Alliance Defending Freedom: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Alliance Defending Freedom: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

and religion. The two top answers to the Family Feud question. Name a reason why you don’t talk to your dad anymore. Number one, politics. Number two, religion. Number three, we talk, but do we really talk? You know, I know that to put it mildly, there has been a lot going on recently. So, it’s understandable if you missed it, but last week a major case concerning politics and religion was argued before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court just heard arguments in a potentially landmark case that could open the door to publicly funded religious charter schools. At the center, St. Isidor of Seville, a proposed Catholic virtual charter school in Oklahoma, planned and operated by the local arch dascese. The school wants to teach Catholic doctrine while receiving state money, something never before allowed in the charter system. Yeah. An online school, St. Isidor, is fighting for the right to operate as the first religious charter school in the country, which is striking for a number of reasons, not least that this is how I’m learning that St. Isidor is often referred to as the patron saint of the internet. It just feels wrong. I thought patron saints only represented timeless things like the arts or orphans, not the medium that is now mostly AI slop videos of countries as president’s twins. I don’t know exactly what saints should be watching over, but that feels like a real waste of their time. The school refers to itself as a ministry of the Catholic Church, and many worry that if it’s allowed to directly receive public funding, it’ll be yet another step on the slippery slope of breaking down the establishment clause separating church and state. Now, the Supreme Court isn’t likely to rule on this until next month. But I actually want to talk less about this school in particular and more about the key group behind this case, the Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF. Even if you don’t recognize their name, you’ll definitely be aware of their work because ADF builds itself as the world’s largest legal organization advancing every person’s god-given right to live and speak the truth. And in this promotional video celebrating their 25th anniversary, they lean in hard on the idea that they are defenders of rights and freedom. For 25 years, we’ve pursued this calling, a commission to stand, to defend, to persevere, to be a voice for faith, for freedom. Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran wins a victory for his US Supreme Court today in one of the most closely watched cases of the term cited with a Colorado. Jack, this has been a long road for you. Started back in 2012 yesterday. Religious freedom is a pre-political right that rests securely in our dignity as human beings. It belongs to all of us. Okay. Although I do have a bit of an issue with the sentence, religious freedom is a pre-political right that rests securely in our dignity as human beings. Because I’ve listened to that upwards of 50 times and I still have no idea what the she’s talking about there. It’s the legal equivalent of the actual headline. Disney to merge Hulu Live TV with Fubo settling vu lawsuits. All the words feel like they’re in the correct places, but now I can’t even understand the ones that I thought I knew. The woman who said that, Kristen Wagner is ADF’s current head. And if you’re thinking that she looks like someone who’d have an office filled with Mickey and Minnie Mouse memorabilia, you’d be dead wrong because she used to have an office filled with Mickey and Minnie Mouse memorabilia, but got rid of it after Disney’s recent defense of LGBT rights ruined the beauty. So, I bet you feel pretty stupid right now. But, as you’ve probably already guessed, the freedom ATF fights for is selective at best. as among other things they’ve argued for the Christian baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado orchestrated the attack on the abortion drug myth of Pristone heard by the Supreme Court last year and were also behind the DOS case which famously overturned Ro v Wayade and when asked about that last one they’ll take credit for it but notably only to a point so what was ADF’s role in this DOS case so we worked very closely with Mississippi from the very beginning um including we um had a hand in crafting the legislation of the 15week bill coordinating advising them during the pendency of the litigation and then at the Supreme Court we have been you know alongside them all the way offering just as much help as we possibly can. Would you consider yourselves co-consel in this case? So Denise has already said as much as you can possibly say about our can’t any more questions. Okay, but just to clarify, did you all write the arguments at the center of this case? So again, we we really can’t address how you like our involvement past what Denise has already addressed. Sorry about that. Okay, so here is a quick PR rule of thumb. Stopping your client from answering a question is a great way of making them seem like the guiltiest on the planet because a spokesperson does