Tag Archives: Alliance Defense Fund

LifeNews: The Coalition to Stop the HHS Mandate, which is being coordinated by the Illinois-based Pro-Life Action League and includes multiple pro-life, social conservative, and religious groups, including Human Life International, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Alliance Defense Fund, and Priests for Life; have organized the “Stand Up For Religious Freedom” rallies “in defense of religious freedom and STAND UP against the Obama administration’s HHS mandate at federal building in cities across the country.”

Erik Stanley at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: A bill was recently introduced in the House of Representatives to repeal the portion of the Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) popularly referred to as the Johnson Amendment. The bill is H.R. 3600

LifeNews: Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Steven Aden also commented, saying, “The hard-earned tax money of Arizonans shouldn’t be funneled to groups that perform abortions. This law ensures that public funds will not be used to subsidize the activities of organizations like Planned Parenthood that have demonstrated, nationwide, that they care more about their bottom line than they do about women or the proper use of taxpayer money.”

“The hard-earned tax money of Arizonans shouldn’t be funneled to groups that perform abortions. This law ensures that public funds will not be used to subsidize the activities of organizations like Planned Parenthood that have demonstrated, nationwide, that they care more about their bottom line than they do about women or the proper use of taxpayer money.”

By William Armstrong, Ken Smith, And Joe Aguillard at the Wall Street Journal: So we, the presidents of Colorado Christian University, Geneva College, and Louisiana College, through our respective attorneys with The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the Alliance Defense Fund, are taking a stand. When the state oversteps its First Amendment bounds by forcing religious institutions and believers to violate their religious convictions, we must call the state to account, or else we risk being responsible for facilitating evils such as abortion.

Gary McCaleb at Townhall: For decades, atheist groups have strategically involved themselves in questions of religious freedom, and they have done so chiefly by fighting to have all Christian symbols and texts removed from public view. But in recent years, as this fight has continued, it’s become evident that it’s not just symbols and texts they want removed from public view, rather, it’s Christians themselves.

One News Now: “This case is challenging President Obama’s executive order to really ignore the federal law that protects American tax dollars from being used to destroy human embryos and goes ahead and has funded millions and millions of dollars’ worth of destructive research,” Bowman shares.

National Secular Society: The American religious right continues its advance into Europe. Our representative at the Fundamental Rights Agency Hans Christian Cars reports that Roger Kiska, Senior Legal Counsel at the Alliance Defence Fund, is based in Europe and disturbingly has been elected to the Advisory Panel 2012-2013 of the Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP).

One News Now: And ADF attorney Matt Sharp asserts it is not a program that is trying to prop up religious schools to the detriment of others. “That’s exactly the correct interpretation of the law in all of this, is that there’s nothing wrong with giving state funds through a voucher program to low-income families to give them options for their kids,” he contends.

Alliance Defense Fund President and CEO Alan Sears, commenting on the passing of Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, called him a true mentor and friend.

FRC Washington Update: Lynn and his friends make that claim repeatedly, but that doesn’t make it accurate. ADF has created an entire website called “Speak Up” to dispel myths like this one. There, you can find all sorts of rich information about the rights of churches and pastors to voice their cultural concerns. One document in particular, “The Dos and Don’ts of Political Activity for Pastors” is a great resource for understanding the boundaries of political engagement. Check them all out at SpeakUpMovement.org/Church.

WILJA.com (ADF materials shown in video): ”Preventing” same sex marriage from being legalized in Maryland, despite the Governor’s signature, is the goal for a group that held closed- door meetings all across the state Wednesday evening.

An Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney together with ADF attorneys have filed a brief with the Colorado Court of Appeals in defense of a Douglas County voucher program that pays for students who attend “private school partners” rather than government-run schools.

Alan E. Sears at LifeNews: n some Canadian newspapers, ads are now running to inform would-be parents they can save themselves the hassle of creating the family they don’t want by choosing beforehand which gender child they would like to have.

Piero Tozzi at Centro De Biotica (translation below by Google)

Brian Raum at Townhall: The unfounded attacks and insults lodged against the National Organization for Marriage have increased recently by an ever ravenous opposition. The Humans Rights Campaign has shamelessly published NOMs confidential IRS records, and last month a federal judge unsealed some of NOM’s constitutionally protected internal reports.

Michael Norton at Townhall: Ultimately, these 40 days of “prayer” are repugnant to the senses of rational people. They are a purposeful perversion of true faith, organized and executed by one the greatest enemies of life the world has ever known—Planned Parenthood. I continue to pray that all federal and state funding will end for Planned Parenthood, so that the abortion mammoth will be forced to shut down its murderous operations. Amen.

