We’re seeing a slew of important victories in several areas of our legal ministry – victories won through the hard work of dedicated Christian attorneys and allies, the faithful prayers and generous support of caring friends like you, and most especially through the mercies of God.

·     In Illinois, the state House of Representatives made a deliberate choice to adjourn for the summer without voting on SB 10, a bill that sought to redefine marriage.

“Illinois’ elected officials represented the position of the people of Illinois that marriage – the union of husband and wife – is timeless, universal, and special, particularly because children need a mother and a father,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Litigation Counsel Kellie Fiedorek, who courageously and ably testified on SB 10 before the House Executive Committee. “That’s why 38 states affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman, just as diverse cultures and faiths have throughout history.”

·     A legal effort Alliance Defending Freedom launched last year – as part of the ongoing University “Speak Up” Project – to change unconstitutional policies at America’s public universities and colleges has resulted in policy changes at 31 universities across the country, according to the most recent data compiled last month.

The ongoing effort seeks to change policies that violate the First Amendment-protected freedoms of students on hundreds of campuses nationwide – including a) speech codes and zones that place unconstitutional restrictions on student speech, b) policies that force student clubs to accept voting members and officers that don’t agree with the clubs’ beliefs, and c) policies that allow non-religious student groups to use student activity fees but exclude religious student groups from doing so – even though they, too, have contributed to the fees.

“This effort has given public universities and colleges the opportunity to respect the constitutionally protected freedoms of their students without much more costly litigation,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “We will continue pressing forward to help schools protect their students, as well as help students who often end up the victims of unconstitutional policies.”

·     On Sunday, June 9, nearly 1,100 pastors in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands took part in Alliance Defending Freedom’s sixth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday. Participating pastors committed to present a biblical perspective on marriage as the union of one man and one woman – and, by doing so, to exercise their constitutionally protected freedom to engage in religious expression from the pulpit.

“When the church is silent, the culture suffers,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. “The church is integral to the moral stability of a society. Every day that pastors are intimidated into silence on issues like life, liberty, the family, and marriage is another day the cultural erosion continues unchecked. Pulpit Freedom Sunday is just one opportunity for pastors to speak up and make a difference for the good of their congregations and the culture.”

The implications of these cases for your family’s religious freedom are enormous. Please join me in giving thanks to God for His powerful working in so many areas of our nation’s legal culture – and for continuing blessing on the efforts of this ministry for His glory – as we thank Him for your prayers and support.

IRS Caught on Tape from ADF Media Relations on Vimeo.

By Erik Stanley, Senior Legal Counsel

Pro-Life Revolution is a Texas-based organization dedicated to helping women in abusive pregnancy situations and presenting the truth about abortion.  Like all non-profit organizations, Pro-Life Revolution applied for tax-exempt status in January, 2011.  It filled out the necessary paperwork and described the charitable activities it undertook.  It expected to receive tax-exempt status with little difficulty.  What it didn’t expect was to be confronted with an IRS bent on silencing its pro-life viewpoint as a condition of obtaining tax-exempt status.

IRS agent Sherry Wan contacted the organization several times requesting more information and telling it on more than one occasion that it must remain “neutral” on the subject of abortion and that it could not “confront” other people with different beliefs on the subject.  At one point, Ania Joseph, President of Pro-Life Revolution recorded a phone call by Agent Wan who told Ania, “You cannot force your religion or force your beliefs on somebody else.”  Ania told Agent Wan that simply handing a brochure to a woman was not forcing her religion on them.  Agent Wan told her in the phone call, “you have to know your boundaries. You have to know your limits. You have to respect other people’s beliefs.”  And lest there be any confusion on the subject, Agent Wan ended the phone call by stating:

We want you to be aware that, you know, when you conduct religious activities, meanwhile you have to respect other people’s beliefs, other people’s religion. You cannot use any kind of, you know, confrontation way, or to, or against other groups or devalue other groups, other people’s beliefs. OK?

The IRS later sent a letter to Pro-Life Revolution sating that it must abide by the “full and fair exposition” standard where it has to present both sides of an issue to allow the public to form an independent conclusion on the controversial subject.  The problem with this standard is that it was declared to be unconstitutionally vague over thirty years ago!  The IRS was attempting to apply a standard to Pro-Life Revolution that a federal appeals court had declared unconstitutional in 1980.

