Tag Archives: ADF: Media Clips

ADF Attorney Dave Cortman on the Georgene Rice Show to discuss See You At the Pole. | MP3 audio 10:30 mins | Website: See You at the Pole

Commonweal: As a result, marriage licenses are only available in Ledyard with a prior appointment. A lesbian couple moved into town from Miami, sought a marriage license and then refused to wait for an appointment, preferring instead to file a lawsuit. On one side is People for the American Way, representing the couple. On the other side is the Alliance Defense Fund.

KETKNBC.com: The pastors, along with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based nonprofit Alliance Defense Fund, are reacting to a law stating that churches are not allowed to support politicians from the pulpit, according to the ADF. | www.pulpitfreedom.org

Longview News: The commissioners also approved the inter-local agreement with the Tex-Americas Center as well as agreeing to consult with the Alliance Defense Fund to assist in a court response to the letter the county received from the Freedom From Religion Foundation requesting the court discontinue from saying a prayer before the start of each commissioners court meeting . . . The county’s response to the request has been to continue to say a prayer, therefore the consultations with the Alliance Defense Fund was passed unanimously by the court.

The Issaquah Press: Attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal advocacy group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., represented Ascherl in federal court. “Christians shouldn’t be threatened with arrest and quarantined in isolated ‘expression areas’ when they want to share their beliefs,” Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Nate Kellum said in a statement. “The federal judge did the right thing by halting the enforcement of a city ordinance that effectively censors anyone who wishes to express his or her beliefs through the distribution of literature. That violates the constitutionally protected right to free speech in public areas at a free event that’s open to everyone.”

The Town Talk: “Christian students should not be prevented from peacefully expressing their beliefs outside of class time. They don’t abandon their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said ADF senior counsel David Cortman. “Misinformed public school officials need to understand that the so-called ‘separation of church and state’ cannot be used as a reason to keep students from promoting or participating in ‘See You at the Pole.’”

Christian Post: Yet Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund believes the guidelines should be discarded. “Pastors have a right to speak about Biblical truths from the pulpit without fear of punishment,” he said in a statement. Referring to the enforcement of federal tax regulation, Stanley continued, “No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights.”

ADF Allied Attorney Mike Johnson appeared on “Today’s Issues” with Tim Wildmon and Tony Perkins to discuss Joyner v. Forsythe County, North Carolina. | MP3 audio 18:45 mins

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: It’s almost as if officials at the University of Montana think religious faith is toxic … a kind of spiritual or philosophical asbestos that pollutes whoever breathes the air around it.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Mike Siegel Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 38:03 mins

KTBS Shreveport: County commissioners have enlisted the aid of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative group that gets involved in church-state issues.

God Discussion (includes ADF video): The Alliance Defense Fund is sponsoring its annual “See You at the Pole” September 28th. It is being touted as a student organized, student led event which entails meeting on public school grounds around the country and praying round the flag pole.

Alan Sears sees his calling as fighting for the religious freedoms that undergird other freedoms

ADF Attorney Matt Sharp appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this: ADF assures Tenn. schools: ACLU wrong on rights in public schools. | MP3 audio 17:12 mins

Jim Garlow appeared on the Glenn Beck Program to dicuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 11:48 mins

Kansas Law Free Press: The KU Federalist Society, KU OutLAWS and Allies, and KC Legal are pleased to announce this year’s inaugural event, “The Case for Same Sex Marriage: Practicum and Practice.” We are fortunate to have two respected speakers who will each give their arguments for the legalization of same-sex marriage. KU Federalist Society is proud to welcome Professor Dale Carpenter. Professor Carpenter is an Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at University of Minnesota. He will be discussing the “Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” with Dale Schowengerdt. Schowengerdt is a seasoned litigator who has worked with the Alliance Defense Fund since 2003. | Dale Carpenter has a related post at the Volokh Conspiracy announcing the forum.

Erik Stanley at Townhall: Yet it remains a fact that every Sunday, when pastors in America ascend the pulpit, they face the cruel and unusual prospect of exchanging their natural, God-given right to free speech for a government-ordained lexicon (if they want to keep their tax-exempt status).

