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The Alliance Defending Freedom are behind the Texas ruling to stop the FDA and mifepristone.
Here's how ADF presents itself. Please look over their site to get the full feel of the sexist, racist, christofascist white collar war they're committed to.
https://adflegal.org/about-us
Hundreds of lawyers of ADF are funded by Koch. How much of his money mixes with their $78 MILLION in revenue isn't easily known. But if the DOJ follows the money, I hope they nail his racist, sexist, christofascist ass.
SPLC describes them:
The founding board and original funders included James Dobson of Focus on the Family; Bill Bright of the Campus Crusade for Christ; D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries (now D. James Kennedy Ministries); and Don Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association. Its original purpose was to oppose the ACLU and other “radical groups” as well as to fight for “religious liberty.” Since its founding, ADF has expanded its operations abroad as it battles abortion, LGBTQ equality, and what it considers the “myth” of the separation of church and state.
Originally called the Alliance Defense Fund (the name changed in 2012), ADF has been funding cases and training attorneys since its inception, claiming that it is “advocating for freedom in court,” though it also is working to “change the culture,” because, it says, legal victories aren’t enough. In other words, ADF is attempting to eradicate the separation of church and state and graft its version of conservative Christianity onto the legal profession and the culture at large through its legal strategies, the training of thousands of attorneys and its advocacy of policy changes at the state and federal levels.
ADF has several initiatives that help train conservative Christians. These include a variety of programs designed for young lawyers, including the Young Lawyers Academy, which schools new U.S. attorneys and provides opportunities to “engage the culture and join a network of Christian attorneys around the globe,” and the Areté Academy, which “launches highly accomplished university students and recent graduates on a path to future leadership in law, government, business, and public policy.”
ADF Academy is a training program that purports to equip participants to “effectively advocate for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” ADF claims more than 1,800 lawyers have participated. The organization also offers the secretive Blackstone Legal Fellowship, through which Christian law students study under prominent scholars, participate in internships, and prepare for life and leadership in the legal profession. Since 2000 (the year of Blackstone’s inception), ADF claims it has trained more than 1,600 law students from 225 law schools in 21 different countries.
Originally called the Alliance Defense Fund (the name changed in 2012), ADF has been funding cases and training attorneys since its inception, claiming that it is “advocating for freedom in court,” though it also is working to “change the culture,” because, it says, legal victories aren’t enough. In other words, ADF is attempting to eradicate the separation of church and state and graft its version of conservative Christianity onto the legal profession and the culture at large through its legal strategies, the training of thousands of attorneys and its advocacy of policy changes at the state and federal levels.
ADF has several initiatives that help train conservative Christians. These include a variety of programs designed for young lawyers, including the Young Lawyers Academy, which schools new U.S. attorneys and provides opportunities to “engage the culture and join a network of Christian attorneys around the globe,” and the Areté Academy, which “launches highly accomplished university students and recent graduates on a path to future leadership in law, government, business, and public policy.”
ADF Academy is a training program that purports to equip participants to “effectively advocate for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” ADF claims more than 1,800 lawyers have participated. The organization also offers the secretive Blackstone Legal Fellowship, through which Christian law students study under prominent scholars, participate in internships, and prepare for life and leadership in the legal profession. Since 2000 (the year of Blackstone’s inception), ADF claims it has trained more than 1,600 law students from 225 law schools in 21 different countries.
SPLC quotes them:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/alliance-defending-freedom
“Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal. Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds.” – Blackstone Legal Fellowship website, 2014
“When given the same choice the Supreme Court of the United States had in Lawrence vs. Texas, the Indian Court did the right thing. India chose to protect society at large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates. … America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage, and understood that these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society.” – Benjamin Bull, former executive director of ADF Global, on the recriminalization of consensual sex between adults of the same sex in India, 2013
“[C]ontrol of the educational system is central to those who want to advance the homosexual agenda. By its very nature, homosexual acts are incapable of bearing fruit – indeed, strictly speaking, they are not sexual, as they are incapable of being generative or procreative. Thus there is the need to desensitize and corrupt young minds, both to undermine resistance to the agenda and for recruitment among those that are at an emotionally vulnerable stage of development.” – Then-senior ADF Legal Counsel (Global) Piero Tozzi, speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in Madrid, Spain, 2012
“And in the course of the now hundreds of cases the Alliance Defense Fund has now fought involving this homosexual agenda, one thing is certain: there is no room for compromise with those who would call evil ‘good.’” – Alan Sears, speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in Madrid, Spain, 2012
“The government should promote and encourage strong families. When school officials have to choose between protecting children in those families or furthering the homosexual agenda, the choice is obvious: protecting our children comes first.” – Austin Nimocks, then-ADF senior counsel opposing a “Welcoming Schools” curriculum, 2008
“In the end, those who profess to be ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’ or who have otherwise slipped in and out of homosexual behavior, including ‘cruising’ for anonymous partners, are people who succumb to a dangerous temptation.” – Austin Nimocks, then-ADF senior counsel, writing at TownHall.com, 2007
“As the homosexual agenda continues to sexualize our culture, other once-forbidden behaviors are exalted as just more alternative lifestyles. The result is that the well-being of millions of children is at risk, along with the right of parents to protect their children from sexual exploitation.” – Alan Sears and Craig Osten, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, 2003
