The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a right-of-center Christian litigation and advocacy organization. ADF represents clients on issues like protections for religious exercise, Christian understandings of marriage and sexuality, freedom of expression, and Title IX. The Alliance Defending Freedom claims over 400 court victories for freedom of speech of college students and 11 Supreme Court wins since 2011. [1]
Critics have alleged that the Trump administration collaborated with ADF on policy and on nominees for judicial and administrative positions, including the initial elevation to a federal lower-court judgeship of now-Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. [2] Other left-of-center critics, most notably the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claim ADF’s opposition to legal recognition of same-sex marriage is camouflage for an anti-gay prejudice. [3] SPLC labeled ADF a “Hate Group” for its alleged bias against LGBT people. [4]
Background
A number of conservative Christian advocates, most prominently Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, formed the Alliance Defending Freedom under the name Alliance Defense Fund in 1994. Activists hoped to counter the legal success of left-progressive organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had won court decisions to further secularist agendas including eliminating prayer in public schools. ADF grew to become the largest legal group representing the so-called religious right. In 2014, the New York Times characterized Alliance Defending Freedom as successful in “wielding constitutional arguments without invoking religion.” [5]
In 2000, the Alliance Defending Freedom created the Blackstone Legal Fellowship that awards internships to law students. The Fellowship has fostered over 1,600 internships in over 300 organizations. [6]
Since its inception, the Alliance Defending Freedom claims to have played a role in 60 U.S. Supreme Court victories, claims to have an overall win rate of 80%, boasts of a network of over 3,700 allied attorneys and 300 allied organizations, and says it has contributed $225 million in pro bono hours and $52 million in case funding. [7]
Prominent Lawsuits
Wedding Services
The Alliance Defending Freedom represented baker Jack Phillips in arguing that making a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration would violate his religious beliefs. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Phillips in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. [8]
School Transgender Policies
ADF is representing female athletes opposed to Connecticut and Idaho policies allowing persons born male who identify as female to participate in athletic competitions against athletes born female. It argues the policies deprive the girls of athletic opportunities in violation of Title IX. [9]
The Alliance Defending Freedom challenged the U.S. Department of Education in two cases for requiring schools to allow students who identify with a sex other than that as which they were born into restrooms, locker rooms, showers, and overnight accommodations of their sex of identification. The policy was a product of the Obama Administration where students could choose their own gender and facilities. School noncompliance meant forfeiting funding for programs like special education and lunches for those in need. In 2017, the DOE revoked the Obama-era rules. [10]
Obamacare
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandated that businesses pay for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs as part of insurance coverage for employees or face crippling fines under the Obamacare law. ADF represented the Hahn Family and Conestoga Woods Specialties against Sylvia Burwell, the Obama administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Supreme Court accepted the case and it was argued in parallel with Hobby Lobby Stores v Burwell, due similar facts. [11] It ruled that owners of closely held corporations do not have to violate their religious beliefs to run a business. [12]
Covid-19 Shutdowns
In Nevada, Governor Steve Sisolak (D) permitted businesses like casinos, theme parks, gyms, restaurants, and bars to re-open amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, he continued to restrict churches with threats of civil and criminal penalties if they allowed more than 50 attendees. ADF represented Calvary Chapel’s challenge to the order and secured a ruling in the Chapel’s favor before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2020. [13]
LGBT-Related Controversies
Critics of Alliance Defending Freedom have focused on the group’s support for a traditionalist Christian understanding of sexuality, charging the group is anti-gay and anti-transgender for opposing social liberal policies activists assert are in those groups’ interests. [14]
Alan Sears
The founding CEO of ADF was Alan Sears, who drew criticism for his 2003 book, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today. The New York Times described it as portraying “harsh views,” alleging that social-liberal LGBT-interest advocacy would create “broken families and broken lives,” and that gay people were “trapped.” [15]
SPLC “Hate Group” Designation
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a controversial left-wing watchdog of supposed extremist groups, designated Alliance Defending Freedom as a “hate group” for its social-conservative and traditionalist Christian positions on sexuality and related issues. [16] by initiated numerous attacks on the group. While ADF has denounced the label as “baseless slander,” left-leaning organizations and major corporations have relied on the list, with Amazon excluding ADF from its charitable giving program, AmazonSmile. [17] Then-U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) used SPLC’s designation to compare the ADF to the notorious Cambodian dictator Pol Pot while questioning Amy Coney Barrett about her connections to ADF. [18] Metropolitan-liberal media outlets including NBC, ABC, CNN, and Teen Vogue have also spread the SPLC’s branding of ADF. [19]
U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) defended ADF with a letter of concern to ABC News. Lankford said that ABC, an advocate of free speech, should not label ADF as a “hate group” due its belief in traditional marriage and religious liberty. Lankford claimed SPLC’s designations lack legal and factual basis. [20] ADF has claimed the allegation led to the need for security for their attorneys, employees suffering public verbal attacks, and a refusal by Microsoft for nonprofit pricing. [21]