Tag Archives: ADF: Media Clips

ADF Attorney Brian Raum comments at SCOTUSblog.

CBN.com: The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the litigants. Attorneys claim federal and state law protects their clients from being forced to take part in the procedure.

ProLifeBlogs: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.” . . . Demetrios K. Stratis, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance is local counsel in the case, Danquah v. University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. ADF is currently involved in a similar lawsuit in New York state court involving a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Heritage Fundation: Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, explained at the hearing that “children are the product of sexual relationships between men and women” and that “men and women each bring something important and unique to the table of parenting.” Therefore, Nimocks argued, “this government maintains a compelling interest in protecting and preserving the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

MiamiHerald.com: Attorney Daniel Cox, representing Sanger’s mother Phyllis of Colonial Beach, Va., and brother Mark of Eugene, Ore., also declined to comment. Cox is a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian-based legal network that was involved in Schiavo’s case.

ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg at LifeNews.com: Imagine that medicine allowed doctors to easily and safely remove babies from the womb long before birth and put them in some sort of artificial womb to complete their development. Now ask yourself if this technology would completely remove the market for killing the unborn. Answer? No. Why?

The Tennessean: The Alliance Defense Fund was contacted by the FCA Club and community members regarding the restrictions on the participation of faculty at the event, which was held after school hours. “We are concerned that your legal counsel may have provided you with inaccurate legal advice that impermissibly restricted the constitutional rights of teachers and staff to engage in private religious expression,” the letter stated.

Crosswalk ReligionToday News Summaries: Justice is not well-served when unhappy atheists can use the law to mow down memorial crosses and renew the suffering for the survivors,” said ADF senior counsel Byron Babione. Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone dissenter, also harshly criticized the court’s decision, saying it rejected “an opportunity to provide clarity” to an area of law that was “in shambles.”

Canada Free Press: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

NRL News Today: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.” The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” Bowman said.

Christian Post: “ADF is committed to defend the right of pro-life nurses not to be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said Matt Bowman of ADF on Tuesday. Bowman also said that throughout the country there are other legal challenges to hospitals requiring medical personnel to assist in abortions even if they hold religious objections. “ADF is currently litigating this case on behalf of a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York,” said Bowman, who added that his organization “successfully intervened on behalf of nursing applicants to a program at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.”

Interlochen Public Radio: But Elk Rapids Attorney Steve Francis has been scrutinizing the local law and he says there’s a certain group of Traverse City business owners who might want to take notice.
“The secondary effect of this particular ordinance is really the restriction of Christian speech and Christian belief, and that’s what really concerns me,” Francis says . . . He volunteers as an attorney with a national group called the Alliance Defense Fund, which defended a Christian couple who ran a photography studio in New Mexico. The owners ran afoul of a similar law when they refused to photograph a civil union between two women.
“So we argued that to force this couple to take pictures of a lesbian commitment ceremony, which was against their religious beliefs, was forced speech,” he says. “The human rights commission found against this couple, fined them $6,600 and that’s being appealed in state court in New Mexico. That’s the kind of thing that really concerns me with this particular ordinance.”

ABA Journal: Sanger’s brother and mother are represented by Daniel Cox, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund. Cox says Daniel Sanger told his mother he wanted to live before his health declined due to complications from a bed sore. An alliance press release says Sanger became unconscious after expressing a desire to live.

LifeSiteNews.com: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

OneNewsNow.com: But Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Byron Babione tells OneNewsNow that American Atheists claimed the memorials are “a state establishment of religion.” . . . “It is baffling that the Supreme Court did not take this case in light of the fact that just last year they said that roadside memorials to fallen troopers would not violate the Establishment Clause,” the attorney laments.

Christianity Today: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Byron Babione said, “The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear this case is baffling in light of its comments just last year that individualized memorial crosses honoring fallen troopers do not amount to a government establishment of religion.” Babione and the ADF helped represent those who paid for and maintained the crosses . . . According to the ADF’s brief, that the crosses were memorials and symbols of sacrifice; they did not represent Christianity. “The [Utah Highway Patrol Association] chose the cross shape because it is the only symbol, given its historical use, that could simultaneously communicate messages of roadside death, commemoration, and highway safety,” the ADF brief said.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: For five years, members of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners have been under legal attack from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – the number one religious censor in America – and Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU). Both object to the Commissioners’ custom of allowing “sectarian” prayer to open public meetings … even though the person offering the invocation has always been allowed to do so in keeping with his own faith, whatever that may be.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: A total of 539 pastors participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday which was a massive increase from the 100 pastors that participated last year.

WZTV FOX 17 (ADF attorneys Byron Babione and Jim Campbell in the video) Sky Arnold: Attorneys who are fighting a controversial new state law want to see e-mails and documents of those who supported it . . .

