Alan E. Sears

President, CEO and General Counsel

Alliance Defending Freedom

 (15100 N. 90th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260-2769)

 

September 2013

 

Dear Friend,

 

No organization is more determined to shake America from its Judeo-Christian moorings than the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Despite proclaiming itself the nation's "guardian of liberty," the ACLU has waged an often uncontested courtroom war against America's core values.

 

My name is Alan Sears. I am the president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom, a unique legal alliance. For 19 years, thanks be to God, we've been defending faith and religious freedom from the ACLU's remorseless legal challenges — and winning!

 

I'm writing today to ask for your support. It's urgent that we use this opportunity to strengthen our foundation of success (I'll tell you more about that later) — because the ACLU has never been stronger or more committed to its war on our core values. If we don't stand up to it now, we will lose our religious liberties forever.

 

Perhaps you've heard of Alliance Defending Freedom. We were launched in 1994 as the Alliance Defense Fund by 35 ministry leaders, including Dr. James Dobson, the late Dr. D. James Kennedy, the late Dr. Bill Bright, and the late Larry Burkett.

 

These respected Christian leaders were horrified at how the ACLU marauded through the courts in countless cases unopposed. They envisioned something that had never been tried before or since: a unique alliance-building legal ministry to defend our religious freedom, values, and way of life from the onslaught of the ACLU through the combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

 

Alliance Defending Freedom has, by God's grace, grown from the prayers of those godly leaders to become a major force in the legal battle for religious liberty, prevailing in hundreds of cases in state and federal courts, and playing various roles and assisting in . . .

 

40 victories at the Supreme Court of the

United States — the majority involving the ACLU or its allies.

 

And we've only begun! We cannot rest. The ACLU's thirst to purge America's public life of its Christian values is unquenchable. It has virtually unlimited resources at its disposal. This is why I ask you to send a contribution today to help Alliance Defending Freedom stop the ACLU and its dangerous agenda.

 

With nearly $400 million in assets and more than 2,000 volunteer and staff attorneys, the ACLU is radically committed to:

 

   Pushing Christian faith and biblical values to the margins of American society.

 

   Stripping parents of the rights to raise children according to their beliefs.

 

   Tearing down barriers that protect children from pornographers and pedophiles.

 

   Cheapening the value of human life — from conception to natural death.

 

   Forcing the homosexual legal agenda — including redefining marriage — on America and drastically limiting religious liberty.

 

An Urgent Wake-Up Call to the Nation and the Church

 

To this day, however, most of America remains unaware of the ACLU's relentless campaign of intense, anti-Christian litigation. With the mainstream media serving as its public relations department, it can cloak its bullying in the guise of "defending liberty."

 

If we're to stop the ACLU and preserve the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian values that have defined and guided America for more than 200 years, then we must understand our opponent's true, radical agenda — what it really wants — and its active role in much of our nation's decline.

 

The ACLU vs. Religious Freedom

 

The ACLU has fixed its sights on religious freedom. Under its leadership, its secular, leftist allies scored countless courtroom victories in its campaign against religious freedom — many without serious opposition.

 

Engel v. Vitale is one notorious ACLU victory. School District of Abington Township et al. v. Schempp et al is another.

 

Those cases outlawed public prayer and the devotional reading of Scripture in tax-funded schools in 1962 and 1963. The ACLU has since used those precedents as a sledgehammer — pounding graduation invocations, voluntary pregame prayers for sports teams, and even "moments of silence" out of America's public schools.

 

The ACLU — the number one religious censor in America — also threatens public officials, cities and towns, and even entire legislatures with lawsuits for having an official time of prayer.

 

In Louisiana, the ACLU demanded jail time for persons who prayed in a manner that it disapproved of. And even though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit threw out the lawsuit — the ACLU challenged the school board's invocation of divine guidance on different grounds and dragged it back into court again!

 

And in South Carolina and Virginia, the ACLU used the threat of a lawsuit against local government entities to silence prayer "in Jesus' name." The towns eventually caved in to the ACLU's demand.

 

Wherever religious liberty is under attack in America, you will find the ACLU — particularly in the clash between faith and the demands of the homosexual agenda.

 

But by God's grace, Alliance Defending Freedom has established a growing record of success in defending and reclaiming religious freedom and protecting the sanctity of life, and marriage and the family.

 

In fact, thanks be to God, Alliance Defending Freedom has won more than 3 out of every 4 cases, including cases against the ACLU and its allies, when we assisted in developing legal strategies, training attorneys, funding, or litigating to conclusion, including in these cases:

 

   In Good News Club v. Milford Central Schools, heard because of Alliance Defending Freedom-funded cases, the Supreme Court affirmed that Christian groups have the same right to meet on campus as any other group.

 

   In Van Orden v. Perry, the Supreme Court supported the constitutionality of some Ten Commandments monuments on public property.

 

   In ACSTO v. Winn, the Supreme Court handed down a huge victory for proponents of parental choice in education, dismissing an ACLU lawsuit against an Arizona program that allows state residents to claim a tax credit for donations to private organizations that provide scholarships to private schools. The Court ruled that the ACLU's clients — taxpayers who don't like the program — didn't have any legal standing to sue over someone else's private donations. Alliance Defending Freedom represented the only party to bring this argument to the Court. The decision creates a national precedent that will prevent similar legal attacks in the future.

