{"id":7890,"date":"2006-07-10T10:44:17","date_gmt":"2006-07-10T14:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7890.html"},"modified":"2006-07-10T10:44:17","modified_gmt":"2006-07-10T14:44:17","slug":"meet-the-alliance-defense-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/meet-the-alliance-defense-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Alliance Defense Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WaPo ran a solid front-page feature<\/a> today on the legal arm of the Taliban-wing of the Republican Party: the Alliance Defense Fund. It’s worth reading, in large part because the ADF a) isn’t as widely known as it should be; and b) is pretty scary.<\/p>\n

These courtroom fights and dozens of others pending across the country belong to the portfolio of the ambitious Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium. It spends $20 million a year seeking to protect what it regards as the place of religion — and especially Christianity — in public life.<\/p>\n

Considering itself the antithesis of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Scottsdale-based organization has used money and moxie to become the leading player in a movement to tug the nation to the right by challenging decades of legal precedent. By stepping into the nation’s most impassioned debates about religion in the public sphere, the group aims to bring law and society into alignment with conservative Christianity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gary McCaleb, who directs the ADF’s litigation team, said the group’s work is critical because “the fundamental ability of Christians to speak their minds on the issues of the day” is at stake. Considering that no one, anywhere, has made any effort to restrict Christians’ ability to talk about issues, one has to wonder what on earth he’s talking about.<\/p>\n

Coherent or not, the ADF is not to be taken lightly. As some friends of mine recently explained<\/a>, the ADF was founded in 1993 by a coalition of 30 religious right leaders, including James Dobson. The legal group’s current head, Alan Sears, is perhaps best known for leading Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese’s Commission on Pornography.<\/p>\n

In all in all, the ADF takes what you’d expect from a far-right legal group — and then pushes the envelope a little further. The group didn’t just worry about the non-existent “war on Christmas”; it committed 800 lawyers<\/i> to the fight. Sears doesn’t just condemn gays, he was the first religious right figure to assert that the cartoon character SpongeBob Square\u00adPants might be gay and criticized the 1959 movie ‘Some Like It Hot’ for promoting cross-dressing.<\/p>\n

But before you dismiss the ADF as fringe extremists, keep in mind that they’re training legions of lawyers to push the group’s agenda.
\n<\/p>\n

To change the equation, the alliance hired Reagan-era prosecutor Alan Sears. He later brought in corporate lawyer Jeffery Ventrella. Mostly under Ventrella’s watch, the ADF has schooled more than 800 outside lawyers, each promising to donate 450 hours to the cause.<\/p>\n

Ventrella runs an annual summer seminar, which this year brought 100 law students to Scottsdale. The idea, according to ADF documents, is to train them in “a distinctly Christian worldview of law” before they head to clerkships and other influential posts, “perhaps even Supreme Court justices.”<\/p>\n

Some of them met recently at a training session in Chicago. Lawyers and preachers jotted tips as ADF speakers explained that prayer is not always enough: Protecting the faith sometimes demands lawsuits and clamor.<\/p>\n

“I was looking for a way to reconcile my faith and my professional life. The ADF helped me be not a Christian and a lawyer but a Christian lawyer,” said Chicago litigator Melanie Jo Triebel, who says that the “Christian side of the debate” has not been effective enough.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, the ADF created a “National Litigation Academy,” which offers lawyers lessons — for free — on how to be a more effective far-right litigator. In exchange, the attorneys pledge 450 hours of pro-bono time “to the Body of Christ.” The group also sponsors Blackstone Legal Fellowships where law students “receive intensive training in Christian worldview principles and how they apply to the study and interpretation of law.”<\/p>\n

The Alliance Defense Fund isn’t necessarily a household name, but chances are you’ve heard about its handiwork. And with 1,000 or so lawyers getting ADF training, you’ll likely be seeing more and more of the group’s efforts in the coming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The WaPo ran a solid front-page feature today on the legal arm of the Taliban-wing of the Republican Party: the Alliance Defense Fund. It’s worth reading, in large part because the ADF a) isn’t as widely known as it should be; and b) is pretty scary. These courtroom fights and dozens of others pending across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}