Hate group president can't hide his organization's history of targeting LGBTQ community

ADF head Michael Farris

A campaign to educate people about the nefarious activities of anti-LGBTQ hate group the Alliance Defending Freedom has its president shook.

The NoGaysAllowed campaign and web page is a group effort by several LGBTQ and progressive organizations exposing the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF is an organization named as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of its efforts to undermine the rights of LGBTQ Americans and spreading falsehoods, such as the linkage between homosexuality and pedophilia.

The campaign was punctuated by a controversial billboard in Times Square telling people to check out the NoGaysAllowed webpage

Apparently the campaign is very successful because Michael Farris, ADF president, wrote a piece which appeared in the Daily News claiming that it is a cruel and unfair attack. Part of the piece reads as follows:

The site’s primary allegation — that ADF holds “extreme, out-of-touch and dangerous views” and is “trying to force those views on others” — couldn’t be further from the truth. LGBT customers are more than welcome at Masterpiece Cakeshop, for example. The shop’s owner, Jack Phillips — an ADF client — serves everyone, but there are certain messages he won’t express through his custom artwork. 

When a same-sex couple asked for a custom wedding cake for their upcoming ceremony, Jack politely declined. Yet, even though several local shops were willing to create the cake, Jack’s home state of Colorado forced him to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 that Colorado had treated Jack with hostility because of his religious views on marriage. 

You don’t have to agree with Jack to see why his win at the Supreme Court is so significant. The court ruled in his case as it had in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states, that the government must respect the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman — which is held by countless Americans from all walks of life. 

Yet groups like Citizens for Transparency and the SPLC gloss over the obvious differences between disagreement and discrimination. Rather than seek to understand the other side of a conversation, the SPLC vilifies any person or group with whom it disagrees.

Farris then proceeds to make personal attacks against certain LGBTQ leaders:

 . . . the group includes Eliza Byard, who serves on the foundation board of Tim Gill, a mega-donor to LGBT causes whose stated mission is to “punish the wicked” who believe marriage is between a man and a woman. 

If “punish the wicked” or the Times Square billboard stunt sounds anything like a conversation-starter to you, I’d urge you to reevaluate before sharing a table with family and friends this holiday season. Conversations aren’t started — they’re ended — by name-calling and willful misrepresentation.

Farris was so busy portraying ADF as the victim that he failed (probably deliberately) to address the specific charges lodged against his group by the NoGaysAllowed campaign.

The main charge which Farris failed to address is the following (click on graphics to make them larger) :

General charges, which Farris also failed to address:

To quote an old, but very apt for the moment, cliche, this is simply the tip of the iceberg. The NoGaysAllowed webpage is thorough and accurate.  Folks not only need to check it out and share it but also save it for future reference.  The Alliance Defending Freedom is not simply a group concerned with "religious liberty." In truth, it is a group whose goal is to demonize the LGBTQ community and undermine our equality and safety.

As for Farris, I wouldn't accuse him for directly lying in his piece, but he did evade consistently. And he should remember that the internet is forever. For every evasion he chooses to engage in, the truth is always out there.