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.

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.

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 Minnesota, for instance, a sixth grader at Nova Classical Academy was one of several students handing out pro-life fliers to other students during their lunch break. They weren’t making a big deal about it, or forcing the fliers on students who didn’t express an interest. This is just an issue these students care about. (One flier read, “Save the baby humans. Stop abortion.”)

A few days later, the students were called into the school director’s office and told they were no longer allowed to pass these kinds of fliers out – during or after school hours, and even if students requested them – because some students find such pro-life fliers offensive.

Besides, the director said, school policy requires a student to get “prior approval from an administrator” before engaging in free speech. An email to the student’s parents said that the content of the fliers was inconsistent with the school’s educational mission and that “such political activism is limited to students in the School of Rhetoric [the high school] only.”

“The school has a right to censor students without violating their free speech,” the director wrote. “In short, public schools have every right to prohibit student speech.”

In fact – as our attorneys point out in a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the sixth grader – the “Academy’s literature distribution policy leaves censorship of student speech to the whim of Academy officials” and exhibits “hostility toward religious expression.” Plus, it turns out, “the Academy has allowed other similarly situated students to distribute written materials containing secular expression during non-instructional time.” (Paul Harvey used to call that “selective indignation.”)

“The law on this is extremely clear,” says Legal Counsel Matt Sharp. “Free speech cannot be censored simply because it expresses a certain viewpoint that administrators don’t favor. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech for all students, regardless of their religious or political beliefs.” (Stanley Zahorsky, one of more than 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, is serving as local counsel in this case.)

Senior Counsel David Cortman points out, the implications of cases like this go far beyond a school’s right to take away a student’s First Amendment protections.

“This influences a lifetime,’” he says. “If we don’t stand with a child who stands for his faith in elementary school, that child is taught that there is something wrong with his faith. He won’t just keep silent in elementary school – he won’t speak up in high school, or on his college campus, or when he goes out into the world as an adult. Studies show that more than 60 percent of our children are walking away from their faith by the time they get out of college.  That desertion begins here, when they are young, when they’re taught not to talk about or live out their faith.”

So much depends on our ability to safeguard the religious freedom and First Amendment-protections of your children and grandchildren. Please pray for our attorneys, coast to coast, as they work to keep a door open for the Gospel … even on our grade school campuses.

In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a group of atheists recently warned the mayor that his annual prayer breakfast – which coincides each year with the National Day of Prayer – is a “violation of the Constitution.”  That’s simply not true, of course: historically, governors of all 50 states, as well as the president of the United States, have issued proclamations in honor of the National Day of Prayer. There is no legal basis to suggest that mayors or city council members can’t do the same.

Alliance Defending Freedom has encouraged the mayor to continue with the prayer breakfast as planned. Our attorneys point out that “the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly acknowledged that presidential proclamations of thanksgiving and prayer, including the National Day of Prayer, are indeed a part of our culture and tradition and are in no way a violation of the Constitution.”

“Local observances of the National Day of Prayer are constitutional and appropriate,” notes local counsel Sharkey Burke (one of our more than 2,200 Alliance Defending Freedom allied attorneys), “particularly since the event simply provides all Americans an opportunity to pray voluntarily according to their own faith – and does not promote any particular religion or form of religious observance.”

Meanwhile, in Des Moines, Iowa, our attorneys are representing Jacob Dagel, a Christian student at Des Moines Area Community College, who was stopped by a security officer as he politely handed out fliers on campus protesting the use of public college funds for a conference on “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth.”  The officer informed Dagel that free speech for students is limited to one table in the student center. To secure use of that table, he needed to request permission at least 10 days in advance.

“Colleges should be the marketplace of ideas,” says Senior Legal Counsel David Hacker. “Free speech should not be censored or limited to a ridiculously small area on campus, nor should college students need permission to hand out fliers. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech for all students everywhere on campus, regardless of their religious or political beliefs.” (Allied Attorney Timm W. Reid is serving as local counsel in the case.)

“Free, spontaneous discourse on college campuses is supposed to be a hallmark of higher education, rather than the exception to the rule,” says Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “A permission slip should not be needed every time students wish to express their views on current events of the day.”

Please be in faithful prayer for all of our attorneys and allies, as they diligently defend religious freedoms FOR you and your family in courtrooms coast to coast.

On April 12, our attorneys joined Cornerstone Policy Research and Liberty Institute in filing a friend-of-the-court brief with a New Hampshire court in defense of students attending private schools and a state tax credit program for businesses that wish to help.  The program allows taxpaying businesses to donate private funds to private scholarship organizations, then claim a tax credit for the donation. The scholarship organizations then provide the donated funds to families like yours who can then use them at any private school, religious or non-religious.

“Parents should be able to choose what’s best for their own children,” says Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor. “New Hampshire’s program allows businesses to help make that happen, and nothing about that violates the state constitution, as the state’s legal history clearly demonstrates.”