generally chime in like that if the answer to a question is no. If someone asked me, “Were you the one that suggested the honeycomb cereal monster look like a clump of pubes Gary Buuc?” And a publicist jumped in to say, “We can’t address John’s involvement in that.” You’d be pretty confident that I was the brains behind that bush. But while while they might not have wanted to be seen as pulling the strings there, the fact is ADF’s been incredibly successful as since 2011 they’ve directly represented parties in 15 victories at the Supreme Court and claimed that since their founding they’ve played roles in 77 victories from weakening the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act to throwing out a law that provided a protest buffer around abortion clinics. though they are way more powerful than many are aware and they’re using that power for I’ll say it bad. According to a 2021 internal strategy document, their goals included stopping efforts to elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to protected class status in the law akin to race and working to restore an understanding of marriage, the family, and sexuality that reflects God’s creative order. And just to be clear, God has no creative order, only creative chaos. He didn’t need to create the universe and everything in it in just 6 days. That is manic behavior. He was clearly on coke. That is the only explanation for why we have things like the pink fairy armadillo, an animal that looks like a shrimp tail 69ing a dead chicken. And and when ADF’s leaders are talking among themselves, they’ll sometimes express amazement at how well they’ve done. My view was I wanted ADF to be bigger than the ACLU in every measure. staff funding uh cases impact uh and the fear we strike in the hearts of our opponents. Um and so in a Christlike way. In a Christlike way. Yeah. Christian love. Christian love kill. Wow. That is quite the sentiment. Though I will admit Christian love kill would be a spectacularly good metal band name. And while that was from eight years ago, ADF’s influence has only grown since then even as they’ve somehow managed to fly under the radar. Because while everyone knows who say the NRA are and what they stand for, ADF has somehow avoided that level of notoriety which has worked very much in their favor. So given that tonight, let’s look at the Alliance Defending Freedom, their history, their playbook, and what they’re targeting next. And let’s start with how they came to be. ADF was originally called the Alliance Defense Fund and was launched in 1994 by prominent evangelicals who decided to create an endowment to pay for lawyers who could take on the ACLU and its ilk. One of its key founders was James Dobson, a man who looks less like a real person and more like AI’s answer to the question, what do they look like without their hoods? We’ve we’ve talked about Dobson before in our piece on Mike Pence. He’s the founder of Focus on the Family and over the years he’s among other things discouraged interracial marriage, argued one reason spanking children fails is that the spanking may be too gentle and has warned that gay marriage is a slippery slope that can lead to this. How about group marriage or marriage between daddies and little girls? How about marriage between a man and his donkey? Anything allegedly linked to civil rights will be doable. If I may quote James Dobson every time he comes, “Jesus Christ.” That is preposterous for many reasons, but whenever bigots do that, I kind of want them to keep playing it out. Wait, if gay people get married next thing, am I going to have to go to a wedding between a man and his donkey? What gift do I even get them? They’re registered at Bloomingdales and PetSmart. That’s ridiculous. And what if I show up late? Do I have to sit on the bride’s side? It smells like over there. And if another human meal option, what do I eat then? Eat a plate of hay? Do I have to eat a plate of hay with a fork? Let me get this straight. You’re going to make me wear a tuxedo, eat hay with a fork, drink wine out of a trough, and while watch a father donkey dance, all because we made gay marriage legal? No. Thank you very much. Not on my watch. To head the new organization, Dobson turned to a man named Alan Sears, who led the organization from its founding to 2017. And during his time there, it argued four state laws criminalizing gay sex and later against laws that legalized gay marriage. He also co-authored a book called The Homosexual Agenda, which sadly isn’t nearly as fun as you want it to be. In it, he described gay rights as the principal threat to religious freedom and wrote that gay activists were engaging in a war of propaganda, just as Hitler did so masterfully in Nazi German. One spectacular review of the book on Amazon said, “Why are heterosexuals so obsessed with homosexual sex? I think heterosexual sex is preposterous, but I don’t feel the need to write a book about it. I just don’t do it. Therefore, this book isn’t gay enough for my taste, I’m afraid.” pity, which is just a perfect review. Your book sucks. You’re obsessed with me. Be gayer. That one-star review gets five stars from me. The point is, from ADF’s outset, attacking the rights and