TUPELO, Miss. – The American Family Association (AFA) is a conservative Christian nonprofit founded in 1977 by Rev. Donald Wildmon and headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. Now led by his son, Tim Wildmon, the AFA advocates for what it calls “biblical values” and “godly morality.” While often associated with boycotts of companies like Disney and Target or objections to drag story hours, the AFA’s current strategy reaches far deeper—targeting the judiciary, legal standards, and religious pluralism in America. Pagan communities, along with many religious and sexual minorities, should take note of this intensified approach.
The AFA is known for opposing LGBTQ+ rights, same-sex marriage, abortion, and inclusive sex education. It promotes traditional gender roles, the “nuclear family,” and a Christian nationalist vision of America. Through platforms like American Family Radio and the AFA Journal, the organization spreads its ideology to a broad conservative base. While popular among Christian right circles, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) classifies the AFA as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group due to its consistent promotion of harmful myths and discriminatory rhetoric.
United States Supreme Court Building By Carol M. Highsmith – Library of CongressCatalog: http://lccn.loc.gov/2011631106Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/highsm/12900/12912a.tifOriginal url: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.12912, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91285025
One offshoot of the AFA is One Million Moms, a group that campaigns against what it sees as cultural threats to children. Last year, TWH reported on the group’s petition against the film Wicked in 2024, following familiar lines: opposing LGBTQ+ representation and associating it with moral decline. Another voice in this echo chamber is Linda Harvey, author of Not My Child: Contemporary Paganism and the New Spirituality, who has written for the AFA condemning modern Paganism. In a series of articles, Harvey painted Paganism—both ancient and contemporary—as a source of societal decay, linking it to youth violence and sexual “perversion.” Her affiliated group, Mission America, amplifies this messaging with warnings that Paganism is to blame for early sexualization and moral collapse.
While these campaigns are often loud, they are ultimately distractions from a more potent and calculated effort underway within AFA’s political wing—AFA Action. AFA Action describes itself as a 501(c)(4) focused on “advancing biblical family values in society and government.” Central to its agenda is the Center for Judicial Renewal (CJR), led by attorney and activist Phillip Jauregui, who also founded the Judicial Action Group.
In April 2025, the Center for Judicial Renewal released its 10 Constitutional Principles, a framework used to evaluate federal judicial nominees, not based on legal scholarship, but on adherence to a conservative Christian worldview. Jauregui states plainly that a nominee’s Christian faith is the “greatest predictor” of constitutional fidelity. In his words, “we had concerns about Justice Neil Gorsuch’s worldview, especially on the subject of sexual truth; those views drove his opinion in Bostock far more than his stated judicial philosophy.”
The Center’s evaluations are not just theoretical. Judges are placed on a color-coded list: green for approved, yellow for caution, and red for unacceptable. In other words, the AFA’s criteria explicitly suggest that only Christians—more specifically, those aligned with a dominionist “biblical worldview”—are suitable for federal bench service.
By applying religious litmus tests to judicial candidates, the AFA’s strategy undermines the U.S. Constitution’s explicit prohibition of religious tests for public office. Article VI, Clause 3 states: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Combined with the First Amendment, this ensures that religious freedom includes freedom from government-imposed religious conformity.
Hill Day 2025 participants in the Summit for Religious Freedom including Covenant of the Goddess’ National First Officer Manny Tejeda y Moreno, Rev. Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary, Dennis Carpenter [Photo Courtesy: SRF
Following public backlash, the AFA altered some language on its website, replacing “biblical worldview” with “worldview,” but the core approach remains unchanged. The criteria still demand opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, and any separation of church and state that prevents Christian dominance in law and policy.
The AFA’s training materials are unambiguous. Participants in its worldview course are told: “In order to make an impact in culture, we must first submit ourselves to the clear teaching of Scripture and acknowledge its authority to dictate every area of our lives.” This framework doesn’t just shape personal faith—it’s being weaponized as a tool for assessing legal authority and shaping public policy.
The Christian nationalist impulse behind this strategy is difficult to ignore. Any attempt to reshape the federal judiciary in a Christian image, using religious orthodoxy and not constitutional jurisprudence, as the benchmark presents a very real threat our community should be mindful of. This strategy is far-reaching consequences, not just for LGBTQ+ rights or reproductive justice, but for the foundational pluralism that allows people of all faiths—or no faith—to live freely in the United States.
When courts become tools for enforcing a particular religious ideology, the threat is not only to Pagans or Queer people—it is to democracy itself. These groups are not merely metaphorically hanging “family values” signs; they are announcing to us that non-Christians should have no voice in our society.
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