Who We Are
ADF is the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, parental rights, and God’s design for marriage and family.
We were launched in 1994 by leaders in the Christian community. While many of our clients are Christians, we’ve also defended the rights of Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and people of no faith. Religious freedom is for everyone. In our campus free speech work, we’ve represented students of varied religious faiths as well as libertarian, conservative, pro-life, pro-conservationist, and others. And outside the United States, ADF International has worked to stop genocide against Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, and other religious minorities.
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Religious Freedom
ADF is firmly committed to the principle that religious freedom must extend to individuals of all faiths and no faith.
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Religious freedom ensures that every person has the right to explore life’s deepest questions and to live out one’s religious convictions in the public square, just as in the home or a place of worship. It’s rooted in human dignity and the constitutional principle that government should have limited power over its citizens. These guarantees cannot depend on cultural popularity or political power. A free and tolerant society requires all of us to extend the same constitutional freedoms to others that we ourselves want. Sometimes that means listening to and tolerating viewpoints with which we vehemently disagree.
For many years, religious freedom cases in the United States focused mostly on protecting certain minority religious beliefs. Today, the government has begun legislating in areas that violate core tenets of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths. Consistent with all Abrahamic faiths, ADF believes that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Our faith also instructs us that God created man and woman as complementary equals and that sex is binary and biologically determined. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has recognized that this belief about marriage is held by reasonable people, based on decent and honorable religious and philosophical premises, and constitutionally protected. Sometimes we represent people who share these beliefs and simply want the freedom to participate in society without fear that the government will punish them for their views or their speech on these topics. Our clients’ decisions about whether to create expression or participate in sacred ceremonies always focus on what the message is, not who the person is requesting it.
One such case is Arlene’s Flowers, which involved Barronelle Stutzman, a floral artist who faithfully served a client for nearly a decade but was punished by the government when she politely declined to create custom floral arrangements for his same-sex wedding and referred him to three other florists nearby.
Sure, others may have different views and decide that they can in good conscience participate in that celebration. But that’s not what matters. The principle at stake in these cases is that we all have a line and that everyone should decide for themselves what messages to speak and what art to create. The government shouldn’t decide those things for us.
ADF’s recent 7-2 Supreme Court victory in Masterpiece Cakeshop helps secure this freedom. It protects the free-exercise right of all Americans to live and work according to their faith without fear of government hostility or discrimination. But because the free-exercise violation was so clear in Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Court left an important speech question unanswered. This December, ADF will be back at the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing 303 Creative v. Elenis, a case that should answer whether the government can force artists to promote messages that contradict their faith. ADF will ask the Court to affirm the right of all Americans to speak or stay silent consistent with their deepest beliefs without fear of government punishment.
Free Speech
We work to ensure that public colleges and universities remain marketplaces of ideas, where all students are free to express their views and debate important issues.
ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom has secured over 400 victories protecting students’ free-speech rights. For example, we represented Michelle Gregoire, who was working to form a Young Americans for Liberty club at Kellogg Community College. To promote their club, Michelle and a few friends handed out pocket-size copies of the U.S. Constitution on a campus outdoor walkway. But college administrators ordered them to stop. Michelle and her friends explained that the very Constitution they were distributing protects their right to free speech. Shockingly, the campus police then arrested Michelle and two others for “trespassing.” ADF stepped in to make sure that the college respects Michelle’s – and other students’ – constitutional rights.
Sanctity of Human Life
ADF also defends the sanctity of human life and works to ensure that laws and courts protect women and their children while safeguarding life from conception to natural death.
For example, we preserved the life of Gulf War veteran Jesse Ramirez, who was involved in a severe car accident. Jesse lay in a coma for 10 days before doctors in Arizona allowed his estranged wife to remove his feeding tube and turn off his water. ADF intervened on behalf of Jesse’s sister to restore food and water because everyone should have a chance to fight for their life. Soon after that, Jesse woke up, and about five months after the accident, he walked out of a rehabilitation center on his own two feet.
