#The Alliance Defending Freedom

[odinsblog]

This is definitely a trend for the hateful, christofascist, religious reich. Hobby Lobby did the same thing at previous Super Bowls.

It’s right wing, Islamophobic, homophobic, anti-abortion Christian nationalism, masquerading as “caring” religion.

The Servant Foundation: the power behind the ads

The $20 million "He Gets Us" campaign about Jesus - is funded by an influential donor to some of the most active and litigious Shadow Network groups working to undermine church-state separation.

The Servant Foundation

The Servant Foundation, also known as The Signatry, is behind the “He Gets Us” ad campaign that debuted during the 2023 Super Bowl. Over the next three years, the Servant Foundation plans to spend “about a billion dollars” toward this public relations campaign. They’ve hired a PR firm to address, in the firm’s words, the problem of “How did the world’s greatest love story in Jesus become known as a hate group?”

Of course, they’re the cause of their own problem – not only has the Servant Foundation funded hate groups, but the PR firm, Haven, has represented these organizations. Key Shadow Network members Focus on the Family and Alliance Defending Freedom are in their portfolio. ADF is a noted anti-LGBTQ hate group that has argued repeatedly in courts that religion, and specifically Christianity, is a license to discriminate; they have one such case pending before the Supreme Court right now.

The money trail

The Servant Foundation is one of ADF’s biggest financial backers. A recent exposé reports that, “between 2018-20, the Servant Foundation donated more than $50 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom and that those contributions “were among the five largest donations given out by the foundation in each of those three years.”

Other recipients of the Servant Foundation’s billion dollars in assets include:

Nearly $8 million went to Answers in Genesis, creationist Ken Ham’s fundamentalist ministry behind the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, an organization that has been championed by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a former ADF attorney.

Over $1 million was designated for the anti-LGBTQ Campus Crusade for Christ (rebranded as “Cru” since 2011).

$374,800 went to Al Hayat Ministries, an organization that seeks to “respectfully yet fearlessly unveil the deception of Islam,” and runs an Arabic-language Christian satellite TV station with the goal of converting Muslims to Christianity.

In 2020 alone, we found donations to prominent Shadow Network members American Center for Law and Justice, First Liberty Institute, and Liberty Counsel.

(continue reading)

[rapeculturerealities]

How one Christian legal group is shaping policy, from abortion to LGBTQ rights : NPR

The Alliance Defending Freedom has won 15 Supreme Court cases, including overturning Roe v. Wade. New Yorker writer David Kirkpatrick explains the group's influence and their next targets

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sarah Posner for TPM:

I am a journalist who has covered the Christian right for two decades. Over the past three years, I began to more frequently use the term “Christian nationalism” to describe the movement I cover. But I did not start using a new term to suggest its proponents’ ideology had changed. Instead, the term had come into more common usage in the Trump era, now regularly used by academics, journalists, and pro-democracy activists to describe a movement that insists America is a “Christian nation” — that is, an illiberal, nominally democratic theocracy, rather than a pluralistic secular democracy. To me, the phrase was highly descriptive of the movement I’ve dedicated my career to covering, and neatly encapsulates the core threat the Christian right poses to freedom and equality. From its top leaders and influencers down to the grassroots — politically mobilized white evangelicals, the foot soldiers of the Christian right — its proponents believe that God divinely ordained America to be a Christian nation; that this Christian nation has come under attack by liberals and secularists; and that patriotic Christians must engage in spiritual warfare to rid America of demonic forces, and in political action to restore its Christian heritage. That includes taking political steps — as a voter, as an elected official, as a lawyer, as a judge — to ensure that America is governed according to a “biblical worldview.”

If you want to see that definition in action, look no further than the career of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Seventeen years ago, when I interviewed Johnson, then a lawyer with the Christian right legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, I would have labeled him a loyal soldier in the Christian right’s legal army trying to bring down the separation of church and state. He is a product of and a participant in a sprawling religious and political infrastructure that has made the movement’s successes possible, from politically active megachurches, to culture-shaping organizations like Focus on the Family, to political players like the Family Research Council, to the legal force in his former employer ADF. 

