Neil from 4Simpsons.com says in my comments that we should judge the IRD by their actions, and not by the fact that their money comes almost exclusively from far-right-wing anti-democratic, anti-civil-rights, anti-social justice and anti-woman sources.

Fair enough.  How about this?

From the book Steeplejacking (pages 40 -41):

     The IRD also had no problem resorting to appeals to racism to further its agenda against mainline denominations.  In the early to mid-1990s, a string of arsons swept across the southern United States, with over fifty churches being torched.  Congressional hearings were held on the incidents, and President Clinton himself declaired the fires "morally unacceptable and reprehensible."  In order to help the destroyed churches rebuild, the NCC initiated a fund-raising drive, taking in over $9 million. Instead of affirming the generosity of the NCC, the IRD, in its typical fashion, found conspiracy, with Diane Knippers stateing that "the NCC is pushing the church-arson story to justify its thesis that America is on the verge of a race war," topping that with the assertion that "black churches burn more frequently than white churches to raise money for [their] leftist political agenda."

In the above quote, the NCC is the National Council of Churches.  The IRD is the Institute on Religion and Democracy.  Diane Knippers was the president of the IRD.

Is this the sort of thing we can judge the IRD on?

But back to the funding/alliances thing.  Here's a nice quote from pages 44-45:

     And in these efforts, the IRD has recieved the substantial financial support of billionaire Howard Ahmanson, whom Time called one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in 2005. Ahmanson is a disciple of the late R.J. Rushdoony, the driving force behind Christian Reconstructionism, a version of Calvinism which advocates replacing democracy in the United States with strict Biblical law.  In addition to arguing that the Bible should be the sole guiding priciple of American life, Christian Reconstructionism espouses capital punishment for a wide variety of "Crimes," including abortion, abandonment of the faith, heresy, blasphamy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, homosexuality,incest,juvenile delinquency and sexual relations before marriage (women only).  For many years, Ahmanson served on the board of Rushdoony's think tank, the Chalcedon Foundation, and donated over $1 million to the organization.  In addition, Ahmanson's wife, Roberta, serves on the board of the IRD and he has given several hundred thousand dollars to the organization over the past fifteen years, as well as donating over $1 million to the American Anglican Council.

The American Anglican Council was co-founded by the late Diane Knippers, who, it was mentioned before, was the president of the IRD.