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| Media Matters has the goods on the Alliance Defending Freedom's plan to undermine gay adoption. But the Family Research Council doesn't want anyone to know about it. |
Last week, the organization Media Matters ran a feature article looking at how anti-LGBTQ hate group the Alliance Defending Freedom is working to pass laws in several states to make it more difficult for gays to adopt children, including how it is pushing anti-gay adoption laws in five states.
Apparently the article did its work in raising eyebrows because another anti-LGBTQ hate group, the Family Research Council, attempted today to defend ADF:
At Media Matters, why don't kids matter? The Soros-funded group seems to be going out of its way to shame the organizations whose only concern is exactly that. Their latest target? Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
Like most conservatives, ADF has been doing everything it can to defend the freedom of adoption agencies to place children in the best possible home -- a freedom, unfortunately, that's been complicated by the recent efforts of the anti-faith and LGBT lobbies. Media Matters is not normally a direct player in this debate. After all, its mission is keeping watch on the media – not wading in to specific social issue culture battles, or at least that is what they've claimed.
Their real mission is becoming evident now that it's leading the attack on ADF for daring to argue that adoption and foster care agencies ought to be able to prioritize the best environment for children: homes with a married mother and father. After some cities made it impossible for Christian nonprofits to operate (at least not without violating their faith), more states have gone on the offensive – introducing and passing bills that reiterate the religious freedom of these faith-based organizations.
ADF is helping to lead the legal fight in at least five of those states, where extremists (like the folks at Media Matters) are arguing that these agencies are actually harming these children by taking their wellbeing into account. Don't be fooled, ADF's Sarah Kramer argues. This isn't about the kids. This is about "pushing a political agenda. It's about forcing faith-based organizations to denounce their beliefs about marriage. All at the expense of the children…" Besides, she points out, none of these laws affects a same-sex couple's ability to adopt. "There are no laws preventing them from doing so. And there are other adoption and foster care agencies that would be willing to match them with a child."
Let's be clear. This isn't about religious liberty. It's about allowing adoption agencies to discriminate against the LGBTQ community while still receiving taxpayer funds. Groups like ADF and FRC are creating a religious misdirection because they can't defend taking gay tax dollars while practicing anti-gay discrimination.
And that nonsense FRC spouts about the so-called best environment for children being in a home with a mother and father is junk. Their link is mess pushed by a right-wing publication and authored by a man infamous for creating negative junk science about children in same-sex households.
In addition, the organization has been smacked down in the past for pushing that inaccuracy. In 2014, the media watchdog site Politifact said FRCs' claim as false.
But Sarah Kramer of ADF is partially right about one thing. The situation is about pushing a political agenda, but the pushers are Kramer, her group and other groups like FRC. None, if any of the legislation pushed by ADF actually addresses placing children in homes. Nor does the legislation increase the number of mother/father homes which would potentially adopt children.
It's all about keeping gays from adopting.. It's discrimination and disrespect designed to be enshrined into law, just like other efforts the ADF has undertaken, according to Media Matters:
ADF is an influential anti-LGBTQ hate group that is fighting LGBTQ equality on many fronts, including leading the fight against transgender student equality, codifying discrimination against the community via religious exemptions, and exporting its anti-LGBTQ agenda abroad. ADF is well-known for representing plaintiff Jack Phillips, a Christian baker, in the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission Supreme Court case, in which a gay couple sued Phillips after he refused to bake a cake for their wedding. The case could have major implications in terms of whether businesses serving the public have the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people using religious exemptions. ADF and its allied attorneys have also relentlessly worked to prevent transgender students from using the restrooms that align with their gender identity, distributing its suggested anti-LGBTQ bathroom policy to schools across the country and filing lawsuits and briefs on behalf of schools with discriminatory policies and against schools that have implemented trans-inclusive policies. Legislation proposed in at least eight states in 2017 resembled ADF’s policy or were written by ADF. In addition, ADF has filed lawsuits and worked with government officials like U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions for other discriminatory religious exemptions, including advising Sessions on his October Justice Department guidance, writing and defending Mississippi’s sweeping anti-LGBTQ law, and representing a client in Michigan who fired an employee for coming out as transgender. The organization has supported legislative efforts to prevent transgender service members from receiving medically necessary health care and also works with more than a dozen anti-LGBTQ groups and hate groups.
That's what ADF is all about. The organization was never about protecting Christians. The Alliance Defending Freedom is a huge hive of religious zealots, a pack of rabid wolves with crosses singed in their fur, whose goal is to exploit laws and religious beliefs in order to eliminate LGBTQ equality, safety, and progression.
Related post - Alliance Defending Freedom Through The Years
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