dignity of gay people was at the center of its work, along with rolling back access to abortion and giving Christians more leeway to discriminate against someone who offends their faith. And those ideals have not changed, even as the organization has massively grown. It now has more than 450 employees in domestic and international offices as well as 5,000 network attorneys who work on their behalf. They also run a training program called the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. And a recent count found more than 60 Blackstone alumni were clerking on federal courts, including 18 on appeals courts. Fun fact, a frequent speaker at that Blackstone Fellowship was Amy Coney Barrett, who was paid to speak there five times. and yet at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing said that nothing about any of my interactions with anyone involved in the Blackstone program were ever indicative of any kind of discrimination on the basis of anything which I find a little hard to believe given that at the time she was lecturing there the program’s recommended reading list included the homosexual agenda and I’m not saying that she read that book I’m just saying a room full of people who have are going to give you a vibe and it is not maybe see you at pride And it’s not just Coney Barrett with ADF Connections. Current speaker of the House Mike Johnson worked for them for nearly a decade. Here he is in 2005 as their senior legal council, appearing on Fox News to do the critically important job of defending the right to say Christmas before being bumped for more pressing news stories. We’ve seen a great backlash against retailers who have banned the saying of Merry Christmas and and certainly more and more Americans are realizing how easy it is to stand up against this improper censorship. Uh many people are visiting our website at saychrist.org and they’re learning the facts, learning what the law really says. That’s a big step in this. Mike Johnson, senior attorney and spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund. Thank you very much. Coming up, you’re welcome. Coming up, an explosion hits a nuclear plant. Those details in just a moment. And penguins fight the holiday weight gain. Find out how they do it. Look at them. Okay, first tough break getting bumped by a explosion at a nuclear plant. But an even tougher break for that explosion getting bumped for a story about thick ass penguins, which by the way aren’t fighting the holiday weight gain, you heathens. They’re fighting the Christmas weight gain. You heard Mike Johnson. Say Christmas.org. But it wasn’t just war on Christmas stuff. Twilight ADF, Johnson also advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and wrote opeds saying things like homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and that if society protects such relationships, polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles, and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. So that is who they are at their core. But how are they so successful at getting things done? Well, one major way is through the sheer volume of legislation they draft. Last year alone, they worked on over a 100 bills in 24 states and in Congress, of which 25 wound up being enacted into law. And back when states were first passing so-called bathroom bills restricting trans people’s access, reporters noted many use language strongly similar to model legislation drafted by ADF, with at least one state’s law being a word for word copy. The DOS case actually originated with a Mississippi law that was born out of a model bill drafted by ADF. It banned abortions after 15 weeks, a specific cutoff chosen because they were trying to find the magic number of weeks that might force the Supreme Court to reconsider row. Basically, the idea was to pass a law that would then trigger a lawsuit that would then get you to the Supreme Court. And everyone knew that at the time to the point that even as Mississippi’s governor signed it, he said this. And we’ll probably be sued here in about half hour. That’ll be fine with me. Okay, first, everyone in that video looks like they’ve made someone shift at the Cheesecake Factory a living hell. But second, of course, he is fine with being sued. That’s one of the things Governor Phil Bryant’s most comfortable with, alongside reportedly helping Brett Favre secure welfare funding for a new volleyball stadium at the university where Favre’s daughter plays. Now, Bryant will tell you that is a complete misrepresentation of what happened. In fact, he cares so much that this be corrected that he sued Mississippi Today and Sports Illustrated for writing about it. And he definitely won’t like that I just repeated it here to which I would say we’ll probably be sued here in half an hour and that’ll be fine with me. But the larger point is ADF had a strategy from start to finish for jobs and it worked. And the final key component of the group’s success is selling their desired outcome to the general public, which often involves foregrounding sympathetic individuals whose liberty they present as being violated. ADF goes out of its way to craft wholesome sounding stories that present their side as the