Patricia Heaton Reveals Secret Code Hollywood Conservatives Used to Find Each Other

Patricia Heaton says Hollywood conservatives once felt so uncomfortable discussing their political beliefs at work that they created a secret group to find out who was “safe” to talk to on set.

The Everybody Loves Raymond alum, 68, opened up about Friends of Abe, a private network of conservatives in the entertainment industry during the August 24 episode of Andrew Gold‘s Heretics podcast.

“There were a lot of people that felt like they couldn’t say anything who were conservative. And we ended up having to make a secret group,” Heaton explained.

The former star of The Middle said the organization became known as FOA, or Friends of Abe, a reference to Abraham Lincoln, and members had a discreet way of figuring out if someone else had a similar political mindset.

“So you could say to somebody, ‘Are you a friend of Abe?’ Or, ‘Are you FOA?’ And if they said, ‘Yeah,’ then you knew there was another conservative or independent or, you know, or someone who is not a Democrat,” she continued.

Heaton claimed the group gave members a place to speak openly “without feeling like you were going to get in trouble at your job.”

While Heaton remembers Friends of Abe as a “secret group,” it eventually wasn’t much of a secret at all.

Founded by actor Gary Sinise and others in the mid-2000s, Friends of Abe grew into an actual organized network with more than 1,000 members, a website and an executive director. The group even waged a years-long battle with the IRS before securing tax-exempt status in 2014, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.

However, the organization did protect the identities of many of its members, who reportedly feared that publicly revealing their conservative politics could hurt their careers.

Heaton recalled Sinise, 71, approaching her and husband David Hunt about hosting an early gathering at their home that was initially supposed to include only a few dozen people. Instead, she said roughly 80 people showed up, including Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight and Ben Shapiro.

“All it was was fellowship. We weren’t raising money for candidates. We didn’t go protest anything,” Heaton shared. “It was just to go hang out, be able to talk freely without worrying about losing your job.”

The meetings also apparently produced plenty of surprises when members spotted familiar faces.

“People would come to these FOA meetings and they would see people that they worked with and they were like, ‘You’re FOA.’ They’d be like, ‘Oh, you’re FOA. My god,'” Heaton recalled.

Friends of Abe eventually grew to include thousands of members before its formal organization shut down in 2016.