If this weren’t enough, the IRS agent attempted to create a legal standard that was not found anywhere in the law or the IRS regulations.  The IRS said in its letter:

Further, an organization’s activities may not be considered serving (sic) educational purpose, if an organization carries out activities that aims (sic) to deny or reduce the rights of another segment of the community; that are designed to influence public opinion in favor of its advocated position; that may have adverse effect on the day to day operation of public health facilities (sic) that may be detrimental to the community as a whole; and that show (sic) a type of propaganda to defy other’s beliefs or viewpoints on the same matter.

This standard is simply made up. And it is very unconstitutional because it sets the IRS up as a “speech police” telling organizations that apply for tax exemption what they can and cannot say.

Ania contacted Alliance Defending Freedom who wrote the IRS a letter pointing out the unconstitutionality of the standard it was attempting to apply to Pro-Life Revolution.  Alliance Defending Freedom reminded the IRS: “The government must shun being the arbiter of ‘truth.’” And the letter also warned the IRS: “Denying a tax exemption because the government disagrees with the viewpoint of the organization can be a discriminatory limitation on speech that violates the Constitution.”

Shortly after the letter was sent to the IRS, it granted exempt status to Pro-Life Revolution.

This case demonstrates the abuse of power that has been occurring at the IRS.  The agency is extremely powerful, and the agent who contacted Pro-Life Revolution seemed more motivated by ideology against the pro-life viewpoint than in fairly applying the law.  Had Alliance Defending Freedom not become involved, it is entirely possible that the IRS would have stuck to its unconstitutional position and denied exempt status to Pro-Life Revolution.

The old axiom states that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  This case is a prime example of what a powerful, unaccountable federal agency can do if left unchecked.  We cannot allow the IRS to ruthlessly dictate against legitimate non-profits simply because it does not approve of the organization’s mission. It must be held accountable.

In this case, Alliance Defending Freedom was at the ready to preserve the constitutional freedoms of a pro-life organization against abuse by the IRS.  We always stand ready to defend the right to hear and speak the Truth.  If you need our assistance, please contact us.  Standing together, we can be an alliance defending freedom.

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Additional information:

In a great victory for the unborn, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed Florida’s “Infants Born Alive” act into law.  This new law protects infants born alive after attempted, but failed abortions.

Echoing the beliefs of most Americans as he signed the bill, Governor Scott said, “As a father and grandfather, there is nothing more precious or special than welcoming a new child into this world and by signing this bill, we are protecting the most vulnerable among us and affirming their rights as individuals.”

There is some disagreement and confusion, however, in Planned Parenthood’s ranks.  It seems that Planned Parenthood was “for” killing born alive babies before they were “against” it.  Could that be right?  Would Planned Parenthood pull such a bait and switch on the American public?

The facts speak for themselves.  They show that, yet again, Planned Parenthood is a “fraud.”

Before enactment of this new law, a law which Pennsylvania and other states should consider after the recent exposure of Gosnell’s “house of horrors,” Planned Parenthood vehemently opposed Florida’s proposed “Infants Born Alive” bill.   In fact, during one legislative committee hearing in March 2013, a Planned Parenthood official shocked legislators and the Nation when she argued in favor of a right to post-birth abortion.

The decision on whether or not to murder a born-alive baby should, the Planned Parenthood official stated, “be between the patient and the health care provider.”  Florida legislators were stunned by Planned Parenthood’s view that babies born alive could be thereupon murdered.  After all, said the Planned Parenthood official, “We don’t even know how prevalent this situation is.”

No surprise there, however, as Planned Parenthood also supported Gosnell – at least until it was clear the jury was going to find Gosnell guilty of murdering born alive babies.  In fact, as the Gosnell case unfolded, Planned Parenthood ally NARAL Pro-Choice America president Ilyse Hogue blamed the Gosnell prosecution on “anti-choice politicians” and said that efforts to increase health and safety standards across the abortion industry would only “drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell.”

No need to be consistent, however, that is the hobgoblin of little minds..  So in a quick shift from opposition to support for Florida’s new law, Planned Parenthood reversed course without missing a beat.  The Tampa Bay Times reported that “the bill passed without opposition from Planned Parenthood,” and Planned Parenthood President and CEO of South Florida and the Treasure Coast Lillian Tamayo went on to say that this new law would have no impact on Planned Parenthood’s abortion practices or its clinics. Tamayo added that Planned Parenthood’s abortionists are “guided by very stringent medical guidelines… We would provide appropriate care to both the mother and the infant.”  The abortion giant now says that live birth after an abortion is “one of the most extremely unlikely scenarios.”  So, there you have it.  Planned Parenthood, it seems, was “for” killing born alive babies before they were “against” it.

