Tag Archives: ADF

News

California State University gives $300,000 to left-wing campus groups, but zero to pro-life group

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Young pro-life women protest Planned Parenthood
Young pro-life women protest Planned Parenthood

Consider this story from Alliance Defending Freedom, which talks about California State University–San Marcos.

Excerpt:

Although the university says that it prohibits any of those groups from spending activity fee grants on expenses to bring speakers to campus, the Gender Equity Center and the LGBQTA Pride Center enjoy preferential status, and as such, are exempt from that rule and the standard $500 cap. In the 2016-2017 academic year, those two “centers” received a combined $296,498 for speech and expressive activities —more than 21 percent of all mandatory student activity fees the programming board received for that year—compared to only $38,629 for the more than 100 other groups combined (less than 3 percent).

The Students for Life group applied for $500 to bring in a pro-life speaker, and the university wouldn’t even give them that tiny sum.
However, I linked to Alliance Defending Freedom for a reason… somebody is about to get sued:

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against California State University–San Marcos officials on behalf of a pro-life student organization and its campus president, Nathan Apodaca, who are prevented from bringing pro-life speakers to campus under the university’s discriminatory funding policies.

[…]“While touting a community that values ‘individual and cultural diversity, and respect[s] multiple perspectives,’ Cal State–San Marcos is not practicing what it preaches,” said ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “Today’s college students will be tomorrow’s legislators, judges, commissioners, and voters. But at Cal-State San Marcos they are learning that government can force citizens to pay for advocacy of the views it decides shall be orthodox and effectively exclude competing views. There can be no marketplace of ideas where the government simply funds its favored views.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is also suing another California university professor who instructed his little thug students to smash a pro-life display.

Excerpt:

In April, the Fresno State Students for Life received permission to chalk positive, life-affirming messages on the sidewalks leading to the university’s library. As its members finished chalking these messages on the morning of May 2, Gregory Thatcher, a public health professor, confronted them and falsely alleged they could not chalk messages near the library, and could only express themselves in the so-called “free speech area.” (The university eliminated this speech zone in June 2015.)

After club president Bernadette Tasy explained she had university permission to chalk messages in that spot, Thatcher announced that he would return to erase the messages shortly. He then recruited at least seven students from his 8:00 a.m. class to erase and deface the pro-life chalk messages. When Ms. Tasy reminded him that the club was acting with full permission, Thatcher walked over to one of the pro-life messages and began erasing it himself, claiming that he was exercising his free speech rights.

[…]The lawsuit, Fresno State Students for Life v. Thatcher, explains that Professor Thatcher’s decision to erase Students for Life’s expression, to recruit students to help in his censorship, and to harass and intimidate the group violates their fundamental right to freedom of speech. Additionally, the complaint asks the court to block Thatcher “and any other persons acting on his behalf or at his direction from interfering, disrupting, or altering any future lawful expressive activities that [Fresno State Students for Life and its members] conduct.”

Lawsuits are fun! As long as it isn’t me being sued.

Not everything that ADF does is a lawsuit, though, they also win lots and lots of prestigious trials.

Here’s one report from this week:

In many people’s minds, it would have been easy for Blaine Adamson to “just print the shirts” when he was contacted about making shirts promoting the Lexington Pride Festival. He could have saved himself the lengthy legal battle, the lost customers, and the derogatory messages and phone calls. But Blaine’s conscience would have suffered.

“I want God to find joy in what we do and how we work, how we treat our employees, and the messages we print,” says Blaine. “So if someone walks in and says, ‘Hey, I want you to help promote something,’ I can’t promote something that I know goes against what pleases Him.”

Thankfully, a Kentucky appellate court has recognized Blaine’s constitutional freedom not to print messages that he disagrees with. Today the court affirmed the Fayette Circuit Court’s ruling that Blaine, managing owner of Hands On Originals (HOO) in Lexington, Kentucky, is free to decide for himself the ideas and messages he wants to express.

The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization, which requested the shirts and filed the original complaint against Blaine with the Lexington-Fayette Urban Country Human Rights Commission, had tried to make this a case about discrimination. But the truth is that Blaine didn’t discriminate against anyone. And that’s exactly what the Kentucky Court of Appeals said in its ruling.

