The Alabama Policy Institute is a free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

 think tank

Think tank

A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...

 headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

, USA.

Overview

It was first established as the Alabama Family Alliance in 1989 by Gary Palmer, and was later renamed the Alabama Policy Institute. Gary Palmer has said God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 called

Calling (religious)

A calling, in the religious sense of the word, is a religious vocation that may be professional or voluntary and, idiosyncratic to different religions, may come from another person, from a divine messenger, or from within oneself.-History:The idea of a vocation or "calling" has played a...

 him to start the organization.

Advocacy

In 2003, together with the Christian Coalition of Alabama and the Southeast Law Institute it honored Phyllis Schafly for her work with the Eagle Forum

Eagle Forum

Eagle Forum is a conservative interest group in the United States founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972 and is the parent organization that also includes the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund and the Eagle Forum PAC. The Eagle Forum has been primarily focused on social issues; it describes...

. It has championed teaching the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 in Alabama public schools. In 2003, together with the Family Research Council

Family Research Council

The Family Research Council is a conservative or right-wing Christian group and lobbying organization formed in the United States in 1981 by James Dobson. It was fully incorporated in 1983...

, it sold book cover

Book cover

A book cover is any protective covering used to bind together the pages of a book. Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older forms such as the nineteenth-century "paper-boards" and...

s with the Ten Commandments

Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...

 to protest the monument removed by Justice Roy Moore

Roy Moore

Roy Stewart Moore is an American jurist and Republican politician noted for his refusal, as the elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse despite orders to do so from a federal judge...

. In 2005, it approved of Rep. Dick Brewbaker

Dick Brewbaker

Dick Brewbaker is a Republican member of the Alabama Senate for the 25th district, encompassing Montgomery and Elmore.-Biography:Dick Brewbaker attended the Montgomery Academy. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee...

's bill to prevent patients in persistent vegetative state

Persistent vegetative state

A persistent vegetative state is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. It is a diagnosis of some uncertainty in that it deals with a syndrome. After four weeks in a vegetative state , the patient is...

 from being given nutrition

Nutrition

Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....

.

In 2005, it criticised Democrats

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 for failing to take on a hardline position against Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements about Israel

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel refers to the relations between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Israel, characterized by contentious speeches and statements, including what many commentators perceive to be calls to destroy the country....

. It has also argued that the air quality in Alabama has improved. It has argued for fairer taxes in Alabama. In 2003, it commissioned a study by the Beacon Hill Institute

Beacon Hill Institute

The Beacon Hill Institute is the research arm of the Department of Economics at Suffolk University in Boston. It was founded in 1991 by businessman and Republican politician Ray Shamie. The institute, considered to be fiscally conservative, draws on faculty and student resources to analyze issues...

 about Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 Governor Robert Riley's tax increase legislation. It has championed charter school

Charter school

Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...

s in Alabama.

Publications

• Breaking Up Is Hard On You: The High Cost of Divorce (2000)
• Alabama Cultural Indicators 2000: Problems and Progress (with the Family Alliance Center for Social Policy Studies, 2000)
• Alabama's Lottery: Theft by Consent (2002)
• Family Matters: Family Structure and Child Outcomes (2005)