Those of us who have tracked Planned Parenthood’s waste, abuse, and potential fraud involving the more than $500 million in taxpayer dollars it receives each year are not surprised.  We know that Planned Parenthood’s concern is its bottom line, not women’s health.  We know that its mission is to deceive, to dissemble, and to have people fooled into thinking that a woman should have an absolute right to an abortion at any stage of the baby’s life – before or after birth.

An apparently compliant media enables Planned Parenthood to continue to mislead the American public so that such “bait and switch” tactics go unnoticed, unreported, and altogether ignored.

Sounds like “fraud” to me.  It is time that Planned Parenthood is recognized for what it is… pretty ugly.

Today, Governor Rick Scott signed HB 1129 to grant infants who survive abortion procedures the same rights as infants born naturally. Governor Scott was joined by First Lady Ann Scott and pro-life supporters from across the state to sign this bill at Florida Baptist Children’s Home in Cantonment. Read More

The case hinges on the objections of two women from Greece, New York, to their city’s longstanding tradition of opening public meetings with prayer. Never mind that the prayers are voluntary, and that anyone in the community is welcome to lead out according to their own faith tradition. (Protestants, Catholics, Jews – even non-believers – either have taken or are permitted to take a turn at these invocations). To these two residents, any sectarian prayer violates their limited view of the First Amendment, which says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The Founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled that public prayer is part of the ‘history and tradition of this country.’ America continues this cherished practice.”

As briefs filed in the case explain, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively settled the matter 30 years ago in their decision regarding Marsh v. Chambers (1983), which affirmed that prayer solemnizing a public meeting was a wholly constitutional acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the American people. Until relatively recently, the lower federal courts faithfully implemented that well-established rule of law. But a recent series of legal attacks by individuals and activist groups claiming to be offended by the way private citizens voluntarily pray have created significant confusion in the lower courts.

In its ruling on the Greece case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has suggested that the current legal complexity may cause local and state governments to abandon the practice of legislative prayer, which predates the founding of America and existed for more than two centuries without serious challenge.

“A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Brett Harvey. “It’s perfectly constitutional to allow community members to ask for God’s blessing according to their conscience.”

Thomas G. Hungar of the Washington, D.C. law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, is acting as lead attorney in the case, which the high court will hear later this year. A ruling is expected sometime next spring. Please be in particular prayer for our attorneys and the judges in this landmark case, which has such potential to shape the nature of religious freedom in our country for many years to come.

Is the government obligated to control the way people pray in public?  The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide this very question.  You see, the Town of Greece, NY has been sued because, when they open their town council meetings, they refused to censor the prayers of citizens who volunteered to deliver the opening invocation.  Rather, the Town allowed the volunteers to deliver the prayers in their own words and according to their faith tradition.  Any resident of the town could volunteer and they were scheduled on a first come first serve basis.  Although most of the people who volunteered to deliver the invocations were some flavor of Christianity, over the years a variety of faiths perspectives were offered, including Wiccan, Jewish, and Baha’i.   However, this “open to all” policy didn’t satisfy the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and its clients.

While generally frustrated that the Town opened its meetings with a prayer, the thrust of the complaint by the two “offended” participants was that they had to listen to prayers that mentioned Christian beliefs or closed in the name of Jesus.  Ultimately, the litigants asserted that the town had an obligation to censor the prayers to prohibit distinctly Christian prayers in favor of the more generic prayers they were willing to listen to.  This would put the town in the awkward role of Prayer Editor. Fortunately the trial court saw the ridiculousness of what the litigants were asking for and ruled for the Town. However the ruling was overturned on appeal. Now the Supreme Court will decide.

Thirty years ago the Supreme Court wrote that public prayer was a part of the “fabric of our society” when it ruled on Marsh v. Chambers. This case was against the State of Nebraska because they hired a Presbyterian minister to open each day of the legislative session with a Christian prayer.  The Supreme Court reviewed the history of legislative prayer and found that Congress hired chaplains to pray for their deliberation as they wrote the Bill of Rights.  More than 225 years later, Congress continues to hire chaplains to deliver legislative prayers every day they are in session. The words of the First Amendment remain unchanged.  The Supreme Court reasoned that Americans remain as free as the Founders were to pray.

