The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group[6] that works to protect religious liberty, expand Christian practices within public schools and in government,[7][8]outlaw abortion,[9][10] and curtail LGBTQ rights.[11] In 2014, ADF literature described part of its mission as "[seeking] to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries."[12][13][14] ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with branch offices in several locations including Washington, D.C., and New York.[15] Its international subsidiary, Alliance Defending Freedom International, with headquarters in Vienna, Austria,[16] operates in over 100 countries.[17]
In its early years, Alliance Defense Fund funded legal cases rather than litigating directly. It particularly targeted the work of the American Civil Liberties Union, which its founders saw as contributing to an erosion of Christian values.[21][10][39][40]
Principal concerns of the ADF have been prohibiting abortion and opposing gay rights. Several founding members wrote books condemning homosexuality, including longtime president Alan Sears, who authored the 2003 book The Homosexual Agenda,[41][42] and Marlin Malloux, who wrote 1994's Answers to the Gay Deception.[43] D. James Kennedy dismissed same-sex marriage as "counterfeit"[44] and promoted pseudoscientific conversion therapy,[45] while James Dobson helped launch a ministry aiming to help gay people "overcome" homosexuality.[46][47]
Shift to direct litigation
The Alliance Defense Fund changed its name to Alliance Defending Freedom in 2012. The name change was intended to reflect the organization's shift in focus from funding allied attorneys to directly litigating cases.[48] By 2014 the organization had more than 40 staff attorneys, and had "emerged as the largest legal force of the religious right, arguing hundreds of pro bono cases across the country."[21] The ADF garnered national attention in its 2014 challenge to the Affordable Care Act. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the Court ruled that the birth control mandate in employee funded health plans violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993[49] since there existed a less restrictive means of furthering the law's interest.[50]
The Southern Poverty Law Center listed the organization as an extremist anti-LGBTQ hate group in 2016. The group's designation "was a judgment call that went all the way up to top leadership at the SPLC."[51] According to the SPLC, the ADF was included on the list due to the group's filing of an amicus brief in the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, in which the ADF expressed support for upholding the state's right to criminalize consensual sexual acts between people of the same sex.[37] The SPLC has described the ADF as "virulently anti-gay".[11][52] The SPLC describes the group's mission as "making life as difficult as possible for LGBT communities in the U.S. and internationally."[37] The ADF has opposed its inclusion on the SPLC's list, with senior counsel Jeremy Tedesco describing it as "a stranglehold on conservative and religious groups that is just hovering over us and that can continue to constrict and limit our ability to simply voice our opinion."[51]
In July 2017, U.S. sitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions attended ADF's Summit on Religious Liberty. Sessions said, "While your clients vary from pastors to nuns to geologists, all of us benefit from your good work." LGBTQ rights groups criticized Sessions for his participation at the event. Dominic Holden wrote in BuzzFeed News that ADF's growing influence within the federal government can be attributed to Sessions' support.[29][20]
Leadership and international expansion
The ADF's first president, CEO and Chief Counsel was Alan Sears, who was also a founder of the organization.[53] Sears has been described as "an ardent antipornography crusader",[54] and had previously served as staff executive director of the Reagan administration Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, which produced the 1986 Meese Report.[55]
Sears led the organization for over 20 years, until 2017. From 2017 to 2022, Michael Farris, the founder of Patrick Henry College, was CEO of ADF. Farris lobbied Congress for the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.[53] He has been closely associated with the Christian homeschooling movement since the 1980s and is the founder of the Christian organization Home School Legal Defense Association, which offers legal representation to home-schooling parents.[10] Farris has called the SPLC's designation of ADF as a hate group a "troubling smear" and "slander".[56]
On October 1, 2022, Kristen Waggoner succeeded Farris as CEO and President of ADF, retaining her role as General Counsel.[60]
Since 2010, ADF's global arm, ADF International, has been increasingly active around the world. In 2015,
ADF International stated that it had been involved in "over 500 cases before national and international tribunals," in the United States of America, Argentina, Honduras, India, Mexico, Peru, the European Union Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.[61] The organization reported 580 "ongoing legal matters" in fifty-one countries as of 2017,[62] and had a budget of $11.5 million worldwide in 2020–2021.[63][64] The organization established an affiliate group in India (ADF India) in 2012, headquartered in Delhi.[65] In addition, ADF is incorporated in a number of European countries under "ADF International": Belgium, Germany (as ADF International Deutschland), France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Austria (as ADF International Austria GmbH).[66] The organization also lobbies the European Union Parliament via ADF International Belgium, which participates in the intergroup organization "Freedom of Religion and Religious Tolerance." As part of EU advocacy, its members have presented on issues including Christian minority persecution in Iraq and Myanmar.[64]
Finances and donors