Parental Rights
ADF also works to guarantee the rights of parents to protect their children’s health and welfare, and direct their upbringing.
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For example, a Virginia school board has enacted policies—based on Critical Race Theory—that discriminate against students based on race and indoctrinate them in a radical race-based ideology. ADF has filed a lawsuit against the school board on behalf of a group of parents and their children to stop the district from violating the students’ civil rights and the rights of the parents.
International Work
ADF International is a highly respected organization that engages in legal advocacy alongside numerous partners all over the world.
Its focus is to defend Christians and other religious minorities against persecution and to advocate for free speech and religious freedom. ADF International is accredited by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the European Parliament and Commission and the Organization of American States (OAS). Additionally, we enjoy participatory status with the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and engage regularly with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). ADF International has played a leading role in 38 victories before the European Court of Human Rights.
Supreme Court Advocacy
ADF is also one of the nation’s most respected and successful United States Supreme Court advocates.
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ADF has played various roles in 77 Supreme Court victories. Since 2011, ADF has represented parties in 15 victories at the Supreme Court. These victories have been on behalf of pastors, churches, religious organizations, college students, family-owned businesses, pro-life pregnancy centers, and a town council. Some of these victories include:
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
(2022)
In a victory for life, the Supreme Court overturned its
Roe v. Wade and
Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions, rightly holding
that a so-called right to abortion has “no basis in the
Constitution’s text or in our nation’s history.” ADF was honored
to work alongside Mississippi in drafting the Gestational Age
Act and to serve on the Mississippi Attorney General’s legal
team defending the law before the Supreme Court. After
Dobbs, states can now affirm that life is a human right
and ensure that women and their unborn children have greater
access to the support and resources they need and deserve.
Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski
(2021)
In 2016, Georgia Gwinnett College officials stopped student
Chike Uzuegbunam not once, but twice, from peacefully sharing
his Christian faith with fellow students on his college campus.
After ADF challenged the school’s unconstitutional speech
policies, Georgia Gwinnett argued that Chike’s speech should
receive no constitutional protection, changed its policy, and
claimed it should be able to avoid any penalty for violating
Chike’s free speech rights. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed,
ruling that government officials should be held accountable to
victims like Chike when they violate a person’s
constitutional rights.
National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA)
v. Becerra
(2018)
California passed a law that forced pro-life pregnancy centers
to provide their clients with information about how they can
obtain free or low-cost abortions. The Court reversed the Ninth
Circuit’s decision refusing to stop enforcement of the law and
affirmed that the government cannot force Americans to express
messages that violate their deepest convictions.
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights
Commission
(2018)
Colorado punished cake artist Jack Phillips – who serves
everyone but cannot create cakes celebrating all messages or
events – when he declined to sketch, sculpt, and paint a custom
cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. The Court overturned the
state’s order forcing Jack to create art that violated his
conscience and found that Colorado had been “neither tolerant
nor respectful of his religious beliefs.”
Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017)
Missouri barred churches from participating in a child-safety
program that reimbursed applicants for the cost of installing
rubberized playground surfaces. The Court ruled that the
church’s exclusion from the program was “odious to our
Constitution … and cannot stand,” setting a strong precedent
against the government barring religious institutions from
public-benefit programs.
Reed v. Town of Gilbert
(2015)
An Arizona town imposed strict limits on Pastor Clyde Reed’s
signs inviting people to his church’s services, restrictions
that it did not impose on other speakers. Every Justice ruled in
favor of Pastor Reed. The Court found that the government cannot
subject religious speech to greater restrictions than other
speech.
In sum, ADF advocates for every person’s fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, and conscience—even those whose views differ from ours. Having the freedom to disagree and to debate our differences is what makes us American. As former President Barack Obama once said:
“[T]he practice of listening to opposing views is essential for effective citizenship. It is essential for our democracy.”
And that’s what we fight for each and every day at ADF – a society defined by the free exchange of ideas and respect and tolerance for those with differing views.