What to know about Richmond’s Family Foundation of Virginia

The Family Foundation of Virginia is a Richmond-based lobbying organization whose positions place it on the opposing side of several LGBTQ+ rights efforts. The organization is described as socially conservative and Christian fundamentalist, and its work has extended beyond its original focus on sex education.

According to the supplied background, the organization now opposes the Equal Rights Amendment, nondiscrimination policies and same-sex marriage. It also supports legal conversion therapy for minors and additional legal restrictions on abortion. Those positions connect the group to several policy debates that affect LGBTQ+ Virginians, including arguments over whether public institutions and laws should prohibit discrimination and how young people receive information and support.

The organization was founded in 1985 by Walter Barbee. The background identifies an earlier county-level group formed by Barbee in 1982 as part of the organization’s roots. The supplied history excerpt does not provide a complete account of the group’s subsequent development, so the available material does not establish a full timeline of its campaigns, leadership or legislative activity.

The Family Foundation of Virginia is affiliated with Focus on the Family through the Family Policy Council network. That affiliation places it within a broader set of organizations connected to the national Christian organization. The Virginia group should not be confused with the Family Policy Foundation in Colorado; the two are described as legally distinct, even though both are identified as Focus on the Family affiliates.

The organization sometimes uses the name The Family Foundation. Its political activity is also associated with Family Foundation Action, a separate 501(c)(4) organization. The supplied material says that this entity is used for political advertising, while the Family Foundation of Virginia’s 501(c)(3) tax status prohibits that organization from engaging in such advertising.

For Richmond readers, the key distinction is between the organization’s public-policy advocacy and the separate legal entities connected to its work. The Family Foundation of Virginia is the Richmond-based 501(c)(3) organization described here; Family Foundation Action is the associated 501(c)(4) used for political advertising. Keeping those entities separate helps clarify how the organization presents its positions and how related political messaging is conducted.

The available source identifies the Family Foundation of Virginia’s priorities and affiliations but does not supply details about specific bills, election results, current officers or the group’s present campaign schedule. This background therefore focuses on the organization’s stated policy orientation and structure rather than attributing particular recent actions to it.

Source and reuse information This automatically generated backgrounder adapts text from “Family Foundation of Virginia” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Foundation_of_Virginia The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. The source article’s linked references are provided below where available. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.

Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/cobbs-web/Content?oid=1365121 - https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?091+ful+HR63ER+pdf - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/us/federal-judge-overturns-virginias-same-sex-marriage-ban.html - https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Virginia-Senate-panel-passes-Equal-Rights-Amendment-504158291.html - https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521425355/201813199349312891/IRS990 - https://www.familyfoundation.org/blog-posts/stafford-school-board-ignores-parents-concerns Image rights Photograph description: The Fountain Lake at Byrd Park in Richmond, Virginia. (Cropped and rotated) Creator: Morgan Riley. License: CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFountainLakeByrdPark.JPG. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.