Tag Archives: Alliance Defense Fund

ADF Attorney Steven Aden at Townhall: Last month, Planned Parenthood celebrated 95 years of providing “essential health care” for women throughout this country. But if you’re like most Americans, there’s a good chance you didn’t know the anniversary took place. For unlike the pro-abortion heydays of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, Planned Parenthood’s so-called “successes” are frequently being heralded with a whimper rather than a bang. The bottom line is that more and more Americans—especially young Americans—find the killing fields of Planned Parenthood abhorrent.

Christian Post: Belforti reached out to the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious freedom advocacy organization, for help. An ADF lawyer, Jordan L[o]rence, commented on the case: “We need to protect religious liberty and the right of conscience. And legalizing same-sex marriage creates these kinds of conflicts.” “[Protecting] these town clerks,” L[o]rence says, is akin to protecting religious freedom.

Susa Olasky at WORLD Magazine: Samuel B. Casey, an attorney with the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project, said the ordinance is the “result of a private political organization using the power of government to attack another organization based on that organization’s ideas and speech.” The Alliance Defense Fund and Texas Center for Defense of Life are also helping LifeCare with its suit.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Every time I mention Pulpit Freedom Sunday, I generally get two basic objections to the concept of Pulpit Freedom. Yet these objections in some way are either misguided or just flat out wrong.

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: A recent survey of the religious affiliations of students at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut shows that more students identified as atheist or agnostic than any other group, edging out those who identified with any Christian group by a nose.

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor at the Speak Up Movement Blog: Shorter University, a Christ-centered institution of higher education in Georgia, recently adopted a Personal Lifestyle Statement for university employees.

CBN.com: “We need to protect religious liberty and the right of conscience. And legalizing same-sex marriage creates these kinds of conflicts,” ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence said. “And it would be better and more in line with our American constitutional tradition, protecting religious liberty and right of conscience, to protect these town clerks,” Lorence said.

The Republic (AP): Harris said the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit Christian advocacy group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that handles cases related to the First Amendment’s freedom of religious exercise clause, will represent Growing God’s Kingdom if the school needs legal counsel.

NRL News Today: According to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the twelve nurses, “The order also prohibits any acts of employment discrimination against the nurses until that matter is resolved.” The ADF filed suit Monday 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,” according to ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.

Christian Post: “The hospital has been relentless in demanding that these nurses participate in abortion procedures,” Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman told The Christian Post. “It’s indisputable that the hospital is seeking to break both federal and state laws. The sole purpose of passing laws was to protect people after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land.”

Christian Post: David Cortman, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, agrees with Jones. Cortman told The Christian Post that: “There is no need to give preference to certain categories, such as sexual orientation, when all bullying should be banned. Students in such politically correct categories should not be singled out for special recognition or protection, as it necessarily leaves out equal protection for all other students who may be experiencing bullying.”

Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. Federal and state law both prohibit this,” said Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman.

OneNewsNow.com: Attorney Matt Bowman laments the fact that the hospital continues to push the issue, despite the federal restrictions. “These … nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases, regardless of their religious and moral objections,” the attorney explains. “The court’s order prevents that until the November 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

Petition of the day : SCOTUSblog.

WORLDmag.com : ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman said that the hospital’s directive was “flatly illegal.” The Christian Post also reports that the ADF is handling a similar case involving Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. This seems like a straightforward case of a hospital breaking the law, and perhaps there will be a happy ending. I’m grateful the ADF is on the case, and for the temporary restraining order

OneNewsNow.com (includes photo of Jonathan): Jonathan Scruggs is litigation staff counsel for ADF. “Christians shouldn’t be punished for expressing their beliefs, so the city’s done the right thing here in eliminating a law that allowed that to happen,” says the attorney.

WorldNetDaily: “These 12 nurses,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman, “have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections. The court’s order prevents that until the Nov. 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

NRL News Today: The ADF filed suit 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,” according to 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,” he said. “That is flatly illegal.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman told LifeNews . . . “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. Federal and state law both prohibit this,” he said. “These 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections. The court’s order prevents that until the Nov. 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

The New American: ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione expressed his disappointment in the High Court’s refusal. “One atheist group’s agenda shouldn’t diminish the sacrifice made by highway patrol officers and their families,” he said. “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. Justice is not well served when unhappy atheists can use the law to mow down memorial crosses and renew the suffering for the survivors.” [more]

Examiner.com (includes photo of ADF Attorney Jon Scruggs): The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) reports today that in Atlantic City you no longer have to fear the enforcement of an unconstitutional city ordinance that police had used to stop a man from engaging in religious speech on the city’s boardwalk.

