Alliance Defending Freedom



…[the ADF's] ultimate goal is to see the law and U.S. government enshrined with conservative Christian principles. Alliance Denying Defending Fascism Freedom (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund until 2012) is a right wing religious legal group with an income of nearly $40 million in 2010. On the basis of its extremist viewpoints on homosexuality, transgender people, and evangelical Christianity, it is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Aims
The ADF is dedicated to:
 * Opposing abortion
 * 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. They have set up a "Day of Truth" in an attempt to counter the Day of Silence. They also support a Christian who wants to hand out Bibles at gay pride events.
 * Transgender people - The ADF is responsible for the drafting of numerous anti-trans bathroom bills, and defended a Christian charity's decision to reject a homeless trans woman from staying in their shelter. The ADF is additionally responsible for ghostwriting many sports bans on transgender women and other laws depriving transgender people of their rights. They have also (unsuccessfully) defended laws which required the forced sterilisation of trans people. They even gave £15,000 to "radical feminist" organisation the Women's Liberation Front to fund anti-trans campaigning.
 * 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
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.

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.

Incidentally, Bill O'Reilly likes them.

2020 election activity
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. The lawsuit was dismissed as moot because Texas (whom Paxton represented as AG), lacked standing regarding another state's election laws.

Funding
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".

International impact
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 to be.The Christian Legal Centre has lost a high proportion of the cases taken on, while the ADF claims a high success rate.

Future
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
In April 2013, ADF attorney Lisa Biron 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. Biron got 40 years in prison.