victims. Here’s Kristen Wagner spelling it out. We need to win back culture. And I would say we need you to engage to tell the stories in a winsome way. Accurate but winsome. be a storyteller and tell the narrative because we win when the truth gets out, right? It wants its stories to be told in a winsome way, which means portraying themselves as advocates for upstanding Americans whose individual liberties have been trampled on, not ideally a bunch of lawyers in a conference room saying Christian love kill. But hearing we win when the truth gets out is a little hard to take given ADF’s relationship to the truth can be shaky at best. For instance, a few years back, they pushed for a ban on trans athletes in youth sports in Arizona. A key part of that push was this testimony from a teenage girl named Grace about what had happened to her team at her state softball tournament. We stepped onto the field motivated to go in and play our hardest and to display how hard we’d trained. But that spirit of determination was quickly dampened with one of confusion and doubt when we discovered that our opponents were fielding a biological male who identified as a female. Our entire team’s focus and motivation was affected as we grappled with the impact of this new player. Sure enough, our opposing team won. The boy gave them an edge both physically and mentally that we couldn’t match. I had heard stories like this happening to other girls in other states, but I never expected it would happen at my school. Well, I’ve got great news for you. It didn’t. It didn’t happen at your school at all. Because it turned out there was no trans girl on the opposing team. That team’s coach even told us they only thought she was trans because she had short hair and was good. And while Grace’s team did lose, they also lost 16-6. An ass whooping so bad no one player could be responsible for it. And on top of all that, Grace isn’t just any old high schooler. It turns out she’s actually the daughter of Kristen Wagner. She’s basically the ultimate transphobic Nepo baby, or to put it more winsomely, transphobic person of nepotistic descent. But it’s not just anecdotes. When pushing anti-trans bills, ADFs loudly cited eye-catching studies and research. When one Georgia county was debating whether to allow trans students to use the bathroom of their choice, an ADF member addressed the board of education there and told them that science showed for the vast majority of trans kids, it was actually just a phase. The American College of Pediatricians just put out an article stating that if children will get through their um through puberty, 98% of boys will return to their biological sex. 98% when they make it through puberty will go back to their biological sex and this gender confusion will be cured. Wow, that is a shocking statistic. Almost as shocking as hearing that 79% of sea turtles have insomnia. 45% of Americans feel sexual pleasure when their belly button is touched. And 98% of celebrities who go through the Jennifer Hudson spirit tunnel reports loving their experience. It turns out it’s easy to be shocking when you’re spewing total Because while the American College of Pediatricians sounds like a prestigious organization, that’s because their name sounds like the American Academy of Pediatrics. That is the group that makes recommendations for policy based on the vast experience of its 67,000 members. This one, however, is a tiny group founded in 2002 by conservative physicians opposed to same-sex adoption and who’ve since provided ADF with custommade talking points on trans issues. And it’s worth knowing researchers and doctors have repeatedly called this group out for misrepresenting data. For example, if you trace that 98% figure all the way back to its source, you’ll find it comes from this 1987 book with a striking title that, as a Yale pediatrician told us, was actually about a study of a small group of boys who were viewed as mentally ill and subject to conversion tactics because they weren’t stereotypically masculine. So, it wasn’t in any way the comprehensive study of trans kids that guy just claimed. It honestly sounds more like an institutionalized attempt to make a few dozen boys in the 80s feel bad about whatever they felt during the volleyball scene in Top Gun. But maybe the best way to see ADF’s game plan is to look at their attempts to weaken laws banning discrimination against gay and trans people. They’ve taken multiple runs at this in the Supreme Court. Their first attempt came a decade ago in the Masterpiece Cake Shop case. You may remember it. It concerned Jack Phillips, who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple. His refusal violated Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, and he did media appearance after media appearance, usually with Wagner right by his side, telling the story of how this was really fundamentally a matter of cake principles. Well, first of all, I’d like to say that I serve everybody who comes into my store, including David and Charlie. People of all walks of life are always welcome my store. It’s just that there are certain messages that I don’t create. Um like I don’t uh produce cakes for Halloween. I don’t do cakes for um