In January, the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit against the tax credit program, claiming such a choice violates the state constitution. But, as our brief explains, “No New Hampshire court has ever interpreted these provisions to mean that religious schools are ineligible to participate in neutral aid programs such as this one, especially one that does not directly involve taxpayer funds.”

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys led the successful defense of a very similar Arizona program two years ago in a winning case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The ACLU failed in its attempt to eliminate school choice for hundreds of thousands of students nationwide, and its arguments fail here, too,” says Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The history of New Hampshire’s constitution simply does not support the attacks being made against this program. The people who’ll suffer most if this lawsuit succeeds are New Hampshire’s students.”

Over in California, some state legislators have proposed a bill designed to strip many non-profit youth groups of their tax-exempt status if they don’t abandon their long-held values and admit into membership people who reject the values that built the organizations. Among those at risk: Little League, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Special Olympics, American Youth Soccer Organization, Future Business Leaders of America, and many youth-oriented religious groups.

“Youth organizations that have benefitted America for generations should be free from harassment by politicians who don’t agree with the very values that have made these groups successful,” says Cortman. “The Constitution protects the freedom of youth organizations like the Boy Scouts to promote the values that have defined them as an organization and to ensure that their leaders and members adhere to those values.”

Alliance Defending Freedom has sent a letter to legislators outlining the significant legal and policy problems of the proposed bill. Thirty-nine California attorneys – from the more than 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom worldwide – also signed the letter.

Please be in prayer for these attorneys, as they work tirelessly to defend your family’s religious freedoms, and to block those who would silence the voice of people of faith in our nation today.

According to its 2011-2012 annual report, Planned Parenthood performed a record-high 333,964 abortions … or nearly one million babies killed over the last three years. Even worse, the international abortion provider is financing a substantial portion of its activities through your tax dollars. Engaging our opponents at every level of the courts, our attorneys are seeking out ever-more effective means to block, inhibit, and bring to an end the efforts of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to make their fortune off the killing of children in the womb.

Last year, we publicly released our report to Congress that identified nearly $100 million in waste, abuse, and potential fraud committed by Planned Parenthood affiliates and other providers. Led by Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee and Rep. Pete Olson of Texas, 72 Members of Congress continue to press for the investigation of how Planned Parenthood has spent more than 2.3 billion of your federal taxpayer dollars over the last few years.

Last week, our attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Americans for Tax Reform and the Susan B. Anthony List in defense of Indiana’s freedom to exclude abortionists like Planned Parenthood from state funding through its Medicaid plan.

“Americans should not be forced to pay for abortions with their hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden. “Indiana has sought to close the loophole that allows abortionists to obtain those taxpayer dollars. Any state has the freedom to make such determinations according to federal law. We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will ensure that every state retains the freedom to make this determination for its citizens.”

“Encouraged and aided by President Obama, Planned Parenthood has spent much of the last few years demanding taxpayers add millions more to its coffers, citing its so-called focus on women’s health,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Yet while government subsidies to Planned Parenthood have reached an all-time high, so too has the number of lives it has ended. Hoosiers – like other taxpayers across the country – are sick and tired of underwriting America’s largest abortion business.”

Taxpayers are just as frustrated in Washington state, where officials recently made public a federal lawsuit filed against Planned Parenthood by our attorneys in July 2011. We did so on behalf of Jonathan Bloedow, who – through state open records requests – discovered that Planned Parenthood has submitted “repeated false, fraudulent, and/or ineligible claims for reimbursement” to the state’s Department of Social and Health Services. (Our attorneys have filed two prior False Claims Act lawsuits against Planned Parenthood in Iowa and Texas.)

“Americans deserve to know, especially in economic times like these, if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it,” says Senior Counsel Michael J. Norton, a former U.S. Attorney. “Compliance with the law should not be sacrificed for the sake of Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. They have cheated the American taxpayer for too long. It’s time the abortion giant is held accountable.”

By God’s gracious mercies, and with the continuing gifts and prayerful support of friends like you, Alliance Defending Freedom is winning more and more battles for life – battles that are shaping the future of our laws and culture for your children and grandchildren. Please join me in praying for all of our attorneys as they work diligently to ensure our nation’s legal commitment to preserving life from conception.

Last month, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against the Montana Office of Public Instruction (OPI) and Columbus Public Schools on behalf of a youngster who is effectively being punished for attending a faith-based preschool.

Though she’s beset by speech and hearing difficulties, the four-year-old we represent has thrived in the learning environment of private, faith-based ABC-123 University in Columbus. She has also benefited from a federal program created by the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) that provides benefits to disabled children like herself – including tuition assistance at private schools.

Trouble is, the state of Montana recently adopted a policy prohibiting students from receiving that tuition aid if they attend a faith-based school. So the state-run Stillwater/Sweet Grass Special Services Cooperative – which initially agreed to pay for her schooling three days a week – has now revoked that financial assistance and will not provide it unless the family agrees to transfer her to a nonreligious preschool.