Despite the clear ruling in Marsh, hundreds of towns and counties throughout America find themselves under attack by groups seeking to stop the practice of opening public meetings with prayer.  Since 2004, twenty different federal lawsuits have been filed demanding that local governments censor or abandon this historic tradition.  But a few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they may hear something they don’t like.

The Supreme Court’s decision to review Galloway v. Town of Greece, NY sets the stage for the Court to reaffirm that Americans today remain as free as the Founders were to pray.  It’s perfectly constitutional to allow community members to ask for God’s blessing according to their conscience. And we pray this tradition will stand throughout the end of time.

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Get updates and additional information on the case: http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/News/PRDetail/2843

I’m thinking of getting my nails done this weekend. And I know that when I walk in, I will not be confronted with blood, urine, feces, and flea-infested animals.

What makes me so confident that I won’t get a disease from the beauty parlor?

As the Kermit Gosnell Grand Jury reported, “even nail salons…are monitored more closely for client safety” than abortion businesses.

When states do finally start to inspect abortionists, they find horrors like those in Gosnell’s operation. He was no back-alley abortionist wielding a coat hanger; he murdered living, breathing babies and women out in the open, and stored their bodies in jars, milk jugs, and cat food containers. He never bothered to hire licensed medical staff, relying instead on his beautician wife. His instruments were rusty and broken, and his hallways were so narrow that EMTs couldn’t get through to save his victims.

Both Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation knew what was going on – they even called Gosnell’s business “beyond redemption.” But they decided to protect abortion instead of protecting women, and they did not report him.

Similarly, Virginia inspected Planned Parenthood affiliates and other abortion facilities in 2012. These were not random inspections; the clinics knew inspectors were coming. Yet every single facility had serious violations, including the remains of unborn children and blood frozen to the bottom of freezers, sponges that were used to clean surgical instruments over and over for a full week before being changed, and staff admitting not knowing which instruments were clean and which were dirty.

Why don’t more states enact regulations like Virginia’s, or at least try to enforce whatever they have? The Gosnell Grand Jury found that states’ “neglect of abortion patients’ safety and of…laws is clearly not inadvertent: It is by design.”

When a pro-life administration such as that of Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, Sr., governs a state, abortion facilities are inspected annually to stop abortionists like Gosnell from preying on women and innocent children. But when pro-choice Governor Tom Ridge got into office, the inspections stopped – he was cowed by the pro-abortion Left and worried about “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. One Grand Jury witness testified that “there was a concern that if they did routine inspections, that they may find a lot of these facilities didn’t meet [the standards for getting patients out by stretcher or wheelchair in an emergency], and then there would be less abortion facilities, less access to women to have an abortion.”

Are the so-called “clinics” that bad, that an inspection would result in their closure? If so, politicians and bureaucrats are doing women no favors by deliberately choosing not to conduct regular inspections of abortion facilities.

Pro-abortion partisan politics leaving women to be herded in for abortions in a “bad gas station restroom”…sounds pretty ugly, doesn’t it?

By Rory Gray, Alliance Defending Freedom Litigation Counsel
 
Some preschoolers in Montana got quite a shock late last year when they were told that the state’s department of education had cut tuition aid that they were promised under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) because they attend religious schools.  You see, these particular students struggle with learning disabilities.  So the federal government helps to ensure that they receive early schooling that prepares them to succeed in kindergarten. Because Montana does not provide a public preschool program, disabled students in that state attend private preschools or none at all.  The family of one particular preschooler, N.W., who has hearing and speech impairments chose to place her in a Christian school that shared their religious beliefs and offered their daughter individualized services that had been highly successful in helping her adjust to a classroom environment.  In fact, a local school district official had recognized—in writing—that N.W.’s school is a wonderful place with staff ready and willing to help students with special needs.
 

In Cooperstown, North Dakota, Michayla Maertens joined other students in putting up posters along the halls of Griggs County Central High School, as part of a class assignment requiring them to actively advocate for a current health-related issue by taking some specific action, like creating and displaying items at school. Michayla’s poster took on the subject of abortion, and featured a collage of pro-life messages such as “Life Not Abortion.”

Soon after, the school’s principal told Michayla the poster would have to come down: a parent had called and complained. Michayla’s family contacted Alliance Defending Freedom, and our attorneys sent the school district a letter, reminding administrators of certain pertinent passages in the First Amendment. The letter also pointed out that “a mere complaint cannot justify silencing expression” and that “the poster did not materially and substantially interfere with the school since the poster hung for approximately two weeks without causing any problems.”