that will promote sexual things or anti-American things. Um things that would disparage other people including members of that identify customers that identify as LGBT. So people who wanted Has anybody asked you for a cake that would disparage LGBT? Yes, they have. Really? Really? People want cakes that discriminate against gay people. Yeah. Um, we had a few of those and uh, I’d turn those down as well because it’s a message that I can’t create. Okay. First, sure that happens. But second, I do wish that Megan Kelly, sorry about the jump scare there, by the way, and actually just let him keep describing his other cake rules. No Halloween cakes, no gay cakes, no unicorn cakes cuz horn penis, no Harry Potter cakes cuz witches. But yes to JK Rowling cakes for all other reasons and no Sesame Street cakes because of what we can all see with our own two eyes. Adf argued that Phillips wasn’t denying service, just declining to promote the message of same-sex marriage, which is ridiculous on its face, but especially because according to a state investigation, his business had actually turned down approximately six same-sex couples, including a lesbian couple that just wanted to purchase cupcakes for their family commitment ceremony. And when one of those women called back and claimed to be a dog breeder and stated she planned to host a dog wedding between one of her dogs and a neighbor’s dog, Philillips apparently did not object. What is more, when a different lesbian couple spoke to him to discuss why he wouldn’t create a cake for their commitment ceremony, he told them he is not willing to make a cake for a samesex commitment ceremony, just as he would not be willing to make a pedophile cake. But while it is not remotely the point, what would a pedophile cake even be? Legally, I’m apparently not allowed to say it’s a giant wooden cake that Drake jumps out of. So, I’m not going to say that. I’m just saying it’s a weird thing to bring up in the first place. Now, Phillips’s case was heard at the Supreme Court, but its ruling was narrow and didn’t offer ADF a clear precedent that Christian business owners who offered an artistic product could deny services to LGBT couples. So, they took another swing at the issue with a similar case, this time involving a Colorado website designer, Lorie Smith, who refused to make wedding sites for gay couples. The state of Colorado is forcing me to create custom, unique artwork, expression, communicating, and celebrating a different view of marriage, a view of marriage that goes against my deeply held beliefs. She wants the Supreme Court to rule that she does not have to comply with a Colorado law that prohibits businesses from discriminating against same-sex couples. Her lawyer contends it comes down to Lor’s role as a creator and free speech. It’s about whether the government can use the power of law to force Americans to say things that they don’t believe. Yeah. It’s not about gay marriage. It’s about forcing Americans to say things they don’t believe, which is pretty rich. Come from the same people who brought you say Christmas.org. Say it. You have to say it. Smith was just one of several cases ADF brought all over the country, possibly trying to trigger a so-called circuit split where you bring cases in multiple districts hoping to get divergent rulings which then increases the chances of the Supreme Court stepping in. That’s what happened here. ADF filed cases involving a photographer from Kentucky, videographers from Minnesota, and a pair of Arizona artists who created stationary. and Lorie Smith’s case ultimately wound up in the Supreme Court, which is when reporters started noticing some weird things about it, like the fact that it was built on a hypothetical. As ADF’s legal filings stated, Smith was not at that time in the wedding industry, but just wanted to make sure that if she entered it, she’d be able to legally turn down same-sex couples. In fact, at the time the suit was filed, she’d had no requests from same-sex couples to design a site. She did later claim she’d received an inquiry which oddly arrived the day after her suit was originally filed. That request was apparently from someone named Stuart who’ contacted her about building a website for his wedding to a man named Mike. But it turned out he was actually a straight man who at the time the request was sent had been married to a woman for nearly a decade and has since sworn he’d never requested anything from Lorie Smith. And why would he? Because even if he was secretly engaged to someone else, which he wasn’t, and chose to break the news of that secret engagement with the creation of an artistic website, which he wouldn’t, at the very least, he’d probably choose to go with a wedding website design business that already existed. But if we’re being really honest, he wouldn’t do that either because he was, and this is true, a website designer. And what a phone call that must have been for him to receive. Guess what, buddy? Some lady said, “You’re getting gay married, and now the Supreme Court is involved. You need to call your wife.” But it doesn’t stop there, as other cases in that flurry of lawsuits were similarly wobbly. Cuz while ADF insists our clients are real