Lexington Herald-Leader: His faith is central to the case, said company attorney Bryan Beauman of Paris. “The government can’t make people choose between their faith and their livelihood and also can’t make business owners because of their religious beliefs be penalized for abiding by their beliefs,” he said in an interview.

David Cortman at the Christian Post: It may not have even caught your attention. It may not appear to be that different. But when people, especially the current president of the United States, intentionally replace the words “freedom of religion” with “freedom of worship,” is it just a distinction without a difference, or is it a major change about which we need to be concerned?

One News Now: But Adamson has Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys in his corner. “American small-business owners do not surrender their freedom at the marketplace gate,” says attorney Bryan Beaumon. “The government cannot make Americans choose between their faith and their livelihood just because activist groups make such demands.” “So the commission should immediately dismiss this complaint,” fellow attorney Jim Campbell continues. “This kind of bullying may be practiced in a dictatorship, but violations of conscience have no place in the United States.”

Concord Monitor: “Regardless of what one thinks about abortion . . . I think everyone would agree that Planned Parenthood should have to follow the same laws that everyone else does,” Tierney said. “They shouldn’t be exempted from state pharmacy laws because they run the state’s largest abortion business.” . . . The complaint is the most recent of many challenges to Planned Parenthood’s funding. And like those, this one is being paid for by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a group begun by religious conservatives.

Katherine Stewart at The Guardian: You can learn a lot about a policy idea by seeing who its friends are. Advocates of voucher programs include the activist organizations of the religious right, such as the Alliance Defense Fund, Focus on the Family, and the pro-creationism Discovery Institute.

Available for media interviews following oral arguments in Sherley v. Sebelius, a lawsuit challenging an Obama administration policy that authorized the National Institutes of Health to fund additional research projects that destroy human embryos even though a federal law known as the Dickey/Wicker Amendment specifically prohibits such funding.

Jordan Lorence on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss this: New York Churches To March For Equal Access Sunday April 22. | MP3 audio 5:28 mins

Joel Oster at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Some people have no shame. The situation involving the demand to remove the crosses at Camp Pendleton is just such a situation. About nine years ago, seven Marines erected two crosses in a remote part of the camp, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Gay People’s Chronicle: Viars and OCPM are represented by attorney David Langdon and his law partner JoshuaBolinger of Sharonville, Ohio, and James Campbell from the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Arizona. Langdon authored the 2004 amendment the new proposal would repeal. The Alliance Defense Fund fights against LGBT equality around the nation. On the complaint, Viarslists her address as the office of the anti-gay Citizens for Community Values in Sharonville, a Cincinnati suburb. CCV organized and funded the 2004 marriage ban campaign.

Video Transcript at VIMEO.

Baptist Press: No matter where a person stands on abortion, everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else,” said Michael Tierney, a Manchester lawyer who is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).

Jonathan Scruggs on the Hugh Hewitt Show | MP3 audio 5:43 mins

Joe Infranco and Doug Napier appeared on KPXQ 1360 Koinonia with Tom Brown. | MP3 audio 40:41 mins

Erik Stanley at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: As readers of this blog know, ADF has conducted Pulpit Freedom Sunday since 2008. Pulpit Freedom Sunday is a legal project designed to restore a pastor’s right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing government censorship or control. The government, by applying the Johnson Amendment to churches and pastors, has been mandating that certain content in a pastor’s sermon is off-limits and can result in penalties against the church.

Casey Mattox at Townhall: For the past five years, every dawn has brought additional evidence of the fact that Planned Parenthood and its allies in the abortion industry cannot be trusted to tell the truth about the one thing they should know well – abortion. Just over five years ago, on April 18, 2007, the Supreme Court announced its opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart, holding that the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was constitutional. Since then, we have lived in a world where partial-birth abortions have been illegal in the United States under federal law (and now many state laws) . . . If we accept Guttmacher’s figure of approximately 2,200 partial-birth abortions per year, then the decision in Gonzales – upholding the law and lifting the injunction against it – has prevented 11,000 partial-birth abortions from occurring.

LifeSiteNews: The nation’s largest abortion provider “must obey state laws that say only licensed pharmacists may distribute prescription drugs when a clinic is not under contract with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services,” said Michael Tierney, an attorney affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund

One News Now: Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) is encouraging students to celebrate the “Day of Silence” by distributing flyers discouraging ex-”gay” bashing at school . . . Today’s “Day of Dialogue” — sponsored by Focus on the Family and Alliance Defense Fund — also offers a counter to tomorrow’s pro-homosexual observance in schools.