Arizona’s Abortion Consent Act upheld | Oregon Faith Report: Georgene Rice interviews Deborah Sheasby, legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, regarding a recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals . . .

Catholic News Agency (CNA): The Notice of Appeal was filed on September 19 by Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State at OpposingViews.com: It’s going to be a long election season, and we’re bound to see a lot more of this. The Alliance Defense Fund and other Religious Right organizations are already prodding churches to flagrantly violate the law by endorsing and/or opposing candidates from the pulpit. These groups hope to build a church-based political machine to elect their favored candidates to office. Once in power, these people will pursue a fundamentalist political agenda, work to enact laws that impose their narrow version of faith on all of us and assail the church-state wall.

NashuaTelegraph.com: Elsewhere on the Web, we find that Cornerstone has been most active in opposing the marriage equality law in New Hampshire. It has close ties with other conservative groups such as the Alliance Defense Fund, the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage.

Pamela Kimble at Cross Timbers Gazette: On October 20th, Reclaiming Texas For Christ will hold their second annual FREE conference for pastors, lay leaders, and everyday citizens who are concerned about the crumbling of this nation’s spiritual foundation. An impressive array of speakers will headline this year’s conference. In this FREE afternoon conference, attendees will hear from Timothy Barton of nationally recognized WallBuilders, Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund, Pastor Geoffrey Cohen of Gateway Church, Dan Panetti of Prestonwood Church, and talk show host Kerby Anderson of Point of View Ministries.

LJWorld.com: In Lawrence, a forum took place in April where several members of the community expressed religious, moral and practical concerns with the idea. An organizer of the local forum did not return phone calls seeking comment this week. Representatives of the Alliance Defense Fund, which led the conversation at the April forum, also did not respond to a request for comment. Here are questions surrounding the gender identity issue . . .

OneNewsNow.com: Alliance Defense Fund attorney Kevin Theriot says that since the nation’s founding, public meetings have been opened with prayer — and there is no legal reason, he explains, why a town should be denied this right. “This practice has always been lawful in America, and the district court rightly affirmed its constitutionality in this case last year,” says Theriot

Love Your Neighbor ministry seeks used cookbook donations – St. Petersburg Times: Brooksville Wesleyan Church, 8168 Jasmine Drive, will recognize Pulpit Freedom Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 2. The Alliance Defense Fund created the day in 2008 to encourage pastors to preach boldly and biblically about current events. Visit pulpitfreedom.com

LifeSiteNews.com: A proposed Mexican Supreme Court decision that would nullify pro-life amendments to Mexican state constitutions suffers from flawed reasoning, is “arbitrary,” and “frankly confused,” according to Piero Tozzi, an international human rights law expert and senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on Koinonea with Tom Brown. | MP3 audio 12:17 mins | The Pulpit Initiative

ADF Attorney Jon Scruggs appeared on the Janet Mefferd Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 12:51 mins

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on Voice of Russia. | MP3 audio 9:30 mins

LifeNews.com: In Ohio, a lawsuit in which Planned Parenthood was recently found to have violated an Ohio informed consent law has been “resolved and dismissed,” according to the Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney who filed the suit. ADF-allied attorney Brian Hurley represents the parents of a girl who, at age 14, was brought to a Planned Parenthood clinic for an abortion by the 22-year-old soccer coach who impregnated her.

Chicago Tribune: The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group, is representing one of the proprietors. Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jason Craddock told Huppke: I believe strongly that liberty of conscience, particularly religious liberty of conscience, is what our nation was built on and is something that goes deep to our souls. Increasingly it’s being pitted against the asserted rights of homosexuals. Now it’s going beyond just asking for tolerance. Now we’re getting into a situation where government is telling people of faith, “You can’t live out your faith if it happens to disagree with this particular group.”

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at Townhall : Consider the words of Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, in “After the Ball,” a manifesto in which they wrote: “[Regarding those] who feel compelled to adhere rigidly to an authoritarian belief structure (i.e. an orthodox religion), that condemns homosexuality…our primary objective…is to cow and silence them.” Does not Kirk and Hunter’s approach toward those with whom they disagree smack of the same intolerance on display in China?

ADF Attorney Brett Harvey at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: In a series of short blogs I will explore some of the troubling aspects of the decision in Joyner v. Forsyth County, NC decided on July 29, 2011.

ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg appeared on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss the threat to religious freedom that DADT poses. | MP3 audio 20:41 mins

ADF Attorney Austin R. Nimocks appeared on Wallbuilders Live in late July to discuss the ADF marriage survey. | MP3 audio 11:58 mins

LifeNews.com: In Ohio, a lawsuit in which Planned Parenthood was recently found to have violated an Ohio informed consent law has been “resolved and dismissed,” according to the Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney who filed the suit. ADF-allied attorney Brian Hurley represents the parents of a girl who, at age 14, was brought to a Planned Parenthood clinic for an abortion by the 22-year-old soccer coach who impregnated her.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Human Events: But no matter how the ACLU plays this one, it’s indefensible for a simple reason: it does not violate the First Amendment protected rights of anyone to block sexual sites in school. And make no mistake, the sites that would be accessible if the filters were removed are rife with what can only be considered pornography.

LJWorld.com: Cromwell expects significant opposition to the proposal. In April, about 50 people attended a meeting to express concerns about the gender identity proposal. Representatives from the Alliance Defense Fund, Concerned Women for America, and the Kansas Family Policy Council attended the meeting. Attempts on Wednesday to reach a local organizer of that meeting were unsuccessful. But Cromwell said he had received multiple emails from individuals who objected to the proposal on religious and moral grounds.

The New American: The ADF immediately contacted the township and informed officials that they would take the case to court if Racaniello was not permitted to put the cross anywhere he wanted on his own property. ADF lawyer Jonathan Scruggs declared, “We believe this is private property, and therefore he has a right to engage in this expression. We believe that either [of the two crosses] is protected by the First Amendment. | ADF information page

Jordan Lorence at Speak Up Movement University Blog: Last week, the University of Wisconsin paid almost $500,000 to the Alliance Defense Fund for violating the First Amendment rights of Badger Catholic, the Catholic student organization on campus. ADF has litigated a number of cases against the University of Wisconsin over the years challenging the unconstitutional abuses inflicted on students and student groups by its mandatory student fee system.

ADF Attorney Dave Cortman appeared on The Real Side with Joe Messina to discuss the Nampa Classical Academy litigation. | MP3 audio 12:48 mins

ADF Attorney Matt Sharp on Drive Time with the Bill Bunkley to discuss the Nampa Classical Academy case. | MP3 audio 11:47 mins

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 17:50 mins

Boise Weekly: The article mentions that Moffett is suing the board over the revocation of the charter. His lawyer is David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that defends so-called “Christian” causes “One of our claims in the case is, the closing down of the school, under the alleged guise of financial reasons, is a reaction to the teaching of religious books,” said Cortman.

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: Is working where religious activities occur like working at a building with asbestos ceiling tiles?

Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Universities should recognize the constitutional rights of Christian students and ministries just as they do for all other students and campus groups,” said Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit. “Sadly, the University refused to do so, and instead squandered money by trying to defend the indefensible: blatant, unlawful discrimination against Christian students and ministries.”

OneNewsNow.com: ADF senior counsel Jordan Lorence suggests the school has had its sights on religious-based student groups for some time. “The University of Wisconsin has maintained an extreme view of the Establishment Clause, [suggesting] that it requires [the school] to go on a search-and-destroy mission for all things religious,” he says.

OneNewsNow.com: ADF attorney Erik Stanley does not believe pastors and churches should live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government in any way. “Keeping the gospel central to what is preached is not in conflict with addressing the subject of political candidates when that is warranted,” he contends. “These survey results show that the desire to keep the gospel central does not mean that pastors want the IRS to regulate their sermons under the threat of revoking their church’s tax-exempt status.”

The Bandera Bulletin: According to David Cortman, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, “School districts shouldn’t be bullied into exposing students to sexually explicit materials.” Cortman says, “The ‘Don’t Filter Me Initiative’ would be better named the ‘Public School Porn Initiative.’ The ACLU is pushing its radical sexual agenda on children by intimidating school districts with a long string of scare tactics disguised as a concern over censorship. In truth, these school districts have no obligation to cave to the ACLU’s unwarranted demands. Our children come first . . . An internet article by Alan Sears (ADF President, CEO, and General Counsel) gives school districts who try to protect students from offensive materials reason to hope and stand firm . . . [more]

The Advocate: Belforti, who earned $19,116 in her part-time clerk position last year, refuses to resign. New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a group of evangelical Protestants that advocated against the marriage equality law before it passed in June, has offered to connect her and other clerks to legal support from the Alliance Defense Fund.