ADF is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.[67] Since 1999, ADF's budget has increased more than ten-fold, from $9 million to $104 million, as of 2022.[68]: 84 [69] Revenue has increased by 60% in just two years (from $65 million in 2020).[3][69] ADF's assets have also increased rapidly in the past several years. Net assets were approximately $49 million in 2020, $57 million in 2021, and $78.5 million in 2022.[3][70][69] Prior to the 2020–21 financial year, revenue and net assets had remained roughly steady since 2015.[71]
A significant share of ADF's funding comes from large donors. One donor gave more than $31 million over the course of two years, amounting to 12% of total contributions in 2022 and 22% of contributions in 2021 ($13 and $18 million, respectively).[66] While donors' identities are reported on federal tax returns, that information is not made public under IRS regulations. ADF has been active in preventing public disclosure of donors' names, both in court and through grassroots organizing. It won a Supreme Court case that ended California's requirement for non-profits to release the names of their major donors, Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021). Members of ADF have also encouraged churches to endorse politicians, in violation of the Johnson Amendment. The law prohibits tax-exempt religious groups from endorsing political candidates,[72] to prevent the funnelling of anonymous, tax-exempt political donations through religious groups, which have fewer financial disclosure requirements than other non-profits and political organizations.[73]
ADF International's budget was $11.5 million USD (€9,489,000) in FY 2020-21.[64] In the EU, the organization spent about $9.8 million (€8.7 million) from 2008 to 2016.[63] In 2020, it reported a budget of about $2 million per year (£1.5 million), including approximately $430,000 on lobbying EU officials.[63] Its registered EU lobbying group, ADF International Belgium, had five employees and a $585,000 budget for the 2022-23 financial year.[83] In its financial disclosure information, ADF International Belgium lists its source as a donation from Alliance Defending Freedom.[83]
In 2020, retired ADF founder Alan Sears was compensated over $803,000 and President Michael Farris was compensated $455,000.[3] In 2021, Farris (then President and CEO) made $503,000 and Sears $486,000, while then-General Counsel Kristen Waggoner was compensated $337,000.[70] In 2022, Waggoner made $395,000 as General Counsel and Farris made $625,000 as President and CEO.[69]
ADF's positions include supporting religion in public institutions, opposing LGBTQ rights, opposing abortion and contraception, and other positions aligned with conservative Christianity in the United States.
Issue advocacy as a function of press releases (2017)[9]
According to materials for its donors, ADF seeks to spread a belief in "the framers' original intent for the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights as it reflects God's natural law and God's higher law."[7] Before taking the oath of office as Speaker of the House of Representatives, current[update], former ADF lawyer Mike Johnson stated, "The Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority ... each of you, all of us."[22] The organization pursues "strategies for reclaiming the judicial system as it was originally envisioned," most notably through litigation.[7]
ADF has argued that parents who object to sex education on religious grounds should have the right to opt not to have their children attend.[8] The organization has been involved in many cases religious practice in public schools. In Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001), for example, the ADF was part of a case in which the Supreme Court ruled that religious clubs must be afforded equal access to use public school facilities.[84]
Christian-only adoption
In 2022, ADF took on a case defending a Tennessee-based Christian adoption agency that refused to work with Jewish prospective parents.[85][86][87][88] The case, which names the State of Tennessee as a defendant for its law permitting religious organizations to reject applicants based on faith, was dismissed on technical grounds.[89] As of late July 2022, the case is being appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals on behalf of the couple and several other plaintiffs.[89][90]
Commenting on an earlier case in South Carolina, an ADF spokesperson expressed support for an evangelical foster care provider in South Carolina that rejects Jewish prospective parents, as well as LGBTQ people, atheists, and other non-Christians.[91][92] The agency, Miracle Hill Ministries, is the largest foster and adoption agency in South Carolina and receives public funding; its President has stated that its religious discrimination policy is justified, because "We look like a social service agency, but we're a community of Christ followers and our faith in Christ is the most important part of who we are."[93][94] A Catholic woman sued the agency after being rejected on the basis of religion, but the agency later changed its rules to permit "Catholics who affirm Miracle Hill's doctrinal statement in belief and practice to serve as foster parents and employees."[95]
At the request of South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, the Trump administration granted the organization a waiver of federal non-discrimination law. An ADF spokesperson indicated that the organization is "grateful [to] HHS and South Carolina" for granting the waiver, which allows the agency to continue to restrict fostering and adoption work to those who endorse evangelical beliefs.[91][92][96]
The organization has worked internationally to prevent decriminalization of homosexuality in Jamaica and Belize.[100] The SPLC has reported on ADF support for a law criminalizing same-sex sexual acts in Belize (ruled unconstitutional in 2016).[101][102] The ADF denied playing any role in the case.[103] In the United Kingdom, ADF International advocated in favor of a mother's custody of her child, against the custody of the child's father and his same-sex partner.[62] ADF also has links to the former prime minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, an outspoken opponent of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia. Abbott gave a speech to ADF regarding marriage in 2016.[104]