In today’s parlance, Johnson is a Christian nationalist — although he, like most of his compatriots, has certainly not embraced the label. But Mike Johnson the House Speaker is still Mike Johnson the lawyer I interviewed all those years ago: an evangelical called to politics to be a “servant leader” to a Christian nation, dedicated to its governance according to a biblical worldview: against church-state separation, for expanded rights for conservative Christians, adamantly against abortion and LGBTQ rights, and especially, currently, trans rights. That mindset is still the beating heart of the Christian right, even as the movement, and other movements in the far-right space, have radicalized in the Trump era, taking on new forms and embracing a range of solutions to the apocalyptic trajectory they see America to be on. Different movements imagining a version of Christian supremacy exist side by side — different strains that often borrow ideas from one another, and that fit comfortably under the banner of Christian nationalism.  

The term “Christian nationalism” became popularized during Trump’s presidency for a few reasons. First, Trump, who first ran in 2016 on a nativist platform with the nationalist slogan “Make America Great Again,” was and still is dependent on white evangelicals to win elections and maintain a hold on power. He is consequently willing to carry out their goals, bringing their ambitions closer to fruition than they’ve ever been in their 45-year marriage to the Republican Party. They have been clear, for example, in crediting him for the downfall of Roe v. Wade, among other assaults on other peoples’ rights.

Second, the prominence of Christian iconography at the January 6 insurrection, and the support for Trump’s stolen election lie before, during, and after January 6 by both Christian right influencers and the grassroots, brought into stark relief that Christian nationalist motivations helped fuel his attempted coup.   Finally, sociologists studying the belief systems of Christian nationalists pushed the term into public usage, as did anti-nationalist Christians, especially after January 6, in order to elevate awareness of the threats Christian nationalism poses to democracy. (The paperback edition of my book, Unholy, which was published in mid-2021 and included a post-January 6 afterword, reflected the increasing usage of the term Christian nationalists by including the term in a fresh subtitle.)

The Trump era, along with the rise of openly Christian nationalist social media sites like Gab, and Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, have given space for otherwise unknown figures, like the rabidly antisemitic Gab founder Andrew Torba, co-author of the book Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide For Taking Dominion And Discipling Nations, and Stephen Wolfe, author of the racist book The Case for Christian Nationalism, to enter the Christian nationalism discourse. Although Torba and Wolfe have made waves online, and extremism watchers are rightly alarmed that their tracts could prove influential and radicalizing, they remain distinct from the Christian right. 

[...]

The conventional Christian right does not want a parallel society or a divorce. They believe they are restoring, and will run, the Christian nation God intended America to be — from the inside. They will do that, in their view, through faith (evangelizing others and bringing them to salvation through Jesus Christ); through spiritual warfare (using prayer to battle satanic enemies of Christian America); and through politics and the law (governing and lawmaking from a “biblical worldview” after eviscerating church-state separation). Changes in the evangelical world, particularly the emphasis in the growing charismatic movement on prophecy, signs and wonders, spiritual warfare, the prosperity gospel, and Trumpism, has intensified the prominence of the supernatural in their politics, giving their Christian nationalism its own unmistakable brand.

For decades, Christian right has been completely open about their beliefs and goals. Their quest to take dominion over American institutions by openly evangelizing and instituting Christian supremacist policies sets the Christian right apart from other types of Christian nationalists who might operate in secret, or imagine utopian communities as the ideal way to save themselves from a secular, debauched nation.  The fact that far-right extremists like Torba or Wolfe embrace the Christian nationalist label gives the more conventional Christian right leaders and organizations space to disassociate themselves from it. Some also berate journalists who use it to describe them, accusing them of hurling a left-wing slur at Christians. 

The bottom line is that Christian nationalism takes on different forms, and despite organizational or even ideological differences, ideas can penetrate the often porous borders between different camps. Someone who receives the daily email blast from the Family Research Council might also be drawn to Wolfe’s book, for example. On a more unnerving, macro level, major right-wing and GOP figures, including Marjorie Taylor Greene and the CEO of the Daily Wire, the podcast consortium run by conservative influencer Ben Shapiro, have embraced the rabidly antisemitic, Hitler-admiring antagonist Nick Fuentes, who is Catholic but also is accurately described as a Christian nationalist. The increasingly influential Catholic integralist movement, which seeks a Catholic-inflected replacement for the “liberal order,” is yet another unique form of Christian nationalism.

Sarah Posner wrote for TPM about the variants of Christian Nationalism within the larger Christian Right movement.