LifeNews.com: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” Bowman told LifeNews. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

Baptist Press: The Alliance Defense Fund reports that in all the state votes on same-sex marriage over the last decade, 63 percent of all active voters have voted to affirm natural marriage. The record that counts — the one at the ballot box — show that those who report supporting same-sex marriage are not as likely to show up to vote their convictions.

WorldNetDaily: The Alliance Defense Fund has been fighting on behalf of the Utah Highway Patrol Association to memorialize fallen troopers “in a way they see fit . . . ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione argued “one atheist group’s agenda shouldn’t diminish the sacrifice made by highway patrol officers and their families.” “Thirteen heroic men fell, leaving their survivors to mourn and memorialize their loved ones, and now those widows, children, parents, colleagues, and many more must suffer through losing the very memorials that honored those heroes,” he said.

Ken Klukowski at the Washington Examiner: The Utah Highway Patrol Association participated in the case as intervenors represented by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). The ADF’s lead counsel for UHPA, Byron Babione, said, “One atheist group’s agenda shouldn’t diminish the sacrifice made by highway patrol officers and their families.” ADF would continue to fight to protect these memorials, he added. The slight silver lining in this denial is that Thomas’s dissent suggests that the High Court might not have seen the 10th Circuit’s judgment as covering all roadside crosses, instead regarding it as covering only roadside crosses bearing government insignia (which are presumably rare).

The Washington Post: The conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which asked the court to consider the case, was disappointed. “Justice is not well served when unhappy atheists can use the law to mow down memorial crosses and renew the suffering for the survivors,” said ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione.

Fox News: “The hospital told the nurses they have no regard for their religious beliefs,” said Matthew Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund. “They were going to be assigned these abortions or they would be terminated.”

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: It’s the kind of case that’s become all too common in recent years – a public elementary school chiding children for attempting, in even the most gentle, harmless manner, to live out their faith.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Townhall : Nearly every week, I come across an article where parents in some community are in an uproar over school districts promoting inappropriate sexual materials to our kids. Whether it’s related to homosexual behavior or other age-inappropriate sexual issues, there seem be school districts across the land intent on sexualizing our kids.

The Associated Press: Daniel Cox, the attorney for Mark Sanger and his mother, is a member of the Alliance Defense Fund. The Christian-based legal network says it is dedicated to protecting the sanctity of life and also was involved in Schiavo’s case.

Idaho Statesman: The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based firm that presses faith-based cases in court, issued a statement Monday saying the district was “duped” by gay rights activists into ditching the proposed parental consent policy. “School districts do not need to give in to activist demands that parents be left ignorant about what their children are exposed to,” said Jeremy Tedesco, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, in a statement.

The Tennessean: But Byron Babione, an attorney with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the Family Action Council, said the group’s communications are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to political speech. “Our clients make no apologies for being involved in the political process,’’ Babione said. | Also posted here.

OneNewsNow.com: “In fact, the Freedom From Religion Foundation turns the constitution on its head,” Cortman contends. “It basically argues that because someone is employed by the government, they somehow forfeit all their constitutional rights — and that is simply not true.”

The New American: On October 27 the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the conservative legal advocacy group representing the county, filed a petition with the High Court asking it to overturn the Fourth Circuit ruling and once again “approve the historical practice of allowing citizens to offer prayers at public meetings according to the faith of the prayer-giver,” according to an ADF press release. “America’s founders opened public meetings with prayer,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “This county simply wants to allow its citizens to do the same. We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will want to review this case because of the long history in America of offering prayers before public meetings.”

Christian Post: “We’re confident the court will take a real interest in this case, and that opinion, I think, is shared by constitutional law scholars and litigators around the country,” Mike Johnson, a lawyer of Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal organization representing county commissioners, said Friday.

WorldNetDaily: But the board disagrees, and with the help of the Alliance Defense Fund is asking the Supreme Court to trump Wilkinson’s ruling. “America’s founders opened public meetings with prayer; this county simply wants to allow its citizens to do the same,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman in a statement. “We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will want to review this case because of the long history in America of offering prayers before public meetings. Public officials shouldn’t be coerced into censoring the prayers of those invited to offer them just because secularist groups don’t like people praying according to their own conscience.”

Religion headlines in the media around the country | Deseret News (AP): The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Tulsa by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Owasso Kids for Christ. It alleges the school unconstitutionally prohibits the group from distributing religious flyers, from taking part in an open house and from using the school’s public address system.

LifeNews.com: Roger Kiska, representing the Alliance Defense Fund which also took part in elaborating the Articles, highlighted that we should not forget why the international legal instruments were created after WWII: to oppose the totalitarian regimes. He emphasized that all of those legal instruments protect the right to life. Kiska found it troubling that still in 2011 many States allow forced abortion, abortion targeting the disabled, and sex selective abortions.

