The Alliance Defending Freedom ("ADF") likes to depict itself as a mainstream Christian legal group and, sadly, far too many lazy mainstream media outlets mindlessly parrot ADF's propaganda and never look at why the organization is, in fact, an extremist hate group. Here in Virginia, ADF was the main proponent of upholding Virginia's foul theocratic backed Marshall-Newman Amendment. The ugly truth, however, is that ADF not only oppose LGBT civil rights in America, but overseas it is working overtime to criminalize homosexuality and induce ignorant and uneducated populations to embrace its religious based hatred. It is a very foul organization. Media Matters looks at the real ADF agenda. Here are excerpts:
Few anti-LGBT groups get as much media attention as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the right-wing legal organization best known for defending anti-gay business owners who refuse to comply with nondiscrimination laws. But while ADF's "religious liberty" work generates plenty of headlines, few media outlets have highlighted the most extreme facet of ADF's legal agenda: criminalizing homosexuality.
ADF has become a fixture on Fox News, but its involvement in crafting Arizona's license-to-discriminate law in early 2014 attracted coverage from other networks as well. In October, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat apologized after he spoke at an ADF fundraiser.
But aside from a handful of examples, media outlets have failed to highlight just how extreme ADF's anti-gay agenda really is. While the group prefers to talk about its "religious liberty" work when in the media spotlight, ADF is actively working to promote and defend anti-sodomy laws that criminalize gay sex.
United States: ADF's formal support for anti-sodomy laws dates to at least 2003, before the Supreme Court made its landmark decision in Lawrence v. Texas. ADF, which was at the time still known as the Alliance Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief in the case, defending state laws criminalizing gay sex. In its brief, ADF spent nearly 30 pages arguing that gay sex is unhealthy, harmful, and a public-health risk.
In 2003, ADF president Alan Sears co-wrote a book titled The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing The Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, which warned that eliminating anti-sodomy lawswould lead to the overturning of "laws against pedophilia, sex between close relatives, polygamy, bestiality and all other distortions and violations of God's plan."Th e Supreme Court disagreed, striking down state bans on gay sex in its Lawrence v. Texas decision.
Jamaica: In December 2012, the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society hosted an international conference titled "Human Rights, International Law and the Family" in Kingston. The event was aimed at discussing how the fight for LGBT equality -- including a legal challenge to the country's anti-sodomy law -- threatened "the traditional, natural family." Jeffrey Ventrella and Piero Tozzi, two senior legal counsels for ADF at the time, spoke at the conference.
Belize: ADF has also worked to help defend Belize's Section 53, a law that criminalizes gay sex. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported in 2013, ADF attorneys offered legal assistance to Belize Action, a local group working to keep homosexuality criminalized.
India: In December 2011, India's Supreme Court voted to restore the country's colonial-era law banning "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." The ruling reversed a 2009 decision by the Delhi High Court, which found the law unconstitutional. Under India's criminalization statute, gay sex is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
In an interview with OneNewsNow, Alliance Defending Freedom Global executive director Benjamin Bull applauded the Supreme Court's decision for not "giv[ing] in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates"
[I]t matters in terms of the media, which continues to treat ADF as a mainstream group fighting for "religious liberty." ADF has given up on promoting anti-sodomy laws in the U.S. afterLawrence, but the group still aggressively supports imprisoning gay people around the world for having sex. It's an ugly truth about one of the right's highest-profile legal organizations.
Failing to note ADF's support for anti-sodomy laws -- which places it firmly on the fringe of even conservative circles -- paints a grossly misleading picture of the extremism that motivates the group's anti-gay legal work.
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