Alliance Defending Freedom

Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is a conservative exempt organization that advocates for the protection of religious liberty and traditional family values in public policy. The organization operates educational programs and advocacy arms across four continents with an international staff of 300 attorneys.

Alliance Defending Freedom defends and promotes the right of people to freely live out their faith. They advocate for religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family. The organization was founded in 1994 as the Alliance Defense Fund and originally focused on religious liberties in schools and public policy. It was renamed Alliance Defending Freedom in 2011.

ADF is a nonprofit organization that promotes the shield of religious liberty with an advocacy arm, Alliance Defending Freedom Global, located nationally and internationally, with offices across four continents. ADF’s main staff is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. It is the most litigious Christian legal advocacy group in the United States, with over 700 cases representing individuals and religious groups in 30 countries and 43 U.S. states. The organization’s stated mission is to keep the doors open for the spread of God’s Word.

Alliance Defending Freedom offers several educational programs, including Freedom Academy, which includes an annual week-long civil rights summer camp; attorneys’ training; public policy seminars; and advanced litigation training for attorneys. The organization also publishes Priority, a biweekly newsletter, and hosts an annual National Religious Liberties Conference.

The Alliance Defense Fund was co-founded by Alan Sears and co-founders in June 1994 to promote what it called issues of religious freedom, including school prayer, the display of religious symbols in public areas, a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, and equal time for creationism in school science classes.

ADF’s policy director has described the group’s strategy as a virtual march across the land of the United States. The organization also uses what it calls its Global War Room to defend cases worldwide.

According to The New York Times, ADF’s strategy is to change the law through churches and Christian nonprofit organizations, which they have mobilized into a political counterforce to the culture war machinery of the left, especially its legal wing, known as the American Civil Liberties Union. See related link to learn more.

Find more information about ADF on https://www.adfministryalliance.org/