“Parents should be able to choose the school that best suits the educational needs of their children,” says Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “When the government provides funds to help disabled children at private schools, it cannot discriminate against religious ones.”

“The state cannot favor certain views over others and deprive disabled children of government benefits simply on that basis,” says Litigation Counsel Rory Gray. “The First Amendment forbids this type of hostility toward religion.” (Allied attorney Matthew Monforton, one of nearly 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, is serving as local counsel in the case.)

Happily, that’s something they understand very clearly over at the Indiana Supreme Court, which last week decided that a state program allowing school choice for parents and children does not violate the state constitution.

“Parents should be able to choose what’s best for their own children, and that’s exactly what the Choice Scholarship Program allows for,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Gregory S. Baylor. “The ultimate winners in the Indiana Supreme Court’s decision are Indiana families who want to provide the best education for their children, whether it is public or private.”

That’s a victory we would like to give every family in America – including yours. Please rejoice with me in the Indiana high court’s decision, and join me in praying that Montana’s judges, and others throughout America, will learn from their wise precedent.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are serving as co-counsel with ProtectMarriage.com, defending Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment passed by voters to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman in that state.  Last week, the ProtectMarriage.com legal team filed the last reply brief for the Court before oral arguments were heard on the case this week in Washington, D.C.

The brief concisely answered legal arguments against the amendment, explaining why the Court should affirm the marriage amendment’s constitutionality and refuse demands for a judicially imposed end to the robust, ongoing public debate about marriage.

“Advocates for redefining marriage should not be allowed to sidestep the democratic process to accomplish their political objectives,” says Senior Counsel Austin R. Nimocks. “The wisest course is for the court to resist demands to prematurely end the national debate over the future of marriage.”

In a closely-related case, the High Court will hear arguments this week in United States v. Windsor, which will decide the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

“The Supreme Court has made clear that defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is constitutional as a matter of public policy,” says Nimocks. “Thus, Congress and President Clinton acted constitutionally when DOMA was originally enacted. The wisest course is for the Supreme Court to resist demands to prematurely end the national debate over the future of marriage. The Court should respect the freedom of both Congress and citizens to affirm a bedrock social institution that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western Civilization.”

Whatever its ruling in these landmark cases, the debate over same-sex “marriage” is in many ways just beginning. But, as with other landmark decisions, the judgments of the Supreme Court on this issue have enormous implications for the kind of culture and legal environment your children and grandchildren will deal with in the years to come.

This is a critical moment for our country. Please join me in praying for the justices, for our attorneys, and for those who oppose marriage, that God’s grace and wisdom will be apparent, and that His enduring truth will prevail.

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It is our commitment at Alliance Defending Freedom to be ever vigilant for these encroachments on your freedom, and to offer the strongest possible legal defense, so that you and your children and grandchildren will be able to live out your faith gracefully, thoughtfully, openly in your community. Two recent cases show exactly the kind of intrusions we are battling nationwide.

In Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, officials at Barrett Elementary School blocked a fifth-grade girl from handing out invitations to her classmates for a Christmas party at her church. Attorneys for the Pocono Mountain school district attempted to argue that, in effect, because the girl was a minor, First Amendment protections of religious freedom do not apply.

But earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit unanimously affirmed a lower court’s order that found the district’s policies unconstitutional, particularly since it had allowed other young children to hand out similar invitations to secular activities. “The fact that [this student] was only in the fifth-grade and the invitation originated from her church does not mandate a different approach,” the court noted in its opinion.

“Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” says Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman, who argued before the court in October of last year. “Those ideas include a 5th-grader’s invitations to a religious event. The 3rd Circuit was correct in striking down the school district’s unconstitutional ban.”

In Gilbert, Arizona, our attorneys are hoping for a similar ruling against a similar discrepancy being inflicted on people of faith. According to local ordinances, political signs of up to 32 square feet can be displayed in public rights-of-way for many weeks, and ideological signs of up to 20 square feet, can be displayed in public rights-of-way indefinitely. A church event sign,  though, can only be 6 square feet, cannot be placed in public rights-of-way, and may not be displayed more than 12 hours before or one hour after a church service or event.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to weigh in on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Good News Community Church against the city, after a three-judge panel last month ruled 2-1 against the church.

“A city’s sign ordinances shouldn’t burden churches with restrictions that don’t apply equally to all similar signs,” says Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco, who argued the church’s case before a three-judge panel of the court last summer. “The government cannot require churches to abide by these stricter rules when it doesn’t place them on ideological, political, and other non-commercial signs that are comparable in nature. The Constitution prohibits that discrimination.”

You’ll note that both of these cases have gone to federal Courts of Appeal – the nation’s second-highest tribunals. Getting a case that far requires strenuous and expensive legal effort, from both ourselves and our opponents … an indication of how important these “small” cases are, and of how nation-shaping the final rulings can be. Please join us in rejoicing over the important win in Pennsylvania, and in praying for a similar victory in Arizona, and in other courts around the country where our staff and allied attorneys are faithfully fighting for our religious freedoms.