The Freedom From Religion Foundation is warning that Alliance Defending Freedom and its political arm, ADF Action, are openly escalating a nationwide legislative strategy to reshape state and federal law and impose a narrow religious ideology on public policy.

The alliance this week announced a sweeping legislative agenda to advance so-called “God-given freedoms” through coordinated lawmaking, litigation and testimony before legislatures across the country. The Christian nationalist group bragged that over the past three decades it has helped enact hundreds of bills, many of which have survived court challenges and reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Its total assets as of last year approach nearly $123 million.

“Defending freedom? Ha!” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Alliance Defending Freedom is a dyed-in-the-wool extremist Christian nationalist outfit whose stated mission to ‘keep the doors open for the Gospel’ is counter to U.S. pluralism and our secular Constitution.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom proudly highlights its role in opposing civil rights and individual liberties in major Supreme Court cases, including Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, and United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The group also points to pending cases involving bans on transgender students’ participation in school sports, which FFRF also weighed in on.

According to the alliance’s own materials, its legislative priorities include expanding religious exemptions, defunding abortion providers, restricting LGBTQ+ rights, promoting private religious education through public funding and inserting religious beliefs into public school policies under the banner of “parental rights.”

FFRF cautions that the Alliance Defending Freedom’s well-funded agenda is part of a campaign to usher in Christian nationalist and dominionist control of our secular government, and must be vigorously countered. The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its legislative arm, FFRF Action Fund, will continue opposing Alliance Defending Freedom-backed legislation at the state and federal levels and educating the public about the constitutional dangers posed by coordinated religious lobbying efforts masquerading as civil rights advocacy.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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