Alliance Defense Fund

The Alliance Defense Fund ("ADF") is a conservative Christian non-profit organization with the stated goal of "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation." ADF defines "Truth" according to a socially conservative Christian perspective. In practice ADF is opposed to all forms of abortion, same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, allowing LGBT persons to serve in the military, and sex education in schools that includes comprehensive education on contraception. ADF also works to establish public prayer in schools and government events, and to protect religious displays in government settings, like crosses and other religious monuments built on public lands.

ADF was launched in 1994 by Bill Bright (founder, Campus Crusade for Christ), Larry Burkett (founder, Crown Financial Ministries), James Dobson (founder, Focus on the Family), D. James Kennedy (founder, Coral Ridge Ministries), Marlin Maddoux (President, International Christian Media), and Don Wildmon (founder, American Family Association), along with the leadership of over thirty other conservative Christian organizations. ADF supports allied attorneys and organizations through strategy, training, funding, and direct litigation through its legal team.

The ADF claims to have been victorious in nearly three out of four cases litigated to a conclusion. It has also participated in thirty two wins before the United States Supreme Court. ADF has been involved in such Supreme Court cases as Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, and Good News Club v. Milford Central School.

Organization
ADF's President, CEO, and General Counsel is Alan Sears. Sears was previously a Justice Department official under the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and has co-authored two books with Craig Osten: The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, and The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values.

It receives funding from the Bill and Berniece Grewcock Foundation, Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, and Bradley Foundation.

The ADF is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. It has six branch offices, located in Sacramento, California; Lawrenceville, Georgia; Shreveport, Louisiana; Memphis, Tennessee; Washington, DC, and Olathe, Kansas. In addition, ADF recently opened its Center for Academic Freedom, located in Nashville, Tennessee.

Programs
ADF’s National Litigation Academy and Blackstone Legal Fellowship are aimed at training lawyers to pursue cases from a Christian, socially conservative perspective.

Its National Litigation Academy brings together law school professionals, litigators, and constitutional lawyers for courses of study. Volunteer and allied attorneys are trained in the areas of law as they relate to religious liberty, heterosexual marriage, families, and opposition to abortion rights. In return, each attorney pledges 450 hours of pro-bono time to working on the ADF's agenda.

The Blackstone Legal Fellowship is a nine-week legal internship program. Interns work closely with legal professionals, and advocate a Conservative Christian worldview.

Litigation
The Alliance Defense Fund, working with other socially conservative organizations and Christian groups, as well as allied litigators, litigates cases to prepare newly licensed attorneys to pursue cases involving religious freedom, human life issues, and socially conservative family values.

ADF has also has an internal networking program. ADF’s senior attorneys help the new attorneys with their first court cases. The "apprenticeship" approach prepares the new attorneys to work in rarefied world of First Amendment law.

ADF assigns one or more graduates of the National Litigation Academy (NLA) to almost every case that its litigation team directly litigates.

'Day of Truth'
The Alliance Defense Fund established the Day of Truth to oppose the promotion of same-sex marriage legalization and to express their viewpoint on homosexuality from a conservative Christian perspective. It is held annually following the Day of Silence, which is organized by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). According to the ADF, students who have attempted to speak against gay rights have been censored or, in some cases, punished for their actions under campus hate-speech rules. ADF bills the Day of Truth as an opportunity for students to "counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda", and publicly exercise their freedom of speech. The event aims to be student-led in the same model as the Day of Silence, with students forming small groups at their own school to organize and promote participation, though it is organized by the national ADF. The Day of Truth was first organized in 2005. Over 1,100 students in 350 schools participated according to ADF statistics. The second Day of Truth was held on April 27, 2006, and nearly 3,000 students from more than 800 schools participated, according to ADf statistics. In February, ADF reported that various unnamed bloggers opposed to the Day of Truth had attempted to undermine the event by swamping the Day of Truth web site with requests for brochures.