One News Now: Pierro Tozzi, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, explains what he sees happening across the South American continent. “It’s part of a trend in Latin America where you have supreme courts imposing abortion where the people and the legislature are opposed to abortion,” says Tozzi. “They use the hard cases — cases like rape or eugenic disabilities — to chip away at the pro-life protections that exist in the laws of most Latin American nations.”

Steve Aden at LifeNews: Political campaigns make strange bedfellows. In some cases, they attract seemingly unrelated groups who donate money for a cause they both support. A perfect demonstration of this was seen recently in Anchorage, Alaska, where the push to amend the city’s non-discrimination code to include “sexual orientation” and “transgender identity” brought together Tim Gill, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest.

Sun Journal: None of the public members used their allotted time to pray; however, several suggested the county look to the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization, to deal with any legal action the ACLU takes. The Alliance Defense Fund, which reportedly offered free legal services to Forsyth County, said it would not pay any legal fees awarded to the plaintiffs if the county lost.

CBN (includes video): The Alliance Defense Fund filed a complaint with the New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy Tuesday. The legal group is acting on behalf of New Hampshire Right to Life. Attorney Michael Tierney told CBN News he believes it’s a clear cut case. “No matter where a person stands on abortion, everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else,” Tierney said.

LifeNews: Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Michael Tierney filed the complaint on behalf of New Hampshire Right to Life. “No matter where a person stands on abortion, everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else,” said Tierney, an attorney with the Manchester firm of Wadleigh, Starr & Peters, PLLC. “In this case, that means it must obey state laws that say only licensed pharmacists may distribute prescription drugs when a clinic is not under contract with the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.”

Alan E. Sears at Townhall: The government cloaks its anti-church legal maneuverings as enforcement of the imaginary “separation of church and state” clause that the Left likes to pretend is in the Constitution. But it’s hard not to believe that the state’s real objection to Christian charity is that every church committed to social service eliminates that much more need for government bureaus and subsidies and commissions and tax-payer funded initiatives. Ultimately, a more active church erodes the need for bigger government … and to the Left, nothing is more important than bigger government.

LifeNews: Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Piero Tozzi responded to the decision to allow, what he calls, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal’s decision to “decriminalize the killing of pre-born children for eugenic reasons.” “Every innocent life deserves to be protected. Instead, Brazil’s high court has approved of slaughtering the country’s most vulnerable people, the severely disabled. Eugenic abortion further erodes respect not only for human dignity in general, but the dignity of the disabled in particular. Protecting the innocent is a chief duty of the legislature, and the court was wrong to overstep its authority and tear down the protections long ago established by Brazil’s lawmakers–protections that are consistent with the pro-life views of most Brazilians.”

ADF-allied attorney files complaint with state pharmacy board on behalf of NH Right to Life

Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Anyone persuaded that the fight for religious liberty is a dry thing of legal briefs and courtroom motions and legislative committee sessions could benefit from a visit to the ADF Truth & Triumph website, where legal issues are considerably livened – and complicated – by what author Graham Greene memorably called “the human factor.”

Alan E. Sears at the ADF Blog: It’s no small thing to challenge the governor of a state, but then it’s no small thing for a governor to short-circuit the democratic process, and compel Christians to support voluntary abortions.

Jordan Lorence at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog (includes video): People of all faiths and supporters of religious liberty will march across the Brooklyn Bridge Sunday, April 22 in support of equal access for religious groups to meet in empty NYC school buildings.

Every innocent life deserves to be protected. Instead, Brazil’s high court has approved of slaughtering the country’s most vulnerable people, the severely disabled.

KTAR.com: “It was a policy that was really set for a large group, but Ryan was only one individual,” said Arneson’s attorney, Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defense Fund. The case was settled last week and Arneson is looking forward to returning to campus with fewer restrictions . . . “Free speech can’t come with a price tag and a burdensome waiting period,” said Scruggs. “You can’t impose these very burdensome requirements on an individual just wanting to engage in a conversation.”

