Robert H. Knight
Template:Short description Robert H. Knight (born April 23, 1951)<ref>U.S. Public Records Index Vol 1 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.</ref> is an American conservative writer and activist. He was a draftsman of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of same-sex marriage. DOMA was invalidated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor (2013).<ref name="cwfa">Template:Cite web</ref> He is senior fellow of the American Civil Rights Union and a regular columnist for The Washington Times.<ref name=ACRU>Template:Cite web</ref> He was senior writer for Coral Ridge Ministries (now D. James Kennedy Ministries) and director of the Culture and Media Institute, a project founded in 2006 by the Media Research Center in Alexandria, Virginia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Knight has also served as director of the Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.<ref name="cwfa"/>
Career
Knight worked as an editor and writer for the Los Angeles Times and was a 1989–1990 media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was a senior fellow for cultural policy studies at The Heritage Foundation before becoming director of cultural studies at the Family Research Council.<ref name="p.391">Robert H. Knight, "How Domestic Partnerships and 'Gay Marriage' Threaten the Family" in Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality (ed. John Corvino: 1997) (Rowman & Littefield: 1999 paperback ed.), p. 391.</ref>
Views
Knight is a social conservative.<ref name="Dunlap">David W. Dunlap, For Gay Republicans, the Ideological Sniping Comes From Both Camps Template:Webarchive, New York Times (October 4, 1995).</ref> He is an outspoken opponent on same-sex marriage and civil unions and has written prolifically on that topic. He believes that recognizing same-sex couples "will destroy marriage"<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and "would threaten families, children, and ultimately civilization."<ref>Robert H. Knight, "How Domestic Partnerships and 'Gay Marriage' Threaten the Family" in Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality (ed. John Corvino: 1997) (Rowman & Littefield: 1999 paperback ed.), p. 289</ref> In 1995, Knight accused the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay Republicans, of being a "small group trying to harness government power to force affirmation of unhealthy, immoral and destructive behavior."<ref name="Dunlap"/> Knight has stated: "The end goal of gay activism is the criminalization of Christianity" and has accused gays of advocating pedophilia and attempting to recruit youth.<ref name="Boston">Robert Boston, Close Encounters with the Religious Right: Journeys Into the Twilight Zone (Prometheus Books, 2000), p. 46.</ref> He has referred to abortion, pornography, and gay rights as part of an "iron triangle."<ref name="Boston"/> In the aftermath of the 1998 torture and murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student, Knight denounced the murder but opposed proposals to extend hate crime laws,<ref>David A. Neiwert, Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 106.</ref> believing them to be "the precursor toward thought crimes."<ref name="Boston"/>
In a 1995 interview, Knight asserted that, "Lesbianism is the animating principle of feminism. Because feminism, at the core, is at war with motherhood, femininity, family, and God. And lesbians are at war with all these things."<ref>Martin Durham, The Christian Right, the Far Right and the Boundaries of American Conservatism (Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 53-54.</ref>
Knight is on the advisory board of the Abstinence Clearinghouse, which promotes abstinence-only sex education.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
His 2018 manifesto, A Nation Worth Fighting For: 10 Steps to Restore Freedom, calls upon Evangelical Christians to "go on offense against the darkness, not cower in our church buildings, hoping it will go away."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Personal
He has a B.S. in 1973 and M.S. in 1975 in political science from American University in Washington, D.C.<ref name=ACRU /> In 1981, he married his wife Barbara, with whom he now lives in the Washington, D.C. area.<ref name="cwfa"/>