WXII The Triad: “We’re confident the court will take a real interest in this case, and that opinion, I think, is shared by constitutional law scholars and litigators around the country. There are many people watching this one closely,” said Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Mike Johnson.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: An Egyptian court is reported to have sentenced a man to three years in jail and hard labor because he ”intentionally insulted the dignity of the Islamic religion and attacked it with insults and ridicule on Facebook.”

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: In an interesting bit of “reasoning,” Banzhaf contends that CUA has no good religious reason for not better “accommodating” Muslim prayer because nearby Georgetown University will soon offer Muslim prayer space at a new interfaith center. Surely Banzhaf doesn’t think the Archbishop is legally obliged to either tear down the Basilica or build a mosque on the CUA campus? Right?

The New American: “A Christian organization should not be targeted for discrimination when it is simply seeking to publicize its voluntary meetings just like other community groups do,” said ADF attorney Matt Sharp. “The district would have people believe that the Constitution requires a religious organization to be singled out in this manner when, in reality, the Constitution strictly prohibits this type of discrimination. The courts have repeatedly upheld this.”

CBN.com: The Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the county, said the High Court should decide whether public bodies are required to find out in advance what will be said in prayers that precede their meetings.

OneNewsNow.com: “Obviously, this is a complete violation of the constitutional rights of the group for being excluded merely because they’re Christians,” contends ADF attorney David Cortman. “This was a secular assembly approved by the school, and yet this far-left group wants them prohibited merely because they’re Christian.”

ADF Attorney Matt Sharp at the Washington Examiner: In what has increasingly become a troubling sign of the times, an Oklahoma public schools district has barred a community-led Christian club for students from publicizing its before-school meetings on the Northeast Elementary campus.

Christian Post: Daniel Blomberg, litigation staff council for the Alliance Defense Fund, says what the case is really about is “social engineering.” He says it sends a message that men and women are fundamentally interchangeable.

Religion News In Brief | Fox News (AP): The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Tulsa by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Owasso Kids for Christ. It alleges the school unconstitutionally prohibits the group from distributing religious flyers, from taking part in an open house and from using the school’s public address system.

WXII The Triad: Lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund Inc. filed the request for Supreme Court review on Thursday.

The Republic (AP): The ruling “imposes an unwieldy requirement that government police the language of prayers,” ADF lawyers said in their appeal. “Does the Constitution require the government to censor prayer content to exclude sectarian references?”

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP – Attorneys at Law: Columbia associate Jay Thompson was recognized with the 2010 Scarborough Award . . . Mr. Thompson also represented the Alliance Defense Fund and provided legal advice and assistance on S.C. law regarding constitutionality of prayer at city council meetings. He handles criminal domestic violence cases as well.

CBN.com: e lawsuit against Owasso Public Schools was filed in federal court this week by the Alliance Defense Fund.

JournalNow.com: Mike Johnson, an attorney working with the Allied Defense Fund who argued the case before the 4th Circuit, said the ACLU and Americans United were advocating “censorship.” “They don’t want private citizens invited by the board to express themselves according to the dictates of their consciences,” Johnson said.

The debate was sponsored by the Federalist Society and is here. The video runs just over 80 minutes.

Tulsa Beacon: “A Christian organization should not be targeted for discrimination when it is simply seeking to publicize its voluntary meetings just like other community groups do,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Matt Sharp. “The district would have people believe that the Constitution requires a religious organization to be singled out in this manner when, in reality, the Constitution strictly prohibits this type of discrimination. The courts have repeatedly upheld this.”

OneNewsNow.com: Matt Sharp, litigation staff counsel for Alliance Defense Fund . . . “All of the court cases on this have dealt with specifically this type of discrimination,” Sharp explains, “where all of the other community groups are allowed in, but a Christian religious group is specifically targeted and excluded because of its religious nature.” “Time and time again,” he adds, courts have held that under the First Amendment, such censorship is unconstitutional.

Morning Call: Matthew Sharp, an attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund in suburban Atlanta, a group that provides legal defense of religious freedom and represented the Ayers family, did not return a call. Michael Ayers declined to comment.

LifeSiteNews.com: Other speakers will include the eminent Brazilian pro-life activist Fr. Lodi da Cruz, speaking on the issue of abortion, HLI’s Raymond da Souza on dechristianization, Fr. Paulo Ricardo on cultural Marxism, Alliance Defense Fund’s Piero Tozzi on the claimed “right” to abortion in international law, and LifeSiteNews’ own Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, speaking on the goals, methods, and history of the homosexual movement.

Huffington Post (embeds Fox 23 Video): “The school district cannot engage in that type of discriminatory behavior,” ADF attorney Matt Sharp told KOKI Fox 23. “The school has to remain neutral in all of this, it can’t pick and choose which group it likes or doesn’t like based on the religious content or viewpoint of their message.”