[awesomecooperlove]

WE MUST DEFEND OUR FREEDOM

🌟🌟🌟

[zinniajones]

These "expert" pediatricians were paid by a far-right legal group to come up with evidence to attack the WPATH transgender standards of care

What this is: Leaked documents show the anti-LGBT legal group Alliance Defending Freedom paying manufactured experts to attack WPATH’s transgender standards of care, asking them to find evidence for harmful anti-trans myths that they knew were baseless and unsubstantiated. This is an original finding and report by Zinnia Jones (she/her), a transgender Florida resident of 11 years whose access to HRT is now jeopardized by the enactment of state law and policy based on work from these same experts.

Detailed summary: From 2019 onward, states across the US have been faced with an intensely active wave of reused anti-trans experts, recurring characters who keep repeating the same spurious arguments against gender-affirming care in court cases, legislatures, and other policy bodies. Where did they come from, and why did this start happening?

Due to the Florida-based anti-LGBT hate group American College of Pediatricians choosing to set one of their Google Drive folders to be publicly viewable by anyone, files were released this month showing the contents of their staff’s communications and other working notes over several years.

These documents included records of the Alliance Defending Freedom - another hate group who are also responsible for bringing the mifepristone case with ACP as a plaintiff - approaching ACP's leaders in 2018 and 2019 to offer them a grant of $10,000 or more. The ADF wanted the pediatricians “to draft a white paper that refutes the WPATH Standards of Care”, “for use in litigation and should also benefit many other allies at State and Federal Level”.

ACP’s president Quentin Van Meter and executive director Michelle Cretella promptly got to work on this “Special Project”, and the ADF hosted expert witness workshops at ACP's conferences. ACP members including Van Meter went on to present anti-trans testimony in several ADF-litigated cases and ADF-involved trans youth care bans.

In May 2022, Van Meter authored a sham report for Florida Medicaid to justify their trans coverage exclusion, mostly drawing from previous ACP position statements; court filings later revealed Michelle Cretella was recommended by the Florida governor’s office, and she pointed the way to all the other anti-trans experts hired by Florida in 2022 to support the Medicaid exclusion of transition care.

One notable document found in the ACP’s drive contains “Transgender Research Requests”, with the ADF asking Cretella and other ACP leaders to “substantiate” now-commonplace anti-trans talking points. These included bizarre claims by the ADF such as “it is normal during adolescence for children to go through a phase when they identify (to some degree) with the opposite sex”, and “For those who have undergone hormone therapy and genital change surgery, a paper that says they are no happier (and perhaps worse off if the research supports it)”.

The ADF was asking this anti-trans group to come up with anything that could support the arguments they were already planning to make.

This appears to be one of the very sites where those baseless myths about suicide, social contagion and other supposed harms, now regularly repeated in court cases and testimony and uncritically accepted by the mainstream right wing, were conceived and gestated.

These same experts then substantially reused these work products in their reports for Florida Medicaid, a public health agency whose accepted standards determination process is supposed to be a transparent and open-ended evaluation of peer-reviewed medical evidence.

Altogether, these documents appear to demonstrate a paid smear by a hate group and right-wing law firm against a leading professional transgender healthcare organization following the best available evidence and medical practices, as well as misconduct on the part of ACP experts who reused this work in their reports for a Florida public health agency.

(asks are open)

[coochiequeens]

Olympics gender row explodes as more than 42,000 people sign petition urging chiefs to 'STOP forcing women to compete against men' - after eligibility row involving Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting

The petition was hand-delivered to the IOC's offices in Lausanne, Switzerland

It was launched by a US-based conservative, Christian legal advocacy group

By MIKE KEEGAN 4 December 2024

More than 42,000 have signed a petition to the International Olympic Committee - urging them to ‘stop forcing women to compete against men’ at future Games.

The document, hand-delivered to IOC headquarters in Switzerland, accuses the body of adopting policies that allow males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports’.

It comes after two boxers, who had been disqualified from previous international tournaments for failing gender eligibility tests, won gold in Paris.

Amid a global storm, Imane Khelif, of Algeria, and Lin Yu-ting, of Taiwan, were both supported by President Thomas Bach, with Olympic eligibility criteria based simply on the sex listed in a participant’s passport rather than through any testing system.

The petition has been launched by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a US-based conservative, Christian legal advocacy group.

It reads: ‘Men and women are different. Their physical differences give men athletic advantages in sports. Scientific research continues to acknowledge this reality.

However, governments and organizational bodies like the IOC have adopted policies that allow males who identify as female to compete in women’s sports. These policies prioritize feelings over fairness—ideology over truth.