The third Day of Truth, held on April 19, 2007 had according to the ADF more than 7,000 students participating. ADF reports that it has made legal filings in 2006 on behalf of a student who was prevented by his school from participating in the Day of Truth, and has now filed an injunction request. The student in question was refused the right to wear a t-shirt with a message that read "Homosexuality Is Shameful".

'Ex-gay' Involvement
The Alliance Defense Fund has many connections with Christian ex-gay organizations that claim that LGBT persons can change to heterosexuality through prayer, intervention and psychological counseling. The Alliance Defense Fund receives funding from Focus on the Family, a group that also funds Exodus Ministries. ADF also lists Exodus as an allied organization on their webpage.

Resources for the group’s Day of Truth event were prepared by Exodus Ministries, which claims to be able to help LGBT persons become heterosexual, including their “Homosexuality FAQ Sheet.” The fact sheet reports a 52 percent success rate for treating “unwanted homosexual attraction”

ADF also represented the Christian ex-gay ministry Love in Action in a suit filed against the state of Tennessee. Love in Action sued the State of Tennessee, alleging religious discrimination, after the state Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities ruled that Love in Action was operating illegally and needed a state license in order to offer mental health care and services including drug and alcohol addiction treatment.

The Williams v. Vidmar controversy
In November 2004, the ADF sponsored a lawsuit (Williams v. Vidmar) of a Cupertino, California elementary school teacher against his school principal Patricia Vidmar and school board members. On the day before Thanksgiving, the ADF issued a press release to the media which many sources say was entitled "Declaration of Independence Banned from Classroom", a title that caused considerable controversy, though the ADF has replied that the actual title given to the media was "Oh, the horror! California teacher provides students with historical American documents", with the other title appearing only on their website.

Later in the ADF lawsuit, all parties (including the ADF) were reported by the media as affirming that the school policy in no way mentioned the Declaration of Independence, and no materials were "banned" from any classroom, though the ADF has said that the title of their article was based on the school blocking several excerpts from the Declaration on grounds of separation of church and state.

Parents in the district had in fact filed complaints with the school that Williams teaching "crossed the line into evangelizing" and had pointed out that the hands outs he prepared for the class contained excerpts of only religious references and not the whole documents they had come from."

The wording of the press release included text that asserted the school district sought to "erase God" from the classroom. This phrasing generated a substantial amount of press coverage in the conservative media over the holiday weekend. The story was picked up by Reuters and Fox News which rebroadcast on at least seven occasions the news of a ban and dispatched the Hannity and Colmes show to Cupertino for a special episode featuring the teacher.

The ADF has made no alterations to its original press release, and they have issued a statement defending its accuracy, despite claims by various groups that it had several mistakes in it. Threats against the elementary school and its principal caused the sheriff's department to put extra patrols on duty and the school had to hire additional security personnel for the remainder of the year.

In August 2005, Williams and the ADF dropped the lawsuit, choosing to settle out of court. In the settlement, two new statements of school policy were made which contradicted the grounds for the school's previous actions. Several days later, Williams resigned from the school district and left the state. Principle Vidmar continued in her position as Principal of Stevens Creek Elementary with strong support of parents, teachers, and the local community. $50,000 of local taxpayers money was spent in the defense, causing the parents organization to question if their school was just the unfortunate victim of a public relations exercise. The parents group questioned ADF's motives on the assumption that the ADF's original press release contained factual errors: "The ADF is morally obligated to be proactive when issuing a correction of the record and they must give it the same wide publicity to ensure the same coverage given the original, factually inaccurate and devastating press release. Otherwise, they’re just paying lip service to their claim of concern for the safety of our children."

Founders

 * The late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ
 * The late Larry Burkett, founder of Crown Financial Ministries
 * Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family
 * Dr. D. James Kennedy, founder of Coral Ridge Ministries
 * The late Marlin Maddoux, Host, “Point of View” radio program