Abortion
Brownback is pro-life and opposes abortion in all cases except when the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. He has a 100 percent pro-life voting record according to the National Right to Life Committee. Brownback also supports parental notification for minors who seek an abortion and opposes Partial Birth Abortion.[72][73] Brownback was personally anti-abortion though politically pro-choice during the early days of his career.[74] Brownback has more recently stated, "I see it as the lead moral issue of our day, just like slavery was the lead moral issue 150 years ago."[75] On May 3, 2007, when asked his opinion of repealing Roe v. Wade, Brownback said, "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom."[76]

In 2007, Brownback stated he "could support a pro-choice nominee" to the presidency, because "this is a big coalition party."[77]

Evolution

Brownback has stated that he is a devout believer in a higher power and rejects macroevolution, or the development over time of new species from older ones.[87] Brownback favors giving teachers the freedom to use intelligent design to critique evolutionary theory as part of the Teach the Controversy approach:

There's intelligence involved in the overall of creation. ...I don't think we're really at the point of teaching this in the classroom. I think what we passed in the U.S. Senate in 2002 the Santorum Amendment is really what we should be doing, and that is that you teach the controversy, you teach what is fact is fact, and what is theory is theory, and you move from that proceedings, rather than from teaching some sort of different thought. And this, I really think that's the area we should concentrate on at the present time, is teaching the controversy.[88]

— Senator Sam Brownback, Larry King Live, CNN, August 23, 2005''

He has supported the Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement, and has argued extensively on their behalf during Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns such as the Santorum Amendment, Teach the Controversy, and against the denial of tenure at Iowa State University to Institute Fellow Guillermo Gonzalez. The university presented an extensively documented case that tenure for Gonzalez was denied due to sub-par research and academic performance, and not for his teaching intelligent design.[89][90][91][92]

LGBT issues

Brownback has stated that he believes homosexuality to be immoral as a violation of both Catholic doctrine[107] and natural law.[108] He has voted against gay rights, receiving zeros in four of the last five scorecards as a U.S. senator from the Human Rights Campaign.[109][110][111][112][113] He opposes both same-sex marriage and same-sex civil union.[108] He opposes adding sexual orientation and gender identity to federal laws that address hate crime.[108][114] He has declined to state a position on gay adoption,[115][116] although a candidate for chair of the Kansas Republican Party claims he was blackballed by political operatives affiliated with Brownback for not opposing gay adoption.[117] Brownback supported "don't ask, don't tell,"[118] the U.S. government's ban on openly gay and lesbian people in the military. Brownback has associated with leading anti-gay organizations, including the Family Research Council[119][120] and American Family Association.[121][122]

In 2003, Brownback worked with Alliance for Marriage and Traditional Values Coalition to introduce a Senate bill containing the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would federally prohibit same-sex marriage in the United States.[123][124][125][126] The bill was a response to Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts state court decision finding that same-sex couples had the right to marry in Massachusetts.[123][124][125] In reaction to the Goodridge decision, Brownback stated that same-sex marriage threatened the health of American families and culture.[127]

In 2006, Brownback blocked the confirmation of federal judicial nominee Janet T. Neff because she had attended a same-sex commitment ceremony.[128][129][130] At first, he agreed to lift the block only if Neff would recuse herself from all cases involving same-sex unions.[128][129][130] Brownback later dropped his opposition.[128][129][130]

In April 2011, Brownback began work on a Kansas government program to promote marriage, in part through grants to faith-based social service organizations.[131][132] Early meetings involved national opponents of same-sex marriage.[131] The Brownback administration says the program will exclude gay and lesbian families.[131] In June 2011, the administration revised contract expectations for social work organizations to promote married mother-father families.[133][134] It explained the change as benefiting children.[133][134]

In January 2012, Brownback did not include Kansas's sodomy law in a list of unenforced and outdated laws that the legislature should repeal.[135][136][137][138] Gay rights advocates had asked his administration to recommend its repeal because the law has been unenforceable since the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003.[135][136][137][138][139]

In February 2012, the Brownback administration supported a religious freedom bill that would have stopped cities, school districts, universities, and executive agencies from having nondiscrimination laws or policies that covered sexual orientation or gender identity.[140][141][142]

In 2013, after oral arguments in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court case striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, Brownback publicly reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage.[143]

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court denied petitions to review several federal appellate decisions overturning state bans on same-sex marriage.[144][145] The court’s actions favored repeal of Kansas's ban on same-sex marriage because two of the appeals (Kitchen v. Herbert and Bishop v. Oklahoma) originated in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which includes Kansas.[144][145] In response, Brownback defended Kansas's same-sex marriage ban as being supported by a majority of Kansas voters and criticized "activist judges" for "overruling" the people of Kansas.[146][147][148]