ADF opposes transgender rights based on an idea that "God creates each person with an immutable biological sex — male or female..."[105] The organization has litigated against transgender employment protections, access to bathrooms, and participation in sports for transgender people. Members of ADF also authored model legislation for bathroom bills in the United States, aimed at restricting transgender people's use of public bathrooms.[35] In 2020, the ADF lost a Supreme Court case in which they argued that employers should be allowed to discriminate against transgender people. ADF attorneys defended a funeral home that fired a trans employee in the Supreme Court case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, losing in a 6–3 vote.[106]
The organization has worked to prevent transgender children from playing sports, through lawsuits and by lobbying state legislatures.[107][108] In April 2022, ADF-affiliated lawyers defended a professor at Shawnee State University, Ohio, who refused to use preferred pronouns when referring to a transgender student; the university agreed to a $400,000 settlement with the professor.[109]
In Europe, ADF International has supported mandatory genital surgery (and consequent sterilization) of transgender people before they are allowed to change the gender marker on government IDs.[36] However, a decision by the European Court of Human Rights, A.P., Garçon and Nicot v. France, has led France, Greece, Portugal, and several other countries to allow non-medical pathways to gender marker change.[110]
In June 2022 several groups opposing trans rights, including Alliance Defending Freedom, WDI USA, Family Research Council and Women's Liberation Front, organized an anti-trans rally in Washington D.C.[111] According to Lindsay Schubiner, director of an Oregon non-profit organization which aims to counter right-wing extremism, white nationalists have attempted "to exploit the current increased focus on spreading homophobia and transphobia on the broader right and institutional environments" to appeal to and recruit mainstream conservatives.[112]
In June of 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of a Christian website designer, Lorie Smith, who did not want to provide service to alleged gay couple.[113][114] The case was represented by the ADF[115] and has raised concerns about the legitimacy of the court as the gay couple never existed.[116] Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who ruled in favor of the plaintiff, has ties to the ADF.[117] The group's President and CEO called it "a critical ruling affirming all Americans' free speech".[118] In several cases ADF assisted its plaintiffs with incorporating companies and drafting company policies to be used in lawsuits.[119]
Opposing abortion, birth control, and euthanasia
ADF has long opposed abortion, and has litigated to restrict access to abortion and contraception in the US and in other countries.
In the 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law that was the nation's first-ever 15-week abortion ban, thereby overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The Mississippi law was based on ADF's model legislation, specifically designed to provoke a legal challenge that would be appealed to the ultraconservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and then to the Supreme Court.[120] ADF lawyers served on the Mississippi Attorney General's legal team to defend the ban.[33] That strategy succeeded in ending the legal right to abortion in the United States, and giving states the power to restrict or ban medical care related to pregnancy termination. The ADF has links to at least one Justice of the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett.[19][26][65]
One of its most notable legal battles was a 2014 case challenging the Affordable Care Act. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the Court ruled that the birth control mandate in employee-funded health plans when the company is "closely-held" violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The case set a precedent for allowing corporations and individuals to make religious claims for exemption from laws and regulations based on a religious freedom argument.[49][126][127][128] The United States Supreme Court held that privately held corporations could be exempt from Affordable Care Act regulations if the owners asserted religiously objections, basing the decision on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The decision meant that many employers could decide not to cover contraceptives through their health insurance plans.[129][130]
Although ADF describes itself as a champion of First Amendment freedom of speech, in 2014, lawyers from the organization represented parents who wanted public schools to remove pages from a biology textbook that mentioned abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.[131]
International anti-abortion work
ADF has led an international campaign to influence and restrict the right to abortion.[132] The organization takes the position that healthcare workers have a right to refuse to provide care for abortion and other practices the individual finds morally objectionable.[133] ADF has backed anti-abortion causes in Ireland,[62] El Salvador, Colombia, Poland and Sweden.[134] In the United Kingdom, the group has campaigned against buffer zones around abortion clinics.[135]
In Sweden, a midwife, Ellinor Grimmark, sued the province of Jönköping for discrimination because she was refused employment when, citing "freedom of conscience", she refused to give morning-after pills, perform abortions, or put in copper IUDs. She lost both her hearing before the Discrimination Ombudsman, and at the Jönköping district court.[136] The proceedings in the Labor Court of Sweden began on January 24, 2017, and her case received both legal and financial aid from ADF. Grimmark's legal representative, Ruth Nordström, was a registered partner of ADF,[137] and both Grimmark and Nordström participated in ADFs marketing films.[138] Nordström co-wrote an opinion piece opposing abortion rights with an ADF representative for Sveriges Television, Sweden's national public television broadcaster.[139]