 

In case after case, Alliance Defending Freedom has successfully turned back the ACLU's assaults. But the ACLU's commitment to using activist judges to shake America from its Judeo-Christian foundation has never been more dangerous — and it has never had more resources at its command.

 

The ACLU vs. Marriage

 

For decades, the ACLU and its collaborators have pushed our culture in a leftward, secular direction. They have harassed Christians. They have fought any limits to abortion. They have worked fiercely to redefine marriage. Today, the ACLU remains radically committed to:

 

   Pushing our Christian faith and biblical values to the margins of American society.

 

   Stripping parents like you and me of the rights to raise children according to our beliefs.

 

   Forcing the homosexual legal agenda — including redefining marriage — on America, with the result of drastically limiting our religious liberty.

 

The battle over marriage — which Alliance Defending Freedom is also fighting in numerous states ultimately is about religious freedom.

 

Any court that will force same-sex "marriage" on citizens who have voted against it also can rule that opposition to those unions — even disagreement that's based on biblical truth — is unlawful.

 

The ACLU wants far more than to redefine marriage; it wants to silence, even punish, dissent from its radical agenda.

 

The ACLU Has Met Its Match

 

Same-sex "marriage" is not inevitable, not that you'd know it from the stories reported by the mainstream media. Because they are sympathetic to the ACLU's causes, they don't want you to know that Alliance Defending Freedom and our allies have successfully defended marriage nationwide.

 

We've helped turn back the ACLU and its allies in cases from Georgia to Washington . . . in Oregon Louisiana . . . Maryland . . . Kentucky . . . Indiana . . . Alaska. . . Arizona . . . Hawaii . . . New Mexico . . . Nebraska. . . and Tennessee, more than 40 times in all.

 

However, the ACLU and its allies have had just three "wins" in state election battles fabricating same-sex "marriage" — Maine, Maryland, and Washington. So the battle rages — and in coming months we must prevail to save marriage in America.

 

Defeating the ACLU — A National Imperative

 

As the ACLU pursues its radical agenda to end the religious freedoms that our Founding Fathers secured for us, it will drag us back to court over and over again to:

 

   Marginalize the Constitution and statutes regarding biblical views on sexual behavior.

   Prevent Christians and ministries from publicly sharing the Gospel.

   Defend the distribution of child pornography and hard-core obscenity.

   Challenge laws that protect children from registered sex offenders.

   Use public schools to promote homosexual behavior. 

   Silence all discussion of alternatives to Darwinism.

 

Alliance Defending Freedom — A Blessing from God for

America — A Winning Record Against the ACLU

 

If you understand the grave threat that the ACLU poses to your freedoms, I hope you will send a generous tax-deductible gift today to support Alliance Defending Freedom. Your gift will help sustain our legal ministry that has defeated the ACLU time and again through its unique combination of efforts.

 

   Litigate cases that defend religious freedom and traditional values.

   Provide funds to help allied attorneys do the same.

   Train attorneys in the best strategies to defeat the ACLU and its allies. Through our one-of-a-kind Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Academy, we have graduated more than 1,600 attorneys from this exclusive training academy, contributing over $150 million in pro-bono/dedicated legal services to the Body of Christ.

   Strategize and coordinate through the alliance. Alliance Defending Freedom has helped coordinate the efforts of 300 ministries and organizations.

 

With God's grace and the prayers and support of concerned Americans, Alliance Defending Freedom and our allies are winning more and more battles. And we will continue to prevail, but it won't be easy — and it certainly won't be quick. But if Allied Ministry Friends commit to fighting this battle — by giving and by praying — then we will win.

 

Alliance Defending Freedom is totally dependent on the Lord to move the hearts of people to help our mission. As we continue to defend our shared values from the ACLU's remorseless attacks, I hope I will hear from you today.

 

Yours for religious freedom in America,

Alan E. Sears

President, CEO & General Counsel

Alliance Defending Freedom

 

P.S.    Alliance Defending Freedom is a cash-based ministry. We do not take on a legal battle unless we have adequate funding. If God's people give us adequate funding, which He always has ensured, then we move forward. If not, we don't.

 

P.P.S. The situation is urgent, but there's every reason to have hope. Every time the ACLU challenges religious freedom it provides us with another opportunity to stand for our most basic and inalienable human right. As you prayerfully consider becoming an Allied Ministry Friend, please remember that your generosity will enable Alliance Defending Freedom to build on our 19-year foundation of success in court. And please use your personalized labels to stand with us in defense of religious liberty.

 

Alliance Defending Freedom is always looking for potential precedent-setting cases and for attorneys who could help our cause. If you wish to refer an attorney or a potential case to us, please see the [requested] enclosed reply form. Please note that success in past cases does not guarantee success in future cases. Copyright ©2013, Alliance Defending Freedom. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this and other documents as noted in their entirety is granted to Alliance Defending Freedom Allied Ministry Friends. But please do us a favor — if you copy Alliance Defending Freedom, give credit and don't lift items out of context.

 

ADF, 15100 N. 90th Street Scottsdale, AZ 85260 • 800-835-5233 • AllianceDefendingFreedom.org