Alliance Defending Freedom
Scottsdale, AZ
Revenue: $101,821,939
To learn more about the organizations behind Project 2025, read, “Behind the Mask: The Project 2025 organizations Reshaping America”.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is a radical legal advocacy organization known for promoting religious bigotry in the guise of religious liberty. It creates novel legal arguments to provide people and institutions of faith special rights in society. It believes that Christians are superior and therefore bequeathed with unique constitutional protections. ADF essentially works to create a legal apartheid, where right wing Christians live by their own set of separate rules.
ADF is a wealthy organization with more than $100 million in annual revenue. It is also influential, claiming to have won 15 Supreme Court victories with an 80% success rate. The organization has a vast network of almost 5,000 attorneys, many of whom are members of the Federalist Society and other right wing grooming organizations.
The group is notably anti-LGBTQ and promotes discrimination and conversion therapy, which has led the Southern Poverty Law Center to label it an official hate group. ADF is adamantly anti-choice on abortion, soft on democracy and calls the separation of church and state “a myth”.
ADF’s most famous alumnus is House Speaker Mike Johnson, who worked at the organization from 2002-2010, rising to the position of Senior Legal Counsel. Johnson’s work mostly involved stripping LGBTQ people of rights, although he worked on other issues beyond his gay obsession. His cases included:
He defended Louisiana’s 2004 Marriage Protection Amendment (which defined marriage as between a man and a woman) against legal challenges – a case in which he argued before the state courts to uphold the ban on same-sex marriage.
- Johnson also challenged local pro-LGBTQ+ policies; for example, in 2003 he filed suit (on ADF’s behalf) to overturn New Orleans’ domestic partner registry and its extension of health benefits to city employees’ same-sex partners, arguing that “a city can’t decide what marriage is”.
- Johnson was a key organizer of ADF’s public campaigns in schools – notably, he helped spearhead the “Day of Truth” initiative (launched in 2005) which encouraged students to express religious objections to homosexuality as a response to the LGBTQ-supportive Day of Silence.
- Notably, Johnson also collaborated with now defunct Exodus International (an evangelical ministry promoting “conversion therapy”) in joint efforts like the Day of Truth events.
A major 2023 investigative story by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski—partly spurred by a Truth Wins Out video of Johnson–discovered this disturbing partnership:
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson closely collaborated with a group in the mid-to-late 2000s that promoted “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that asserted it could change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals. The group shut down in 2013, with its founder posting a public apology for the “pain and hurt” his organization caused.
“I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson told one radio host in 2008 promoting the event. “What these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”
“This directly harmed LGBTQ youth,” Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out and an expert on the ex-gay industry, told CNN. “This is someone whose core was promoting anti-gay and ex-gay viewpoints. He wouldn’t pander to anti-gay advocates, he was the anti-gay and ex-gay advocate.”
In print, radio and on television, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, frequently disparaged homosexuality, according to KFile’s review. He advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and went so far as to partially blame it for the fall of the Roman Empire.
“Some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.
In print, radio and on television, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, frequently disparaged homosexuality, according to KFile’s review. He advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and went so far as to partially blame it for the fall of the Roman Empire.
“Some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.
When Johnson ascended to Speaker of the House, Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., wrote on X: “To members of the LGBTQ+ community who are feeling terrified or depressed tonight reading about some of the things that Speaker Mike Johnson has said in the past, please know you are not alone. We are with you and we will never stop fighting for you.”
While ADF may fancy itself successful, its victories are largely owed to the unethical project of right-wing lawmakers stuffing the courts with extremists, where arguments are secondary to political loyalty and affiliation. ADF is a key member of the Project 2025 Advisory Board.
In October 2022, Kristen Waggoner was named ADF’s CEO, President and General Counsel. A notable board member is Tom Minnery of the Family Policy Alliance and formerly an executive with Focus on the Family. ADF is headquartered in Arizona but has expanded to include offices in nearly a half-dozen European cities.
ADF Controversies and Quotes:
LGBTQ Rights:
- “Some clients who share their counselor’s faith may ask their counselor to work with them to help them conform their identity, sexuality, and sense of self to their religious beliefs. For example, Pamela has worked directly with clients who have asked her to help them reduce unwanted attraction to members of the same sex or to become more comfortable with their sex in accordance with their goals.” – ADF justifying (2025) its frivolous lawsuit challenging a pair of ordinances prohibiting conversion therapy for minors in Kansas City and Jackson County.
- “The ordinance prohibits any counseling of minors that seeks ‘to change sexual orientation or gender identity,’ even if a client has asked their counselor to help them reduce unwanted same-sex attraction or become more comfortable with their sex. – 2025 article, on ADF’s website, “Kansas City Counselors Forced to Choose Between Their Faith and Their Livelihood”.
- “The Supreme Court has stripped all Americans of our freedom to debate and decide marriage policy through the democratic process… The court took that freedom from the people.” – Jim Campbell, ADF Senior Counsel, reacting to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage (2015).
- “The Supreme Court…overrode the considered judgment of tens of millions of Americans” by redefining marriage, issuing “an act of will, not legal judgment.” – ADF attorney Jim Campbell (2015) critiquing the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, claiming the decision betrayed democratic principles by invalidating dozens of state votes on marriage. Campbell warned that “a profound loss of freedom…[and] lack of faith in democracy” occurs when courts impose social change.