Campaigns against assisted suicide
The ADF has campaigned against the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in the United Kingdom.[135] The group has also challenged the right to euthanasia in Belgium, before the European Court of Human Rights.[140][141] ADF India also campaigns against assisted suicide and euthanasia.[142]
COVID-19 restriction cases
ADF has opposed government measures aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 in the United States and in other countries. In the US, ADF partnered with The Daily Wire in a legal challenge against the Biden administration's OSHA vaccine mandate.[143] In Uganda, ADF joined a Texas libertarian organization in backing a campaign to end restrictions on large gatherings that the government had implemented to reduce COVID-19 spread.[144] ADF brought legal challenges against the Ugandan government's regulations on large gatherings.[145] In Scotland, ADF fought against COVID-19 regulations on large gatherings, claiming that the measures were unfair to religious groups.[146] The ADF-backed lawsuit won in Scotland's high court. A poll commissioned by the Humanist Society showed that more than three-quarters of Scots were opposed to the church's reopening and the Church of Scotland distanced itself from the legal action, saying that they accepted measures to prevent COVID-19 spread.[147]
Non-profit donor disclosure
In the US Supreme Court decision Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021), ADF argued that non-profits should not be required to disclose the identities of their donors on California state tax returns. Donors who gave more than $5,000 or 2% of the total donations to a non-profit in a year were to be named on the state returns. In a victory for ADF, the court struck down the disclosure law as unconstitutional.[148]
Blackstone Legal Fellowship, named after the English jurist William Blackstone, is ADF's summer legal training program. It was founded in 2000 for the purpose of preparing Christian law students for professional legal careers. The first class comprised 24 interns.[149] The program is made up of interns, called Fellows, from a diverse selection of law schools as well as elite institutions such as Harvard and Yale.[149]Amy Coney Barrett, who went on to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was a paid speaker at Blackstone on five occasions between 2013 and 2017.[19]
Public campaigns
In 2003 the ADF launched the "Christmas Project", aiming to discourage non-Christian holidays from being celebrated and to promote Christmas celebrations in public schools.[150][151] The annual initiative was organized in an effort to prevent school districts from holding secular holiday celebrations, or what the organization called the "censorship of Christmas". In its press release ADF singled out the American Civil Liberties Union as the chief target of the campaign.[152] By 2004, the organization had contacted 3,600 school districts to inform them that they were not required by the Constitution to have holiday celebrations inclusive of all religions.[150]
In 2005 the ADF and Focus on the Family began sponsoring a counter-protest called the Day of Truth (later called "Day of Dialogue") to oppose the annual Day of Silence, an annual event to promote awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools. The ADF asserted that 1,100 students from 350 schools participated in ADF's event, which ADF billed as a response to the "homosexual agenda".[153]
Church political activity and tax exemption
Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2011
In 2008, ADF launched the first Pulpit Freedom Sunday to promote political messaging and endorsements in Christian pastors' sermons in defiance of the prohibition on political endorsements by non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations under the 1954 Johnson Amendment.[72][21] The practice of political endorsement is not broadly accepted within the evangelical community, with most Evangelical pastors opposed as of 2017.[154]
Pulpit Freedom Sunday is an initiative aimed to overturn the Johnson Amendment, which restricts political campaigning by tax-exempt non-profit organizations, which includes most churches. According to The New York Times, ADF's campaign is "perhaps its most aggressive effort."[21] In the first year about 35 pastors participated, in what they consider an act of civil disobedience, endorsing political candidates in their sermons and defying the Internal Revenue Service regulations. In Minnesota, reverend Gus Booth encouraged his congregation to vote for John McCain rather than Barack Obama.[155] As of 2014[update], participation in the event had grown to about 1,800 pastors. The IRS indicated that it would increase enforcement of the Johnson Amendment.[156]
Some opponents of the movement have voiced concern about permitting churches to endorse politicians because it would allow political donors to remain anonymous and to get tax breaks for their donations.[157] Unlike other non-profits, churches aren't required to make financial disclosures, so churches endorsing politicians could act as funnels for anonymous campaign donations, or "dark money".[73]
Associated people
The following people are currently or have been affiliated or associated with ADF:
Marlin Maddoux president, International Christian Media and ADF founder[158]
Edwin Meese, former Attorney General of the United States, member of Blackstone Advisory Board[159]
Mike Pence, former Vice President of the United States; appointed former ADF President Michael Farris to his Advancing American Freedom Advisory Board[27]
^"ADF names new president, CEO". adflegal.org. Alliance Defending Freedom. August 19, 2022. Archived from the original on October 4, 2022. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
^ abcVile, John. "Alliance Defending Freedom". The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Middle Tennessee State University. Archived from the original on December 1, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
^ abBennett, Daniel (2017). Defending Faith: The Politics of the Christian Conservative Legal Movement. University Press of Kansas. ISBN978-0700624607.