“We would like to thank Alliance Defending Freedom for the clarity they provided in their letter,” the principal quickly responded, agreeing to re-post the poster. “In regards to the First Amendment and free speech, we feel that there needs to be more clarity for public schools.”

Administrators at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah are seeing things more clearly, too. Last fall, when a student group, the Solid Rock Christian Club, painted their assigned window with a cross and a Christian message during the campus Homecoming celebrations, school officials stopped them, saying they weren’t allowed to “paint any religious symbols or anything related to religion.” Later, another of their club messages was removed from another building, because, officials said, displaying a Christian message was “in poor taste.”  (It may not surprise you to learn these same administrators treated other clubs with religious affiliations very differently.)

But Snow College’s opposition has now melted, in the face of a lawsuit filed by Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of the Solid Rock club. In a settlement with our attorneys, officials have agreed “not to adopt or enforce the provisions of the old policies…that deny student organizations ‘associated with religious institutions’ the privileges afforded other student organizations.” The change of policies is now fully implemented, and has been communicated to all Snow College students. Our attorneys, therefore, have voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit.
Administrators at Des Moines Area Community College in Iowa, needed more of a nudge to change their policies restricting student speech to a single table in the student center, and requiring 10 days permission in advance for students wanting to hand out flyers. As I recently told you, our attorneys filed a lawsuit for this case, too, and last week came a court order compelling the college to quit enforcing those policies, while a settlement is reached with our client.

God is good, and He is so faithfully blessing your support for us, and the hard work of our staff and allied attorneys to defend religious freedom. Please continue to bless us with your prayers, gifts, and encouragement, as we work to keep a door open for the Gospel on the campuses of your children and grandchildren.

In February 2010, FBI agents finally raided the abortion business of Kermit Gosnell in search of drug violations. What they found was a massacre.

There was blood on the beds, floors, and charts, and aborted babies’ bodies were stored in jars, cat food containers, and a cherry limeade bottle as a kind of macabre trophy case. Gosnell used the same single-use-only supplies over and over, spreading STDs. Flea-infested cats roamed the building, which reeked of urine, death, and decay.

Gosnell employed no nurse and no medical staff as he committed thousands of dangerous, late-term abortions. His wife, a beautician, assisted him. Even though he was trained only as a family doctor, not an OB/GYN, he administered anesthesia and other drugs at hundreds of times the normal dose, and committed complex, life-destructive surgery day in and day out.

Gosnell joked about the size of the full-grown babies he was killing as they breathed and whimpered. Live babies were delivered on the floor or into toilets, where they swam in an attempt to live before being hunted down and murdered. The sewer system was regularly backed up from the bodies of flushed infants.

Gosnell also killed a Bhutanese refugee through a lethal dose of sedatives. At least one woman was tied up for a forced abortion when she changed her mind. He maimed scores of women, and likely committed infanticide hundreds of times or even more, but destroyed his files to protect himself from prosecution.

After years of willful blindness to complaints and to the stunning forty-six lawsuits filed against him over the years, state regulators finally shut down this travesty and suspended Gosnell’s license. We later learned that he had made millions from this abominable practice.

Gosnell’s trial began this March and ended May 13 with a guilty verdict: the killings were murder. After a near-total media blackout, with empty press benches in the courthouse, people finally began to notice. Shortly before the trial ended, the Today Show even asked President Obama about the trial. His response?:

“I can’t comment on it because it’s an active trial.”

Yet just a few years ago, Obama gave a very different answer. In July 2009, African-American Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., discovered that the front door to his home was jammed shut. Someone spotted him trying to push the door open and called 911 to report a potential burglary. Police officers came and placed Gates under arrest.

The charges were dropped, but President Obama’s hackles were raised. Despite having limited knowledge of the situation, he jumped in to criticize the arrest and the police generally for racial profiling. After citizens nationwide leaped to the defense of police ethics, Obama hosted the Beer Summit in an attempt to be the Great Healer, with professor and policeman joining him for a cold one in the Rose Garden.

So Obama can interject himself into the media account of the brief arrest of his Harvard colleague, but he is not able to comment on sworn testimony of eyewitnesses that Gosnell gleefully murdered children?

As Charles Dickens wrote, “It was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair.” Let us pray, as Charles Dickens did, for the return of an “age of wisdom,” when we can all label as evil, what is evil.

Mr. President, the White House beer summit was a “teachable moment.” So now that he’s been convicted of murdering innocent babies, what have you learned from Gosnell’s House of Horrors?