Both Blaine and HOO regularly do business with and employ people who identify as LGBT. His decision not to print the shirts was because of the message that the shirts would promote. It had nothing to do with any characteristic of the person requesting them.

“Americans should always have the freedom to believe, the freedom to express those beliefs, and the freedom to not express ideas that would violate their conscience,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jim Campbell. “Today’s decision is a victory for printers and other creative professionals who serve all people but cannot promote all messages.”

If this case goes to the Kentucky Supreme Court, ADF has promised to defend the Christian business owners.

If you like Alliance Defending Freedom like I do, be sure and subscribe to their podcast. If you’re looking for a good podcast app that’s free and ad-free, try this one.

News

Supreme Court upholds vicious anti-Christian decision by 9th Circuit CA

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Barack Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood
Barack Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood

Free speech and religious liberty hero David French wrote about the Stormans family case on Tuesday, in National Review.

Just as a preliminary comment, I really like how upset David French is sounding lately. I have written posts in the pasts where I was upset, and said things that I wanted to take back. And I have a whole herd of editors who regularly tell me if the drafts that I send them are “too mean”. But this article by Mr. French has some comments that were I think a little over the edge, but that’s just fine with me. I liked it a lot. It’s time to be direct and say what is really motivating the secular left.

He says:

Today the Supreme Court declined to hear one of the most extraordinary and plainly vicious anti-Christian cases I’ve ever seen. My friends and colleagues at the Alliance Defending Freedom represent the Stormans family, owner’s of an Olympia, Washington, pharmacy called Ralph’s Thriftway. The Stormans — like many Christians pharmacists — decline to fill prescriptions for abortifacients (drugs that can kill a fertilized egg, often by preventing implantation). When customers request abortifacients, the Stormans decline to fill the prescription and then refer them to one of “more than 30 other pharmacies within five miles of Ralph’s.”

This process is entirely conventional and normal. Indeed, it was so mundane that the state of Washington stipulated that “facilitated referrals do not pose a threat to timely access to lawfully prescribed medications.” In other words, the fact that the Stormans refuse to sell abortifacients didn’t cause a single person to lose access to the drug of their choice. But to anti-Christian bigots, it is intolerable that Christian professionals exist unless they bow the knee to the Baal of the sexual revolution, so Washington’s governor took action — demanding that the Washington State Board of Pharmacy issue regulations that required pharmacists to issue abortifacients regardless of religious or moral objections. In his dissent from the Court’s denial of certiorari, Justice Alito described the state’s anti-religious motivations:

The District Court found that the regulations were adopted with “the predominant purpose” to “stamp out the right to refuse” to dispense emergency contraceptives for religious reasons. Among other things, the District Court noted the following. When the Board began to consider new regulations, the Governor of the State “sent a letter to the Board opposing referral for personal or conscientious reasons.” The State Human Rights Commission followed with “a letter threatening Board members with personal liability if they passed a regulation permitting referral” for religious or moral reasons. And after the Board initially voted to adopt rules allowing referrals for reasons of conscience, the Governor not only sent another letter opposing the draft rules but “publicly explained that she could remove the Board members” if need be.

Ah, yes. The “Human Rights Commissions” that exist in so many countries, whose primary purpose is to stamp out the basic human rights of Bible-believing Christians using the power of the state.

The governor in question, by the way, is Christine Gregoire, who narrowly defeated a wonderful conservative a while back named Dino Rossi in 2004, and then defeated him again by a larger margin in 2008. I wonder how many “Christians” voted for Gregoire in Washington state in those elections. Rossi favors an exception for the Christian pharmacists.

More:

Christian pharmacists could either comply with state demands or close their pharmacies — an action that could actually “reduce patient access to medication by forcing some pharmacies—particularly small, independent ones that often survive by providing specialty services not provided elsewhere—to close.”

Predictably, the Ninth Circuit sided with the state. Just as predictably, our pitiful Supreme Court let the ruling stand. So Washington gets away with its pure anti-Christian animus, and it establishes a state religion to the god of sex. While Washington is an outlier (for now), it is showing Blue America the path forward — and any red state governor who refuses to defend religious liberty is completely without excuse. They can’t rely on federal courts to cover for their own lack of courage and conviction. As for the church? If it keeps gutlessly delegating defense of its liberties entirely to lawyers and politicians, then it will richly deserve its legal fate. It’s time to take a stand.

