Alliance Defending Freedom

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group that works to expand Christian practices within public schools and in government, outlaw abortion, and curtail the rights of LGBTQ people. ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with branch offices in Washington... , D.C., and New York, among other locations. Its international subsidiary, Alliance Defending Freedom International, which is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, operates in over 100 countries. ADF is one of the most organized and influential Christian legal interest groups in the United States based on its budget, caseload, network of allied attorneys, and connections to significant members of the political right. Individuals associated with ADF have included U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, former vice president Mike Pence, former attorney generals William Barr and Jeff Sessions, and Senator Josh Hawley. ADF attorneys have argued a number of cases before the Supreme Court, including cases about religion in public schools, the Affordable Care Act, the legalization of same-sex marriage, business owners' right to not provide services for same-sex marriages, and prayers before town meetings. ADF lawyers also wrote the model for Mississippi's anti-abortion legislation involved in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the decision that overruled the fifty-year-old precedent case Roe v. Wade establishing the right to abortion. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designates ADF as an anti-LGBT hate group, saying that, since the election of President Trump, ADF had become "one of the most influential groups informing the administrations attack on LGBTQ rights." The ADF has taken many anti-LGBT legal positions; it opposes same-sex marriage, decriminalization of same-sex sexual activity, and anti-discrimination laws, as well as taking an active role in writing model anti-transgender bills for state legislators.Read More