The Justice Department’s Troubling Ties to Alliance Defending Freedom

Jeff Sessions announcing his new anti-gay task force.

While the "Alliance Defending Freedom" ("ADF") describes itself as a "Christian" law firm, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups across America, has certified ADF as a hate group.  The principal target of ADF's efforts is the LGBT community whose civil rights it seeks to rescind in order that Christofascist can discriminate at will and be exempt from public accommodation laws.  Given the significant overlap between ADF's evangelical base and white supremacists, the LGBT community is not ADF's lone target.  A prior blog post earlier this week noted how  Attorney General Jeff Sessions - a man with a long history of homophobia and racism - announced at "task force" within the Department of Justice which would enforce exemptions from non-discrimination laws. A piece in Media Matters looks at the insidious relationship between the Trump/Pence DOJ and ADF.  Trump may be breaking promises to much of his base, but he is pandering overtime to the Christofascists thanks in no small part I suspect to Mike Pence, an extreme far right wing religious zealot in his own right.  Here are article highlights:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a Department of Justice (DOJ) task force to enforce “religious liberty” rules that make it easier to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and others under the guise of “religious freedom." Such discrimination is a major part of the mission of anti-LGBTQ legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and the announcement was followed by a panel that included a major ADF client and was moderated by an ADF staff alumna. Coupled with ADF's involvement in the announcement, the new task force demonstrates the influence of the group's extreme anti-LGBTQ views on the administration.

On July 30, Sessions launched a new “Religious Liberty Task Force” that would enforce discriminatory religious exemptions guidance that the DOJ released in October 2017. (Sessions had worked with ADF on the guidance before its release.) Religious exemptions policies, such as those the DOJ released, allow people and businesses to be exempt from nondiscrimination laws and policies by citing a burden on their religious beliefs. People have frequently used the exemptions to discriminate against the LGBTQ community and others.

ADF was one of the first to break the news of the July 30 “Religious Liberty Summit” in which the task force was announced, noting that the event would feature a panel including the group’s client Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and who took his case to the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commision. ADF’s news release, however, did not mention that the panel’s moderator, DOJ media affairs specialist Kerri Kupec, worked at ADF for four yearsbefore joining DOJ in January. 

The Trump-Pence administration has shown a coziness with extreme anti-LGBTQ groups and with ADF, in particular. Sessions’ DOJ issued an unusual brief on behalf of Phillips before oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, and ADF alumni and allies have been hired by various agencies and nominated for federal judgeships. As Media Matters’ recently released research book details, ADF holds dozens of extreme anti-LGBTQ positions on nearly every every aspect of life, including supporting laws that would punish sodomy by imprisonment, writing in favor of Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda” law, and advocating against efforts to protect LGBTQ youth from the harmful and discredited practice of conversion therapy. The group is in many ways the most influential group working to roll back LGBTQ equality in the country, frequently targeting basic protections for transgender students and pushing religious exemptions policies.

The “Religious Liberty Task Force” is yet another example of a cabinet-level agency devoting significant resources to make it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ people. In January, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new division to enforce laws protecting “health care workers who express religious objections to performing abortions and certain other procedures,” including providing medical services to transgender and other LGBTQ people.

When groups like ADF have a seat at the table with the upper echelons of our federal government, discriminatory policies such as these come as no surprise.

Many secular straights and other minorities likely yawn at this news and figure that it does not affect them.  However, if one has followed the Christofascist agenda for years, gays are only the first on ADF's hit list.  These folks are so extreme that they would like to make contraception illegal once more.  If Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court, they might just have the votes needed to overrule Griswold v. Connecticut.  ADF and its supporters are nothing short of frightening.