So, in the state of Washington, one of the most liberal and secular states in the union, you can’t be a Christian and be a pharmacist.

I think what French is trying to say there is that groups like the ADF and the ACLJ have been a thin line of resistance to judicial tyranny for many years, but Christians are not helping things by voting for Democrats – usually because they are looking for a handout from the government at their neighbor’s expense. Remember, Obama got Supreme Court picks when he was elected and then re-elected. People who voted for Obama voted for a more liberal Supreme Court – and the persecution of real Christians, like the Stormans.

You can read more about the case from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) web site. And the Daily Signal has more about the history of the case.

Now, keep in mind that this is the same state that is going after a Christian florist who referred her a gay customer to another florist for their wedding. She had served him faithfully for years, but when she turned him away for their wedding, then the state decided to go after her for her life savings and business. Never live in this immoral state.

News

ADF offers advice on SCOTUS marriage redefinition ruling

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States with non-discrimination laws
States with non-discrimination laws

(Source: ACLU)

Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defending Freedom offers advice to churches on how to respond to the Supreme Court’s decision to redefine marriage to remove the gender requirement.

He says:

[…][T]he greatest threat for churches lies in the application of the Court’s decision to believers who live in jurisdictions covered by so-called “non-discrimination” laws and ordinances. Everywhere that marriage has been redefined in the last several years has seen an awakening of non-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, or places of public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. These laws are peppered throughout the states and local governments and are a linchpin of the sexual revolution’s broader legal and political strategy: to establish non-discrimination laws at all levels throughout the country and to to “ensure that religion is not used as an excuse to discriminate.”

In coming days, the threat from these non-discrimination laws will materialize in numerous ways as same-sex couples marry. But there are proactive steps your church can take to protect itself.

I put the map from the ACLU above. I think that’s what he is talking about when he says non-discrimination states. Keep in mind that the ACLU supported redefining marriage, and opposes religious liberty.

Erik’s article covers 3 areas:

  1. Church’s statement of faith
  2. Pastors officiating same-sex marriage ceremonies
  3. Church’s facility usage policy

Part 3) was the most interesting to me:

3. Churches should ensure their facilities usage policies are revised to allow only uses consistent with the church’s religious beliefs.

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, some churches may be approached by same-sex couples seeking to be married in the church facility. Churches should not feel as if they have to close their doors to the community just to prevent wedding ceremonies with which they disagree. Churches must continue to be a welcoming presence in the community and can do so through updating or revising their facility usage policy. The key point is to tie usage of the church’s facility to the statement of faith and religious beliefs of the church. And then to make clear that uses inconsistent with those religious beliefs will not be allowed. Alliance Defending Freedom has a sample facilities usage policy available in our Protecting Your Ministry manual.

So you update your statement of faith, and then tie usage of the the facility to that statement of faith. Simple.

I took a quick look at the booklet, and it also talked about tying employment within the church and church membership to the statement of faith.

Denny Burk summarizes those:

2. Religious Employment Criteria

Your church can best avail itself of the First Amendment’s protection in employee disputes if you create and faithfully enforce religious employment criteria for every employee. That requires churches to do at least two things: (1) require all employees and volunteers to sign a statement affirming the church’s statement of faith and standards of conduct, and (2) create written job descriptions for every employee and volunteer position.

4. Formal Membership Policy

If your church does not have a membership policy, you need to change that. Biblically, this should already be a priority for your church. You need to specify what the requirements for membership are, how one joins, how one resigns, and the procedures for church discipline. If all of this isn’t spelled out up front, your church could be exposed (see ADF guide pp. 17-18).

So what to make of this? Well, the ADF is an organization that I admire and trust. I cannot abide Christians who do not want to understand the details of what is happening with religious liberty in their country. The ADF has first class lawyers from the top law schools, and they defend religious liberty at every level of our justice system, up to and including the Supreme Court. If you want to help your church protect itself from prosecution, then you must point them to the ADF booklet linked above.

And this is especially true if you are in one of those states in the map above. In looking over the map, I noticed that much of the trouble we have been having with Christian businesses getting sued are in states that have these laws… Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, New York, and so on. Pay attention to that map and make decisions about where to live accordingly.