ProLife Blogs: Today, on behalf of the adult stem researchers it represents, the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, filed their Notice of Appeal asking the United States Court of Appeals to reinstate their case dismissed by United States District Court for the District of Columbia in its July 27 decision . . .

Greg Baylor at Townhall : In March 2011, the school board in Douglas County, Colo., voted 7-0 to implement a school voucher program. It was designed to provide concerned parents with 75 percent of the education money provided by the state for their children if the parents preferred to send their children to the private school of their choice.

OneNewsNow.com: “The ACLU cannot set its own opinion up over the Supreme Court or the United States Constitution and decades of legal precedent,” Cortman contends. “‘Lip service is students’ First Amendment protective rights to express their religious beliefs at school’ is a flimsy cover for the ACLU’s real agenda, which is imposing restrictions that trample these rights.”

LifeNews.com: he appeal was filed by the Jubilee Campaign, a Christian law firm, and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The Obama administration, via the National Institute of Health’s regulations permitted the federal funding of “research in which” human embryos are “knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.” Sam Casey, pro-life attorney arguing the case, commented on the appeal, saying, “Each time grant-awarding officials and federally funded scientists support or engage in hESC research, living human embryos are ‘knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death,’ in violation of the federal law known as the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.

LaTimes.com: The latest example is a battle between the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative public-interest law firm, and the Idaho Public Charter School Commission. The commission threatened to revoke the charter of a school if it used any “religious document or text” — including the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Koran and the Bible — or even made those works available in the classroom.

Thomson Reuters: For the gay marriage opponents: Charles Cooper, David Thompson, Howard Nielson, Nicole Moss and Peter Patterson of Cooper and Kirk; Andrew Pugno of the Law Offices of Andrew Pugno; Brian Raum and James Campbell of the Alliance Defense Fund.

JDSupra: According to the survey conducted by LifeWay Research in August, 79% of Protestant pastors ‘strongly disagreed’ while 7% ‘somewhat disagreed’ with the statement, “The government should regulate sermons by revoking a church’s tax exemption if its pastor approves of or criticizes candidates based on the church’s moral beliefs or theology.” The survey was conducted among 1,000 Protestant pastors and sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund.

The New Civil Rights Movement: Which means, Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), ProtectMarriage​.com, and all the other “family” anti-​gay groups can band together and file a motion to appeal this appealed ruling, all the way to the Supreme Court if they like.

ADF Attorney Gary McCaleb at Townhall: For over a year, ADF and decorated, high-ranking veteran chaplains have warned that DADT repeal will harm military religious liberty. One of the most significant threats is that the lack of strong regulations protecting chaplains and service members from “sexual orientation discrimination” complaints will chill free speech and freedom of religion.

Christian Newswire: Today, on behalf of the adult stem researchers it represents, the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, filed their Notice of Appeal asking the United States Court of Appeals to reinstate their case dismissed by United States District Court for the District of Columbia in its July 27 decision based upon the district court’s interpretation of the Court of Appeal’s April 29 ruling vacating the district court’s August 23, 2010 preliminary injunction of the National Institute of Health’s regulations that Obama administration promulgated to permit the federal funding of “research in which” human embryos are “knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: The great news is the Fourth Circuit issued an order on September 14, 2011 which affirms that St. Catherine and other ministries have the right to employ only those who agree with their religious teachings and apply them to their daily lives.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Townhall: On college and university campuses around the country, officials are increasingly using “nondiscrimination” policies to deny religious groups the right to choose prospective members and leaders based on whether they share the group’s religious beliefs. In other words, laws that were originally designed to protect religious groups and persons from institutionalized discrimination are now being used to punish religious groups for exercising their religious freedoms.