‘As an organization governing athletics, the IOC must be held accountable for the many harms caused by allowing men to compete in women’s sports at the highest stage in the world, from lost medals and victories to privacy and safety violations.

‘Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is standing with women and girls across the United States to protect women’s sports, private spaces, and basic fairness.

‘Therefore, I am raising my voice and asking the IOC to protect women’s athletic opportunities by ensuring that women are not forced to compete against men in future Olympics.

‘The IOC’s voice matters. Others look to your leadership. Not only are the women competing in this year’s Olympics impacted—but every little girl dreaming of winning the gold is as well.’

Olympian swimmer and commentator Sharron Davies was among the many to criticise the IOC during the Paris furore.

Davies, who lost out on gold thanks to an East German testosterone user, said: ‘Let’s hope common sense and prioritising fairness and safety for female athletes will return soon. The wilful negligence of the boxing during the Paris 2024 Olympics was a particular low point and a total disgrace.’

Mail Sport has contacted the IOC for comment.

[selfmaderibcageman]

Who do children most fundamentally belong to? Themselves.

[welcometomypov]

If abortion pill reversal is not ALLOWED then it's not a CHOICE.

It's a coercion by the state that you can't walk away from. It's a trap that some women may forever regret. If we CAN reverse it, there's no reason why it should be BANNED from a woman's use.

[jk-scrolling]

JK Rowling's New Friends viewer transcript

Again, feel free to fix any mistakes I made or repost this wherever you like. This is from last year, but I think it's still valuable for anyone who's still in doubt that JK Rowling's deeply anti-trans (not merely pro-woman, as she's portrayed herself.) Original video by Shaun here: https://youtu.be/Ou_xvXJJk7k

Hello, everyone. Today I'd like to talk about something that's been bothering me for a while. It's a particular contradiction - one that comes up over and over whenever trans people or trans issues are mentioned either online or in the press by people who self-describe as gender critical, and I think I should start today by showing you an example of that contradiction. "

So in June of 2020, author JK Rowling published a statement on her website titled “J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues” and in that statement, Rowling explains why she decided to throw her weight behind the gender critical crowd. There's been a lot written and spoken about this statement, but I want to focus on one particular part of it right now and that is JK Rowling's description of Magdalen Berns. Magdalen Berns was a British YouTuber who Rowling describes as “an immensely brave young feminist” who was “a great believer in the importance of biological sex, and didn't believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises.” And because of this, she says, when Rowling followed Berns on Twitter, she was subjected to abuse from trans activists.

Rowling also talked several times about her concerns in her piece. She doesn't want to be quote “slurred as a bigot” for “having concerns about single sex spaces,” for instance, and she ends her piece with a request for empathy for the women whose quote “sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats and abuse.”

So this is the framing: Magdalen Berns and women like her simply believe in the importance of biological sex. They just want their concerns to be heard, and they don't want to be called bigots because of that. And just because of those things, they and their supporters are bombarded with unwarranted social media abuse.

Now, even if we're trying to be as fair and objective as we can be here, it has to be said that this framing looks rather one-sided, right? All the aggression and abuse is coming from just the one side, in Rowling's view: “We are all meek angels with just a few concerns, but we're getting shouted down by completely unreasonable social media abusers, you know." So let's examine this framing: Is how JK Rowling described Magdalen Berns accurate? What was she actually like?

Well, I imagine many of you will be familiar with her now-infamous blackface tweet where she calls trans women quotes “blackface actors who are motivated by sick sexual perversions.” You see, Magdalen Berns was not passively voicing concerns. She wasn't simply stating her opinion that biological sex is important. She spent her time attacking transgender identities, which she repeatedly declared were invalid in her YouTube videos. She consistently made a point of misgendering any trans person she mentioned, and she was also more than willing to attempt to ally herself and her cause with figures on the far right. She could be seen on Twitter sharing Breitbart News stories about their neo-Nazi poster boy, Milo Yiannopoulos, praising him and asking for him to share her YouTube videos. She even defended Yiannopoulos after he was widely criticized as a result of condoning - in a podcast - child molestation.

As a side note here, Berns has also called what she considers trans activism to be a quote “child safety issue,” which is utterly ludicrous when considered in contrast to her defense of a white nationalist who said child sexual abuse could be a quote “hugely positive experience.” That is what he said.