Fox News: ADF officials contacted city officials in September after a police officer ordered Pat Donlevy to stop talking to people on the boardwalk about his religious beliefs.

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that prohibits a New Jersey hospital from forcing any of 12 nurses that sued the facility to participate in training or services related to abortions. The order, which the hospital agreed to, is in effect until the court decides whether to issue any additional order at a Nov. 18 hearing.

Frank D. Mylar at The Salt Lake Tribune: Justice Thomas sees the Supreme Court’s non-decision here as yet another contributing factor to an “Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles,” where no one really understands how the court might rule in a given case with memorials that can be interpreted by some as “religious.” It represents a shift further from the objective rule of law and what America’s founders intended, and instead makes us more vulnerable to the whims of the most easily offended observers — like those who see an effort to “establish” religion in memorials like the crosses in Utah . . . Frank D. Mylar, a Salt Lake attorney, was co-counsel for the Utah Highway Patrol Association with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org).

Matt Bowman at National Review Online: Before October 2011, Lorna Mendoza and her nurse colleagues at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey served patients every day in the same day surgery unit without any hint that the hospital’s respect for the nurses’ religious beliefs was about to come crashing down around them.

OneNewsNow.com: But as Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) points out, such incidences are happening in schools all across the country. “They’re just bypassing parents, especially on some of the most controversial stuff that students are exposed to — sex education, the battle regarding the homosexual agenda,” he laments. “The school districts are starting just to say, ‘Well, we know what’s better for your kids. We’re not even gonna tell you what we’re doing.’”

Mario Diaz of Concerned Women for American at the Washington Times: The most comprehensive scientific national survey to date, commissioned by the Alliance Defense Fund and completed by Public Opinion Strategies in May, reveals that 62 percent of Americans believe “marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.” Fifty-three percent strongly agreed.

Atlantic City will no longer enforce a city ordinance that police used to stop a man from engaging in religious speech on the city’s boardwalk in June.

Charles Toutant at New Jersey Law Journal (subscription): The suit was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz., which describes itself as a Christian and legal policy organization and is opposed to abortion . . . The Alliance Defense Fund believes the UMDNJ case will end differently because it concerns a government-run hospital, unlike the private hospital in the New York case, according to its legal counsel, Matthew Bowman. Private entities aren’t subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, but government agencies are, says Bowman.

Linda Greenhouse at NYTimes.com: The dissent was a vivid tour through the incoherent landscape of the court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Here are a few choice morsels, omitting the numerous citations not only to Supreme Court decisions but also to decisions issued by lower courts as they have struggled to understand and apply the Supreme Court’s cases . . .

Baptist Press: “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,” said Byron Babione, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Windy City Times: A Timber Creek receptionist referred Windy City Times to The Alliance Defense Fund ( ADF ), a self-described “Christian legal alliance defending religious liberty, sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.” A 2005 Southern Poverty Law Center report listed ADF as one the top 12 most influential anti-gay groups in the country. ADF did not respond to a request to comment in time for publication.

ADF Attorney Brian Raum comments at SCOTUSblog.

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.

World Net Daily: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the organization. “No [fewer] 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,” he 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.”

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.

Twelve nurses represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit Monday against their employer, a hospital run by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, for requiring them to participate in abortions. Federal and state law both protect them from being forced to do so.

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.”

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).

Joseph Infranco at National Review Online: The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it would not review an important case on whether displaying a memorial cross is an unconstitutional “establishment” of religion. Justice Thomas issued a 19-page dissenting opinion noting that “the Court reject[ed] an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles.

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.

Lambda Legal provided inaccurate legal information to officials so students can join sexually focused clubs without parental permission

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.”

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.”

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.

U.S. Supreme Court allows ruling against memorial trooper crosses to stand

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.