“When given the same choice the Supreme Court of the United States had in Lawrence vs. Texas, the Indian Court did the right thing. India chose to protect society at large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates. … America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage, and understood that these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society.” – Benjamin Bull, former executive director of ADF Global, on the recriminalization of consensual sex between adults of the same sex in India, 2013
“[C]ontrol of the educational system is central to those who want to advance the homosexual agenda. By its very nature, homosexual acts are incapable of bearing fruit – indeed, strictly speaking, they are not sexual, as they are incapable of being generative or procreative. Thus there is the need to desensitize and corrupt young minds, both to undermine resistance to the agenda and for recruitment among those that are at an emotionally vulnerable stage of development.” – Then-senior ADF Legal Counsel (Global) Piero Tozzi, speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in Madrid, Spain, 2012
“And in the course of the now hundreds of cases the Alliance Defense Fund has now fought involving this homosexual agenda, one thing is certain: there is no room for compromise with those who would call evil ‘good.’” – Alan Sears, speaking at the World Congress of Families gathering in Madrid, Spain, 2012
“The government should promote and encourage strong families. When school officials have to choose between protecting children in those families or furthering the homosexual agenda, the choice is obvious: protecting our children comes first.” – Austin Nimocks, then-ADF senior counsel opposing a “Welcoming Schools” curriculum, 2008
“In the end, those who profess to be ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’ or who have otherwise slipped in and out of homosexual behavior, including ‘cruising’ for anonymous partners, are people who succumb to a dangerous temptation.” – Austin Nimocks, then-ADF senior counsel, writing at TownHall.com, 2007
“As the homosexual agenda continues to sexualize our culture, other once-forbidden behaviors are exalted as just more alternative lifestyles. The result is that the well-being of millions of children is at risk, along with the right of parents to protect their children from sexual exploitation.” – Alan Sears and Craig Osten, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, 2003
Mother Jones tries to lay out the ramifications:
Attorney General Merrick Garland also said in a statement on Friday that the Justice Department “strongly disagrees” with Kacsmaryk’s decision.
Kacsmaryk’s decision was based on the premise that the FDA rushed approval of the drug. The pill was approved over 20 years ago after a four-year review process and has since been used in roughly 50 percent of abortions.
Mother Jones’s Madison Pauly recently wrote about the safety and efficacy of mifepristone:
The medication at issue in the lawsuit, sold under the brand name Mifeprex, has been approved by the FDA for over two decades as part of a two-drug regimen to end pregnancies within the first 10 weeks. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, causing pregnant peoples’ uterine lining and implanted embryo to begin breaking down. The second drug in the regimen, the anti-ulcer drug misoprostol, is taken 24 to 48 hours later to soften the cervix and cause contractions. The drugs can be taken safely at home and are successful in 99.6 percent of cases, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
As Madison wrote, Kacsmaryk’s ruling came about as a result of anti-abortion activists intentionally filing the case in his district after he used controversial legal arguments and theories to rule in favor of regressive, reactionary cases.
But in a strategic move, Alliance Defending Freedom filed the complaint in Amarillo, Texas—virtually guaranteeing that it would be heard by Judge Kacsmaryk. A former staff attorney for a religious-right legal firm, the controversial judge was already known for making anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ statements at the time he was nominated by Trump and confirmed by a Republican Senate.
Since then, conservative legal activists have been lining up to send him their cases—and he’s delivered, forcing the Biden administration to reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” border policy. In two cases late last year, Kacsmaryk ruled that anti-LGBTQ discrimination was permissible in heath care and struck down a rule that had promised confidentiality to teens who sought birth control from federally funded family planning programs.
Both lawsuits happen to have been filed by former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of the state’s 6-week abortion ban and its “bounty hunter” enforcement mechanism.
Kacsmaryk’s decision was based on the premise that the FDA rushed approval of the drug. The pill was approved over 20 years ago after a four-year review process and has since been used in roughly 50 percent of abortions.
Mother Jones’s Madison Pauly recently wrote about the safety and efficacy of mifepristone:
The medication at issue in the lawsuit, sold under the brand name Mifeprex, has been approved by the FDA for over two decades as part of a two-drug regimen to end pregnancies within the first 10 weeks. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, causing pregnant peoples’ uterine lining and implanted embryo to begin breaking down. The second drug in the regimen, the anti-ulcer drug misoprostol, is taken 24 to 48 hours later to soften the cervix and cause contractions. The drugs can be taken safely at home and are successful in 99.6 percent of cases, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
As Madison wrote, Kacsmaryk’s ruling came about as a result of anti-abortion activists intentionally filing the case in his district after he used controversial legal arguments and theories to rule in favor of regressive, reactionary cases.
But in a strategic move, Alliance Defending Freedom filed the complaint in Amarillo, Texas—virtually guaranteeing that it would be heard by Judge Kacsmaryk. A former staff attorney for a religious-right legal firm, the controversial judge was already known for making anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ statements at the time he was nominated by Trump and confirmed by a Republican Senate.
Since then, conservative legal activists have been lining up to send him their cases—and he’s delivered, forcing the Biden administration to reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” border policy. In two cases late last year, Kacsmaryk ruled that anti-LGBTQ discrimination was permissible in heath care and struck down a rule that had promised confidentiality to teens who sought birth control from federally funded family planning programs.
Both lawsuits happen to have been filed by former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of the state’s 6-week abortion ban and its “bounty hunter” enforcement mechanism.
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