With each passing year, more and more people are contacting ADF for help. Individuals and families who have seen their freedom taken away and know that their best chance to see those rights restored is by calling ADF. By God's grace, we have won more than three out of four cases litigated to a conclusion; with your continued support, we believe even greater victories are yet to come: victories preserving your religious freedom and the freedom of your children and grandchildren.
Although God has greatly blessed our efforts since our launch in 1994, it is clear that the war for the future of America has truly just begun. The ACLU and its allies are becoming bolder in their attacks, and many in our courts and communities are deliberately set against the First Amendment rights of Christians.
For instance:
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In Olympia, Washington, Kevin Stormans, a Christian pharmacy owner, decided that his store would not stock or sell Plan B, the so-called "morning after" abortion pill. Although that deadly drug is widely available throughout the state, activists began to picket Kevin's business and filed complaints against him with the state's Board of Pharmacy.
Under heavy pressure from Planned Parenthood, the board has initiated three different investigations of Kevin's business over the past two years, threatening to shut down his store unless he agrees to sell abortion pills—even if doing so violates his sincerely held religious beliefs. |
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In Glendale, Arizona, a Christian student club respectfully asked to promote its weekly before-school prayer meeting during morning announcements. The assistant principal refused the request—because, she said, the announcement contained the word "prayer." When a member of the club asked for the announcement back, the administrator ripped it up in front of her. |
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In Carbondale, Illinois, Christine Mize, a Southern Illinois University (SIU) graduate student in the School of Social Work, was assigned to create a therapy program on a topic of her choosing. She decided to create a program for women who suffer from post-abortion syndrome (something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder).
When Christine mentioned that the recovery portion of her therapy program would be faith-based, her professor told her she would mark her project down for that reason. So Christine left out the faith aspects, but to clear the air, she turned in some legal information along with her paper, clarifying her constitutional right to include religion in her assignments, when appropriate. In response, her professor refused to grade Christine's paper—even without the faith components—letting her grade (in a class she needed to graduate) stand as "incomplete" for six months. |
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In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a same-sex couple asked Christian photographer Elaine Huguenin to photograph their upcoming "commitment ceremony." She declined because her beliefs defining marriage as one man and one woman conflicted with the message communicated by the ceremony.
The same-sex couple filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, which tried Elaine under state anti-discrimination laws for "sexual-orientation discrimination" . . . despite the fact that neither same-sex "marriage" nor so-called "civil unions" are even legal in New Mexico. |
In each of these cases, our most essential religious liberties were trampled or ignored. Christians should not lose their rights simply because they are Christians. They are entitled to the protections of the First Amendment--liberties bestowed by our Creator and wisely protected by our Founding Fathers.
The good news is we are meeting these attacks in the courtrooms, and we are winning! In case after case, the Alliance Defense Fund and our allies are reclaiming
Our First Liberty – religious freedom. That's why our phones keep ringing with calls from people who need help,
and that's why we need your continued support.
There is so much work still to do. With the resources to train, fund, and build an alliance with the legal strategy and litigation skills needed to win, we will continue to defend the rights of all Americans to hear and speak the Truth.
Your generous gift today enables us to answer the call, one ringing phone at a time.