Alliance Defending Freedom

ADF's logo

Christ died for our articles about Christianity

Schismatics

Western (Latin) Catholicism Eastern (Greek) Orthodoxy Protestantism Restorationism

Devil's in the details

Passion play Treaty of Tripoli Name it and claim it Old Catholic Church Christian Peoples Alliance Fundie school Franklin Graham Catholic Apostolic Church v - t - e

Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund until 2012) is a right wing religious legal group with a revenue of $104 million in 2022.^[4][5] On the basis of its extremist evangelical viewpoints towards gay and transgender people, it is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.^[3]

Aims[edit]

“”Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal. Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds.

—Blackstone Legal Fellowship, which is run by the ADF[3][6][7]

There quote appeared from 2010-2014, and disappeared by 2015,^[8] apparently because it started attracting negative attention in 2014.^[9] The quote is both ironic and terrifying. It is ironic because ADF was founded by six conservative Christian men, five evangelic Protestants and one Catholic. It is ironic because their golden age is the 3^rd through 5^th centuries CE, when the pope was the head of the Church, and the only schisms were broadly within the Church. Protestantism, and the rejection of the primacy of the pope, did not come along until more than a millenium later with Martin Luther in the 16^th century. It is terrifying because that is the good old days that they want to return everyone to.

The six founders are:

1. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ
2. Larry Burkett
3. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family
4. D. James Kennedy
5. Mark Siljander
6. Alan Sears, the only Catholic

Despite the lone Catholic, ADF focuses almost exclusively on perceived offenses to evangelical Protestants, and has even supported an adoption agency the time when its policy was not to let Catholics adopt.^[10][11]

The ADF is dedicated to:

• Opposing abortion
  • Banning mifepristone^[12][13]
• Protecting the religious freedom of Christians; i.e.:
  • The freedom of fundamentalist Christians to violate the Establishment Clause
  • The freedom to discriminate against those who disagree with them
• Combating threats to their narrow-minded travesty of family values; i.e.:
  • Homosexuality — The ADF supports the criminalization of gay people having sex, opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions, and believes that a "homosexual agenda" will undermine Christianity.^[14] They have set up a "Day of Truth" in an attempt to counter the Day of Silence.^[15] They also support a Christian who wants to hand out Bibles at gay pride events.^{[16][note 1]}
  • Transgender people — The ADF is responsible for the drafting of numerous anti-trans bathroom bills,^[18] and defended a Christian charity's decision to reject a homeless trans woman from staying in their shelter.^[19] The ADF is additionally responsible for ghostwriting many sports bans on transgender women and other laws depriving transgender people of their rights.^[20] They have also (unsuccessfully) defended laws that required the forced sterilisation of trans people.^[21] They even gave £15,000 to TERF/astroturf organisation the Women's Liberation Front to fund anti-trans campaigning.^[22]
  • Pornography
  • Sex education
  • The Internet
• Generally giving Christians, especially conservative Christians, power to deny freedom to others
• Pushing for classroom prayer (often times Christian prayer)
• Fighting the War on Christmas

Analysis[edit]

Pulpit Freedom Sunday in 2011

The group was conceived as a conservative counter to the ACLU. They have, on occasion, done some good — if self-serving — work for Christian groups that are unfairly prevented from using school property by officials who don't understand the Establishment Clause. But, then again, so has the ACLU.^[23]

On the other hand, they have helped defend the right of the Boy Scouts of America to discriminate against gays. The very nature of their mission runs counter to both the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States.

Starting in 2008, they have cajoled right-wing pastors into observing Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an intentional violation of the tax-exempt status of those pastors' churches.^[24]

Incidentally, Bill O'Reilly likes them.^[25]

2020 election activity[edit]

Michael Farris, CEO of ADF, wrote and circulated a draft lawsuit that was used largely as the basis for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit against the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, claiming that the states unconstitutionally expanded use of absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[26] The lawsuit was dismissed as moot because Texas (whom Paxton represented as AG) lacked standing regarding another state's election laws.^[27]

Funding[edit]

Major donors include James Leininger, Erik Prince, Bill and Bradley Foundation, Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, Berniece Grewcock Foundation, and the Bolthouse Foundation, which insists that "man was created by a direct act of God in His image, not from previously existing creatures".^[28][1] According to The Guardian, "the ADF saw a huge increase in its funding between 2020 and 2021. The group funneled some of that money into a slew of smaller anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion groups across the US."^[29]

International impact[edit]

The Christian Legal Centre is a British organization suspected of receiving funding from the ADF. The CLC and ADF jointly set up the UK based Wilberforce Academy, which tries to train Christians as public leaders. Overall, the Christian Legal Centre is less successful than the ADF claims it to be. The Christian Legal Centre has lost a high proportion of the cases taken on,^[30] while the ADF claims a high success rate.^[31]

Future[edit]

Polling evidence suggests that the percentage of Christians in the United States falls by about 1% yearly. As the proportion of Christians continues to decline, the culture in the United States is likely to more closely resemble that of Britain, making it harder for the ADF to win cases.

Moment of supreme irony[edit]

Biron's mugshot

In April 2013, ADF attorney Lisa A. Biron^[32] (1969–) was convicted of six counts of sexual exploitation of children, and one count of possession of child pornography when she filmed her own 14-year-old daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions, and the ADF moved swiftly to whitewash their connection to Biron by removing mention of her on the ADF web site and Facebook page.^[33] Biron got 40 years in prison.^[34]

See also[edit]

• American College of Pediatricians — ADF has collaborated with them^[35][36]
• Mike Johnson — the speaker of the House of Representatives (as of late 2023, anyway) started his legal career at ADF

Notes[edit]

References[edit]