (2001) had "pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia".

Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post, referred to the incident as "a madman's act" for which the SPLC should not be blamed, but called its classification of FRC as a hate group "reckless" and said that "it's absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church.

"[6] Tufts University political science professor Jeffrey Berry described himself as "not comfortable" with the designation: "There's probably some things that have been said by one or two individuals that qualify as hate speech.

"[114] Journalist Adam Serwer of Mother Jones argued that the description, while subjective, was justified by the "FRC's record of purveying stereotypes, prejudice, and junk science as a justification for public policy that would deny gays and lesbians equal rights and criminalize their conduct.

[26] FRC President Tony Perkins said at the time that the hiring was aimed to tap into the popularity of Duggar's television show, and that "The big part of Josh's focus is going to be building our grass-roots across the country.