Who We Are

Our history begins with concern for Tennessee families

In 2006, a group of Tennesseans came together to form The Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT) because of their concern about the future of the family in Tennessee and the growing negative impact of public policies on the family.

David Fowler, then in his twelfth year in the Tennessee Senate and a practicing attorney, was hired to become the first President of FACT.

FACT has since grown to five full-time employees and celebrated the first ten years in 2016.

OUR VISION

Our vision is a Tennessee in which marriage is honored, families thrive, life is cherished, and religious liberty is protected. That is a Tennessee in which its people can flourish. We hope you will partner with us in our vision for a strong Tennessee!

OUR BELIEFS

Our belief is that healthy families and communities come about when basic values from the Bible are embraced and upheld. Even those who may not believe everything in the Bible have found it hard to overlook its long track record of providing a foundation for stable societies. Neglecting common-sense biblical values contributes to many of our nation’s current ills like crime, disease, divorce, “unwanted” pregnancies, teen suicide, and academic failure.

OUR VALUES

Our values include respect for marriage and families, life, and religious liberty. When the government protects these time-tested values, they, in turn, protect the family. We believe churches, families, and individuals are best equipped to foster these values. And we believe that government should not work against them. Our desire is to provide educational resources for each of these to function in their respective areas of responsibility.

FACT’s mission is to secure the blessings of liberty by advocating for God's design for the family. We accomplish our mission through four key strategies.

EDUCATION

We provide training and educational resources to citizens and elected officials via various mediums and venues.

ADVOCACY

We lobby state and local officials for policies that support marriage, families, life, and religious liberty.

ACCOUNTABILITY

During election years, we distribute online voter education materials regarding candidates for elected office for state House and state Senate and send Action Alert emails about key legislative votes. Check out our Legislative section for more.

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

We join with other national, state, and local organizations on issues of shared concern to increase our reach, enlarge our impact, and better steward our resources. Some of those affiliations include Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and Alliance Defending Freedom. View our full list of alliances.

Did you know that there are currently 39 other nonprofit organizations in the United States that do the kind of work FACT does to help defend religious liberty and God’s design for the family and promote biblical principles relative to the family on a state level?

FACT Is a Family Policy Council

These organizations are collectively known as family policy councils. Though they each work independently and are not financially linked, as a whole, FPCs share a common goal.

FACT works with these other family policy councils to prepare, promote, and defend pro-family legislation, communicate important issues from across our nation to pro-family constituents in Tennessee, and stand in agreement and celebrate victories with other FPCs that share Tennessee’s common goals.

Constitutional Government Defense FUnd

The Constitutional Government Defense Fund (CGDF) is an initiative associated with Alliance for Law and Liberty and is a litigation ally for The Family Action Council of Tennessee.

The purpose of CGDF is to evaluate the prosecution of lawsuits where government actions violate constitutional principles that, if unchecked, will prohibit the state of Tennessee from protecting life and the institution of marriage.

The first action taken was the filing of lawsuits related to the constitutional effect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision June 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges. After a multi-year battle, the Court of Appeals for the Middle District of Tennessee dismissed the lawsuits. It held that ministers who must sign marriage licenses and the state’s Certificate of Marriage for a marriage to be lawful did not have an “injury” sufficient to have the judicial branch determine whether the licenses they were signing were validly issued or whether the marriages they were solemnizing were defined contrary to their religious beliefs.

Thereafter, a Petition for a Declaratory Order was filed with Governor Lee and the Department of Health, which is responsible for the state’s Certificate of Marriage, asking that they clarify the nature of the marital relationship they were creating for the state under state policy. The Petition was denied.

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