^ abcdHolden, Dominic (December 4, 2017). "How This Anti-Trump Evangelical Is Quietly Taking Advantage of The Trump Presidency". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on February 15, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2018. In the 10 months since Farris took over, he has shepherded the group from relative obscurity to arguably become the most influential — and increasingly prominent — conservative law group in the United States.
^ abcdefEckholm, Eric (May 11, 2014). "Legal Alliance Gains Host of Court Victories for Conservative Christian Movement". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2018. Retrieved January 21, 2018. Alliance Defending Freedom, which, with its $40 million annual budget, 40-plus staff lawyers and hundreds of affiliated lawyers, has emerged as the largest legal force of the religious right, arguing hundreds of pro bono cases across the country.
^ abSmith, Peter (October 27, 2023). "Christian right cheers new House speaker, conservative evangelical Mike Johnson, as one of their own". Texarkana Gazette. Retrieved October 29, 2023. Evangelical Christian conservatives have long had allies in top Republican leadership in Congress. But never before have they had one so thoroughly embedded in their movement as new House Speaker Mike Johnson. ... Johnson served as an attorney with what's now known as Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the foremost legal advocates of causes valued by many on the religious right.
^McFeely, Tom (January 18, 2012). "Alliance Defense Fund's Chief ConvertArchived October 14, 2017, at the Wayback Machine" [interview with Alan Sears]. National Catholic Register. ncregister.com. Retrieved October 14, 2017. Referring to Ron Rosenberger and his volunteer lawyer, Alan Sears explains that ADF "raised money, and ... funded the petition for certiorari that asked the United States Supreme Court to hear their case" and that later it "funded the costs of the case and a number of amicus briefs."
^Sears, Alan; Craig Osten (2005). The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values. B&H Books. ISBN978-0-8054-4045-4. As a result of the work of the American Civil Liberties Union and their war on America, we now live in a country where the church has been progressively silenced, parental authority has been undermined, children are less safe, and human life continues to be cheapened-both at birth and death. ... But there is hope. Many Americans are waking up to the dangerous agenda of the ACLU.
^Sears, Alan; Craig Osten (2003). The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today. B&H Books. ISBN978-0-8054-2698-4.
^Stengel, Richard; Chua-Eoan, H. G.; Constable, A.; Taylor, E. (July 21, 1986). "Sex Busters". Time. pp. 12–22. Archived from the original on July 23, 2022. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
^Schultz, Jeffrey (1992). "Meese Report". Encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on March 19, 2022. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
^ ab"ADF names new president, CEO". adflegal.org. Alliance Defending Freedom. August 19, 2022. Archived from the original on October 4, 2022. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
^ abVile, John (January 10, 2020). "Johnson Amendment". First Amendment Encyclopedia. Middle Tennessee State University. Archived from the original on July 24, 2022. Retrieved July 24, 2022.
^Zhan Chiam, Sandra Duffy, Matilda González Gil, Lara Goodwin, and Nigel Timothy Mpemba Patel (2020). Trans Legal Mapping Report 2019: Recognition before the law(PDF) (Report). ILGA World. Archived(PDF) from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved December 4, 2022.((cite report)): CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Press Country Profile(PDF) (Report). European Court of Human Rights. January 2022. Archived(PDF) from the original on March 4, 2022. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
Budziszewski, J. (2006). Natural Law For Lawyers. ACW Press and The Blackstone Legal Fellowship. ISBN978-1932124798.
Jones, Emma (June 2016). "Fair Access Versus Religious Freedom: A Difficult Balance". Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. 5 (2): 359–364. doi:10.1093/ojlr/rww018.
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