Jonathan Scruggs on the Victoria Taft Show to discuss this: Maricopa Community Colleges puts price tag on free speech, ends up in court. | MP3 audio 9:08 mins

Jonathan Scruggs on the Word of Truth Radio Program to discuss this: Minneapolis board sued for relegating free speech to empty park space. | MP3 audio 11:09 mins

San Gabriel Valley Tribune: An attorney for David Coppedge said his client was subjected to “stubborn and complete intolerance” of his beliefs while working for JPL. It was that attitude which hastened Coppedge’s firing, attorney William J. Becker, Jr. argued in a month-long trial that pitted science and religion in a way that was sometimes reminiscent of the 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial . . . Becker is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian group. Josh Youngkin, program officer in law and policy at Discovery Institute, which advocates from intelligent design and creation science, is assisting with the case of Coppedge’s behalf.

Baptist Press: An updated February report by the Alliance Defense Fund to Congress suggested 20 percent of the abortion provider’s affiliates could be guilty of waste and fraud involving government funds. The report showed that audits of seven of 79 affiliates over a 14-year period found nearly $8 million of fraud, waste and abuse.

The Georgia Bulletin: He noted that one Democrat, Rep. Catherine Miranda, voted for it even though her party doesn’t usually support that type of legislation. “We’re very appreciative that she made it a bipartisan bill, voting yes on this as a Democrat,” Johnson said. He also lauded the efforts of the Alliance Defense Fund and the Bioethics Defense Fund in helping craft the measure and working for its passage | Update: The Governor has signed the bill.

Piero Tozzi at Turtle Bay and Beyond: A word of caution is in order before adopting the framework and verbiage proposed by McCarthy in its entirety, however, for he throws out the baby with the bathwater, and his characterization of the “utopian” Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 fails to give a rounded appraisal of that landmark document. Moreover, his underlying premise of “freedoms” vs. “rights” is historically both incorrect and unessential to adopt in order to get to where the author wants to lead us. The concept of “rights,” properly understood, was very much part of the Founding Fathers’ vocabulary — as in the “bill of rights” (!!) and “unalienable rights” based on the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” The tension is thus not between “rights” and “freedoms,” but rather between “negative rights” and “positive” ones — a tension that is reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

ADF asks Indiana Supreme Court to uphold state’s Choice Scholarship Program

Acton Institute Power Blog (includes video): Eric Metaxas, author of the recently published biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, sat down with the Alliance Defense Fund to speak on the role of the church in public policy and how Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s example is especially relevant today.

One News Now: “The provision that we challenged, which included a $50 fee requirement, a requirement to pay insurance and wait 14 days, all of those requirements were changed in the policy because of the lawsuit,” Scruggs reports.

One News Now: Matt Sharp of Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) says the Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent intimidating letters to 400 districts in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky, hoping they will cave rather than stand up to the threat of a lawsuit. But his firm is encouraging the latter option. “We hope that schools will stand up for the free-speech rights of students and the right to express their religious beliefs in opportunities like this and won’t cave in to pressure,” Sharp says, “but we think that’s probably what their game plan is.” [more]

SonoranNews.com: “Free speech can’t come with a price tag and a burdensome waiting period,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jonathan Scruggs. “Maricopa Community Colleges has done the right thing in changing its policy so that it respects free speech rights protected by the First Amendment. Christians visiting public college campuses shouldn’t be deterred from expressing their beliefs because of cumbersome, unconstitutional policies.”

The New American: ADF attorney Jonathan Scruggs said that while his group is pleased with the outcome of the suit, there is still the issue of the state using the case as a pretext for banning all materials in the Capitol tunnel. “Honoring free speech doesn’t come about by completely eliminating it,” said Scruggs. “Although the commissioners have done the right thing by recognizing that they violated the First Amendment rights of WyWatch members who simply wanted to display signs as others had been allowed to do, we disagree that the solution is to then shut everyone up so that you don’t have to allow pro-life speech anymore.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the ADF Blog: Even the most casual student of American history can see that the right of free speech is virtually synonymous with what it means to be a citizen in this country. And yet the staff and allied attorneys of the Alliance Defense Fund probably spend more of our time and resources litigating on behalf of this basic constitutionally protected right than on any other one area of the law.

Engage Family Blog of the WVFPC: On this week’s edition of Engaging the Issues, Austin Nimocks, Senior Legal Counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, discusses whether nondiscrimination laws can peacefully coexist with religious freedom. (Audio link)

One News Now: “Honoring free speech doesn’t come about by completely eliminating it,” argues Scruggs. “Although the commissioners have done the right thing by recognizing that they violated the First Amendment rights of WyWatch members who simply wanted to display signs as others had been allowed to do, we disagree that the solution is then to shut everyone up so they don’t have to allow pro-life speech anymore.”

