Free Congress Foundation - Cultural Conservatism

Cultural Conservatism

FCF played a founding role in galvanizing religious conservative political activism. By the late 1990s, Weyrich declared that social conservatives were no longer a majority having a liberal agenda forced on them by an elite but rather are a dwindling minority that have lost control over the culture; that traditional culture and the counterculture have traded places. He acknowledged the need for continued political involvement as a matter of self-defense but stated that politics could not restore traditional values or, in his views, hopeless efforts to recapture institutions such as prestige media, academia and mainline churches that had been lost to the ].

Instead he urged conservatives to invest their time and money in alternative institutions, which would, in his viewpoint, eventually become the norm due to the superior efficacy of traditional values. This sparked a firestorm of criticism from other conservatives, who accused Weyrich of giving up.

FCF has also been willing to spark controversy on other fronts. It rejects what it calls political correctness, dubbing it "cultural Marxism" and blaming it on the Frankfurt School of left-wing thinkers. Accordingly, it has been more willing than many other conservative groups to endorse or entertain views that some on the left would consider offensive and evidence of bigotry. It is arguably hostile to Islam as a whole, rather than confining its criticism to Islamism. With regard to Judaism, in his column of April 13, 2001 (Good Friday) titled Indeed, He is Risen!, Weyrich argued that "Christ was crucified by the Jews.... He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death."