text: Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, later described the culture of the NBI as one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand.Some described the NBI or the Objectivist movement as a cult or religion.Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to sexuality and facial hair.Some of her followers mimicked her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers.Some former NBI students believed the extent of these behaviors was exaggerated, and the problem was concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.Later years Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through nonfiction works and speeches at colleges and universities.She began delivering annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum and responded to audience questions, often taking controversial stances on the political and social issues of the day.These included: supporting abortion rights, opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"), supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations as "civilized men fighting savages", claiming European colonists had the right to invade and take land inhabited by American Indians, and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", despite advocating the repeal of all laws concerning it.She endorsed several Republican candidates for president of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964.In 1964, Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married.Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand.When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic involvement with Branden was already over, Rand ended her relationship with both Brandens, and the NBI was closed.