- “Control of the educational system is central to those who want to advance the homosexual agenda. By its very nature, homosexual acts are incapable of bearing fruit… Thus, there is the need to desensitize and corrupt young minds…for recruitment among those that are at an emotionally vulnerable stage of development.” – Piero Tozzi, then ADF Senior Legal Counsel, speaking at the World Congress of Families in Madrid (2012), implying that LGBTQ advocates “recruit” children.
- “We mention the new promotion of pedophilia in the context of talking about the influence of homosexual behavior on college campuses, because, despite all objections to the contrary, the two are often intrinsically linked.” – Alan Sears (longtime ADF president) and Craig Osten in their book The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today (2003), explicitly linking homosexuality to pedophilia.
- “Men who self-identify as women are still biological men… being a woman is more than a physical appearance or a feeling—it is a biological reality…a feminized man will never truly experience what it is to be a woman.” – Marissa Mayer, ADF senior web writer, on the ADF website (2019), dismissing transgender women’s identities.
- “When given the same choice the Supreme Court of the United States had in Lawrence vs. Texas, the Indian Court did the right thing. India chose to protect society at large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates… America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage…these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society.” – Benjamin Bull, then executive director of ADF Global, praising India’s decision to recriminalize gay sex (2013)
- “If someone’s trapped in a homosexual lifestyle, it’s dangerous.” – Mike Johnson, promoting ADF’s Day of Truth campaign, San Francisco Chronicle, 2006
- “Homosexual behavior is something you do; it’s not something that you are. I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change.” – Mike Johsnon, Radio interview about the Day of Truth, 2008
- “There is clearly no ‘right to sodomy’ in the Constitution.” – Mike Johnson, 2003 column criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision that struck down sodomy laws.
- “Your race, creed and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do…we don’t give special protections for every person’s bizarre choices.”—Mike Johnson, 2005 editorial.
Context: ADF’s founders and lawyers have a long history of opposing LGBTQ rights. Alan Sears authored a book called The Homosexual Agenda and ADF representatives frequently speak about a “homosexual agenda” aiming to undermine society. The above quotes – from ADF books, briefs, and speeches – illustrate views such as accusing LGBTQ people of “recruiting” children, equating homosexuality with criminal behavior and pedophilia, and denying the legitimacy of transgender identities.
Additionally, ADF frequently couches anti-LGBTQ or anti-abortion positions as defenses of “religious freedom.” The organization advocates broad religious exemptions, even when they conflict with others’ civil rights. For example, ADF has argued that business owners should be free to deny services for same-sex weddings due to their faith.
Abortion:
- “We’re pleased Delaware officials won’t enforce their unconstitutional law against the pregnancy centers we represent as this case continues,” said Simms Showers Senior Associate William R. Thetford, lead counsel in this case
- “Pregnancy centers are a force for good in Wilmington and the surrounding community, offering families true, life-affirming care and resources during unplanned or unsupported pregnancies.” – ADF defending Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Such centers are right wing fronts because they are fraudulently set up to look like Planned Parenthood facilities. The goal is to bamboozle women into entering their premises, so they can use shame and religious coercion to browbeat these women into not having abortions.
- “By vetoing HB 2749, Gov. Kelly has failed to stand for life, mothers, and the unborn.” – ADF statement (Apr. 15, 2024) rebuking Kansas Governor Laura Kelly for vetoing an anti-abortion bill, characterizing the veto as a betrayal of both women and unborn children
- “We have a plan to make Roe irrelevant or completely reverse it.” – Kevin Theriot, Vice President of ADF’s Center for Life, addressing an Evangelicals for Life conference (Jan. 20, 2018), outlining ADF’s strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Theriot’s remarks came just before ADF helped draft a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi as a direct challenge to Roe.)
- “Once we get these first-trimester limitations in place, we’re going to go for a complete ban on abortion, except to save the lives of the mother.”– Denise Burke, ADF Senior Counsel, speaking at the Evangelicals for Life conference (2018), describing ADF’s “strategic” plan after a 15-week ban to eventually outlaw abortion entirely. (ADF attorneys openly discussed using incremental bans as an “opening salvo” to “eradicate Roe”.)
Context: ADF has been at the forefront of anti-abortion litigation and legislation. Years before the fall of Roe, ADF lawyers openly detailed plans to chip away at abortion rights through state laws and court cases. The quotes above show ADF’s celebratory approach to the Dobbs victory – making Roe “irrelevant” – and their intention to push further toward near-total abortion bans. They also reflect the charged language ADF uses against pro-choice officials, accusing them of “failing to stand for…the unborn.”
Church & State
- “[ADF] has spent decades fighting what it calls the ‘myth’ of the separation of church and state.” – Description of ADF’s mission from the group’s own website, as noted by media (2023). ADF’s founders explicitly reject the idea that the Constitution requires a strict separation between church and state.
- “Public schools…are a godless monstrosity, and, contrary to popular belief, are unnecessary for democracy to function.” – Michael Farris, ADF CEO (2017–2022), expressing his view on public education’s role in society (as reported from a 1993 campaign piece)
Democracy
ADF’s CEO coordinated efforts to overturn a U.S. election: After the 2020 presidential race, ADF chief Michael Farris played a “behind-the-scenes” role in the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to invalidate millions of votes in key swing states. Emails revealed Farris circulated drafts of the complaint and urged Republican state attorneys general to act. (This extraordinary attempt to nullify a democratic election – characterized by experts as “frivolous at best”)