Religion News in Brief – The Washington Post (AP): The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Tulsa by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Owasso Kids for Christ. It alleges the school unconstitutionally prohibits the group from distributing religious flyers, from taking part in an open house and from using the school’s public address system.

KRMG.com: Owasso Kids for Christ is a before-school, Bible-based character building organization according to the Alliance Defense Fund’s Matt Sharp, the attorney handling the case.
“This is a straight-forward case of a school district singling out and discriminating against a Christian organization because of its religious identity,” he said.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: In an open letter to his fellow bishops, Bishop Dolan, President of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops lists numerous examples of government laws, policies, and regulations that have been propounded without any regard for the religious liberty upon which they are trampling.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at Religion Clause Blog (10/21): This is just one more example of how efforts to censor speech because it is critical of other religions is a danger to freedom.

ADF Attorney Brett Harvey at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: In a remarkable 2-1 split decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which presides over the four states of the Carolina’s and the Virginias) invalidated the policy of Forsyth County, NC that allowed prayers to be offered before meetings of the County Council. The court acknowledged that the county policy was “neutral and proactively inclusive.” However, it was struck down because the court found that too many “sectarian” references would make people feel uncomfortable.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Speak Up Movement University Blog (10/21): The Latin phrase in loco parentis literally means “in the place of parents” and has been referred to loosely by courts as the place held by local schools when students are in attendance. But this concept is being taken too far by public school officials.

The Republic (AP): The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Tulsa by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Owasso Kids for Christ.

Tulsa World: The complaint was filed Monday in Tulsa by local counsel Richard D. White Jr. and attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund, which on its website describes itself as “a servant organization that provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family.”

NewsOK.com: Matt Sharp of Georgia, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said Tuesday the defense fund has filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the Kids for Christ Club of Owasso.

FOX23 News: The club used to send home flyers and permission slips with kids until the District told them they had to stop when it had its motto, “One Dream, One Vision, Reaching the World for Christ!” attached to the flyer. “The school district cannot engage in that type of discriminatory behavior,” says Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney, Matt Sharp. The ADF who represents the youth group is Christian legal team defending the right of people to live their faith. “That’s basically the Christian faith that’s showing love for Jesus to others, I don’t see how that is harmful to others,” says an Owasso mother.

San Antonio Express-News: If there’s a lawsuit, Belforti will be represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based firm that presses faith-based cases in court. Belforti says she is not discriminating against anyone since both gay and straight couples must make appointments. And she turns the argument around: She says people are opposed to accommodating her faith.

Christian Post: “This is a pretty straight forward case of the school district impermissibly discriminating against a Christian community organization based on its religious message,” said Matt Sharp, an attorney representing OKC from the Alliance Defense Fund, in an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday.

Bartlesville Radio: Attorney Matt Sharp of the Alliance Defense Fund claims the school district is targeting a Christian organization. Owasso Kids for Christ meets at Northeast Elementary School before school starts. It is open to students Kindergarten through Sixth Grade.

Religion Clause: Alliance Defense Fund announced Monday that it had filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of “Kids for Christ” against the Owasso, Oklahoma Public Schools challenging school policy that bars religious groups from distributing flyers in the schools, as well as posting signs and making announcement of their events

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. | MP3 audio 8:38 mins | ADF Media Resources: Bronx Household, Alpha Delta Chi, Utah Highway Patrol, Forsyth Co.

ADF Attorney Brian Raum at Townhall : As a matter of fact, EQCA’s loss in Proposition 8 was bad enough that their board decided the group ought “not…get involved with marriage in California going forward.” (This, of course, is a victory in itself.) Broadly speaking, all these things should serve as an encouragement for the proponents of true marriage, whom the media and groups supporting the homosexual agenda so often seem to drown out.

OneNewsNow.com: “Christian students have positive messages to share with other students that are not only protected by the Constitution, but that should be welcomed in public schools,” notes ADF attorney David Cortman. “The court was right to stop this unconstitutional ban on Christmas party invitations.” Though school officials prohibited invitations to the church party, ADF staff counsel Matt Sharp says they indiscriminately permitted other students to distribute invites to other events . . . [more]

TruthDive: According to a Fox news report, Matt Sharp, an attorney representing the Kids for Christ, a community-led Christian group, is suing the Owasso Public Schools. Sharp, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said the school district told the club it could no longer publicize its events, including discouraging organizers from spreading the word in the community and local media.

LifeSiteNews.com: Alliance Defense Fund senior legal counsel Steven Aden told LSN, referencing the Kansas disciplinary board case against Kline. “Intentional destruction of evidence is a serious charge, and if Planned Parenthood has been complicit in this criminal act, it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”