WorldNetDaily: “Free speech can’t come with a price tax and a burdensome waiting period,” Jonathan Scruggs said of the sudden changes made by officials at Maricopa Community College.“Maricopa Community Colleges has done the right thing in changing its policy so that it respects free speech rights protected by the First Amendment,” he said. “Christians visiting public college campuses shouldn’t be deterred from expressing their beliefs because of cumbersome, unconstitutional policies.”

Casey Mattox at Life News: Planned Parenthood’s denials to the contrary, many women suffer extreme guilt and mental anguish as a result of having an abortion. Killing one’s child is simply not as easy the abortionists would have you believe. And we’re seeing this truth play out most illustratively in China, where the country’s “One Child Policy” has created such angst that, according to the Obama Administration, it is partly responsible for the fact that 500 Chinese women took their own lives each day in 2009.

Joe Infranco at the Baptist Press: It seems almost daily we’re reminded of the relentless attack on religious freedom. But we must keep in mind that there are small, but meaningful victories occurring along the way, as well. Recently, a positive trend has developed in case law under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. This positive trend recognizes and affirms important constitutionally protected freedoms for churches and para-church ministries, such as Christian schools or substance abuse programs.

Piero A. Tozzi at the Christian Post: In a major foreign policy address last December in Geneva before United Nations delegates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton identified “deeply-held … religious beliefs” as among “the obstacles standing in the way of protecting the human rights of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] people.” Criticizing those who “cite religious or cultural values” to oppose “LGBT” rights, she then made a doctrinal point: if properly understood, “religious traditions” actually support the progressive march of “human rights” and sanction homosexual behavior.

Michael Brown at Townhall: The university had been sued by the Alliance Defense Fund when, “The school refused to recognize the campus Christian Legal Society chapter, Hastings Christian Fellowship (HCF), because it [would] not agree to a non-discrimination policy that would require the group to admit homosexuals and non-Christians as members and officers . . . Last month, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal brought by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Christian groups challenging the policy at California state universities which did not allow them to restrict “membership in their groups to people who agree with their Christian values and beliefs.” Unfortunately, as noted by ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco, “one of the key points in the whole case is that every other group on campus is allowed to restrict their membership and their officers to people who agree with the values the group was formed to advocate on campus.”

Dale Schowengerdt at National Review Online: It’s hard to describe how odd it is to hear a Department of Justice lawyer argue in court that a law passed by Congress should be struck down as unconstitutional. It is, after all, the DOJ’s job to defend laws passed by Congress. But as I sat at the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston on Wednesday listening to the appellate arguments for the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) cases, that’s exactly what I heard for 20 minutes from the DOJ lawyer.

LifeNews: Honoring free speech doesn’t come about by completely eliminating it,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jonathan Scruggs, who litigated the case together with ADF-allied attorney Nate Kellum. “Although the commissioners have done the right thing by recognizing that they violated the First Amendment rights of WyWatch members who simply wanted to display signs as others had been allowed to do, we disagree that the solution is to then shut everyone up so that you don’t have to allow pro-life speech anymore,” Scruggs explained.

David Kramer at LewRockwell.com: A number of associations around the world have expressed their outrage at this “Soviet-style” (it is Sweden, after all) tyranny. This number includes: the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), Advocates International, the Network for Freedom in Education, the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, and the Christian Broadcasting Network (!!!).

One News Now: “This is similar to some cases with students who have objected to assignments that force them to compromise and violate their religious beliefs — and many of the students have obtained relief by filing First Amendment claims in court,” says Travis Barh[a]m, ADF litigation staff counsel.

Nashua Telegraph: The lawyer for the anti-abortion Alliance Defense Fund insisted that the measure would be upheld in court both on constitutional grounds and not as violative of the Medicaid program. Steven Aden, the Alliance Defense Fund’s senior counsel, said Planned Parenthood and hospitals could continue to perform abortions by creating separate businesses that finance them through private donations.

Homeschool Heartbeat Radio: HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund and our Swedish attorneys hope that this signals a willingness by courts to at least look at this untenable situation for Swedish homeschoolers.

s part of a court order issued Thursday, members of the Wyoming State Building Commission admit they unconstitutionally violated the free speech rights of WyWatch Family Action in February of last year when they approved but later removed the group’s pro-life signs from Herschler Gallery at the state capitol.

ADF lawsuit sought change to unconstitutional policy that required fees, waiting period to engage in free speech