people who had or still have real businesses with actual operations in the wedding industry or real plans to enter it, the Washington Post found that two of three vendors cited in ADF’s petition to the Supreme Court had stopped working on weddings. one had actually moved away from where the case was filed in Louisville, but ADF claimed she’d still be willing to take work there despite it being 600 miles from her home. Not only that, ADF had also had a hand in formally establishing companies for some of its clients with lawyers associated with the group signing incorporation paperwork and helping draft company policies. In one instance, only a month before a lawsuit was filed. But none of that mattered cuz when Lorie Smith’s case went in front of the Supreme Court, she won a much broader ruling than ADF had with the cake shop. And as Justice Stomayor wrote in her descent, it was a decision that for the first time in the court’s history grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. And yet throughout all these lawsuits, ADF insisted it was just sticking up for the little guy. But for all its careful winsome positioning, it is worth remembering this is a group that in 2003 filed a brief with the Supreme Court urging them to uphold state bans on sodomy and has sought to uphold bans on gay sex in India and BISE which still fights for faith-based adoption agencies that refuse to serve same-sex couples to get public funding and that right now is fighting to overturn bans on conversion therapy. And however measured their public remarks may be, it’s worth listening to what they can sound like behind closed doors. Like in this speech from 2020 to students at their Blackstone Fellowship, an ADF lawyer introduced a guest lecturer to help with what he called the theme of the day, which was how to talk about certain issues that are awkward and yet do so whimsomely. She read aloud from a homophobic treaties and then offered her own commentary. Dr. Sir Robert Riley helpfully explains this view of the human body in a reflection on the different organs and their limitations. Male genital organs are perfectly matched for female genitals. They are a perfect biological fit. By contrast, the anus is solely an expiratory organ. It’s an exit, not an entrance. It is designed to eliminate fecal matter. When it is used in homosexual intercourse as a standin for the female vagina, it is being subjected to an activity for which it is clearly not designed. And one of the indications of this is the physical harm that it brings.” End of quote. Many people still share this understanding of the human body and wish to see it upheld as the ideal. Wow. Not only is that incredibly dark oldtimey homophobia, male genital organs are a perfect biological fit for female genitals. I think there are plenty of women who might say perfect fit. I don’t want to be mean, but there is literally room for improvement. The point is, despite what it says, each case ADF brings is in service of their larger worldview. one where abortion and the rights of gays and trans people are a thing of the past and they’re going to keep chipping away at those rights all while cheerily telling you that they’re doing so in the service of freedom. Even that charter school case the Supreme Court is about to rule on, the one nominally about charter school funding may well have a larger endgame. Because while that school insists it will not deny admission to any students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, it also has policies like on all matters, the school will interact with students, faculty and staff according to their biological sex. And allowing taxpayer funds to go directly to a school with policies like that feels like we’re moving another step closer to ADF’s ultimate goal of eliminating LGBTQ American status as protected class citizens. So, what can we do? Well, unfortunately, given the current state of the courts, a lot of this is out of our hands right now, but I do think at the very least there’s value in everyone knowing exactly what we are dealing with here. Because at least with the NRA, you understand what its endgame is as they will happily tell you right to your face. It’s for a gun to be elected to Congress. That is what they want. ADF though is something different. It’s worked extremely hard to put a misleadingly friendly face on what is an utterly hateful ideology. And it benefits immensely from people not knowing just how poisonous and disingenuous it is. But for the record, this is a group that will talk winsomely about personal liberty, all while fearongering about softball players that don’t exist, shitty studies that don’t apply, and pedophile cakes that no one will ever order. And it might actually be important for everyone to know that at the end of the day, ADF at its core is really a lot like the pews at an imaginary donkey wedding, which is to say absolutely full of

John Oliver takes a look at the Alliance Defending Freedom – the legal organization behind several landmark Supreme Court cases, including the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v. Wade. Plus, a five-star book review of a one-star book.

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