Religion Clause: Recent Articles of Interest: Gregory S. Baylor and Ronald Chen, Did the Supreme Court Properly Decide Christian Legal Society v. Martinez?

Columbus Local News: After the Board of Zoning and Appeals rejected that application and council upheld BZAP’s ruling, Tree of Life filed suit in January, represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Pantagraph: But the religious leaders are bolstered by well-funded Christian legal organizations supporting their cause. The most prominent — the Alliance Defense Fund, a group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that spent $32 million in 2010 — is challenging a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits pastors, as leaders of tax-exempt organizations, from supporting or opposing candidates from the pulpit. The fund sponsors Pulpit Freedom Sunday, in which it offers free legal representation to churches whose pastors preach about political candidates and are then audited by the Internal Revenue Service. (So far, no IRS investigations have been triggered.) Last fall, 100 churches participated — up from 33 in 2008. This year’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday scheduled for Oct. 2, is expected to draw more than 500 churches. [Kelly Shackelford of Liberty Institute quoted]

Houston Chronicle: “We’re getting into a situation where government is telling people of faith, ‘You can’t live out your faith if it happens to disagree with this particular group,’” said Illinois attorney Jason Craddock, a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national Christian legal organization that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. [Jason is an allied attorney]

Chicago Tribune: Illinois attorney Jason Craddock, a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national Christian legal organization that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, also is representing Timber Creek. Craddock said cases such as this one involving the Wathens are critical for people of faith who believe their First Amendment freedom of religion is inviolable. [Jason is an allied attorney.]

Congratulations to allied attorneys Barry Arrington, Bill Becker, Scott Bergthold, Harold Cassidy, Natalie Decker, Kyle Duncan, Rick Esenberg, Steve Fitschen, Jeremiah Galus, Jobe Rodgers, David Langdon, and Alan Reinach as well as new Honor Corps members Stephen Casey, Donald Cayen, and Ruth Nordstrom for their recent accomplishments and successes listed below. Please take time to congratulate them!

JSOnline: In a statement Friday, Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys, said the university should defend the free speech rights of religious students. “Sadly, the university refused to do so, and instead squandered money by trying to defend the indefensible: blatant, unlawful discrimination against Christian students and ministries.”

Anti-LGBT Bullying Advocates Meet with Bachmann’s Office | The Advocate: In a meeting that she described as cordial and productive, Aaberg talked about the pervasive bullying her son had faced. The problem was compounded by a school policy that did not adequately counter such harassment, she said. To the contrary, Justin’s school allowed such events as the “Day of Truth” to occur: The annual antigay event is organized by the social conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, though the ex-gay group Exodus International has also supported Day of Truth in the past.

VirtueOnline: The religious leaders are bolstered by well-funded Christian legal organizations supporting their cause. The most prominent – the Alliance Defense Fund, a group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that spent $32 million in 2010 – is challenging a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits pastors, as leaders of tax-exempt organizations, from supporting or opposing candidates from the pulpit.

Fox News: “I suspect the Supreme Court is going to eventually write the final book of this case,” David Cortman predicted as he too walked across the abandoned field that was once Nampa Classical. Cortman is from The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based group that defends Christian causes. “The Supreme Court of the United States has held for decades now,” he explained, “that it is Constitutionally permissible to objectively teach the Bible in public schools for history or comparative literature.”

Jeremy Tedesco at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: See You At The Pole (SYATP) is an annual, global, student-organized and student-led event where public school students gather around the flagpole at their schools to pray for their schools, friends, teachers, government, and nation. SYATP will occur this year on September 28.

OneNewsNow.com: “It’s simply reprehensible that the ACLU and Yale Law School are more concerned about faring their own agenda that exposes children to harm than they are about protecting those children,” Cortman laments. “Certainly, removing porn filters does nothing to end bullying.”

The Monitor – Kansas City Metro Edition: “The ACLU’s ‘Don’t Filter Me Initiative’ would be better named the ‘Public School Porn Initiative,’ says David Cortman, Senior Counsel for ADF. “The ACLU is pushing its radical sexual agenda for children by intimidating school districts with a long string of scare tactics disguised as a concern over censorship. School districts shouldn’t be bullied into exposing students to sexually explicit materials. Our children come first.”