Berns could also be seen giving a platform to the controversial figure Posie Parker, who we'll talk more about in a moment. She also had a habit of focusing on George Soros as the person who she claimed was funding the EU transgender lobby, which is a little suspect - especially considered in light of her willingness to pal around with racists. (Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theories)

So what's my point here? Well, there's a huge contradiction between the Magdalen Berns described by JK Rowling and the Magdalen Berns who actually existed. I myself interacted with Magdalen several times on Twitter, and this is just my subjective view but she was consistently aggressive and unreasonable, and someone who I thought was motivated not by some concern she had about single sex spaces, or a desire to protect her rights, but by her hatred and disgust of trans people. You can't call people pathetic sick fuck pervert blackface actors, and then say “oh sorry, I just believe in the importance of biological sex. I just have a few concerns.”

So where does this leave us with regards to JK Rowling and how she chose to portray Berns? Well, it would be premature to come to any conclusions right now. I think, after all, Magdalen Berns is only one person. So if we want to build a proper argument here, we need some more evidence, I think.

So let's pick back up with Posie Parker. So Parker, also known as Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull, is someone who thinks that quote “women who call themselves men should be sterilized.” So that's the sort of person she is. Parker is a controversial figure, even within the gender critical movement, and something that happened very recently serves as a good example of why that is. On Sunday, September 18th of this year, (note: 2022) Parker organized an event called Let Women Speak, which took place in Brighton. It featured gender critical speakers talking about what they see as the dangers of what they call “trans ideology,” and it also attracted a crowd of counter-protesters who turned up to protest the event.

But the event also attracted some other people, and these were far-right nationalists such as the Tommy Robinson linked Hearts of Oak group, who streamed the event live on the internet. Posie Parker has defended including these groups as part of her events. She sees the issue of stopping so-called trans ideology as so important that she's willing to welcome in anyone who agrees with her on that particular issue, even if they also happen to be racist, homophobic, misogynist, or outright fascist.

Parker is friendly with white supremacist YouTubers. She has appeared on Tucker Carlson, and she herself has a history of making racist statements - that again, is controversial even within the gender critical movement. Some gender critical people refuse to associate with her, and the group Women's Place UK put out a statement explaining why they were cutting all links with Parker, saying quote “women's liberation cannot be won by aligning with reactionary or oppressive groups or individuals who would deny women our rights and increase division and injustice.”

Another person upset about the far-right infiltration of the gender critical movement is Angela Wild, a member of the group Get the L Out, who viewers of my other videos will definitely remember. This is her alongside Rowling at a much-publicized lunch, in a photograph featuring many of the other prominent figures of the UK's anti-trans movement. Wild recently stated on Twitter: “I’m horrified. we seem to have handed over our movement to people who go around preaching racists(sic) and misogynistic hatred. There was a time it was shameful to be a racist. Nowadays we can't even name racism anymore, letalone denounce racist infiltration. It's one thing about being called far-right by the TRAs” - that's what she calls trans rights activists - “& laugh it off BC frankly, I’d rather cut both my legs" - off, I guess? - "than to accept Heritage Foundation money, an alliance with Matt Walsh, or proclaim proudly that 'on the issues, Trump is my man.' But when the far right speaks at GC events unchallenged, we have no leg to stand on to tell them 'that's not true' Because hey, it IS true. Well, #notinmyname.”

On the other hand, there are many prominent people within the anti-trans movement who were supporting Parker even despite her history of racism and her openness to working with the far right. Returning to this image, we can see both Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce standing on either side of Rowling, there. They both attended Posie Parker's event. This is them traveling to the event. This is Helen Joyce at the event holding a cut-up Pride flag - she's not gay herself, by the way - and this is both Helen and Maya speaking at the event in clips uploaded by Hearts os Oak to their Twitter account HeartsofOakUK.

So this event exposed something of a schism in the anti-trans movement. Some of them are happy to work with people like Posie Parker and the far-right groups that she welcomes to her events, and some of them are not, and there was much discussion on the issue in the wake of this event. JK Rowling chose to weigh in by using her platform to condemn the protesters at the event - not the far-right presence inside the event, but the people who were there to protest the event. Rowling's language is also offensive and absurd and incorrect: The protesters were “howling at lesbians for not doing dick,” apparently. She also explains in the replies to her tweet that quote “woman(sic) unafraid and unashamed of saying that they love only women are the greatest affront to patriarchy. “

But JK Rowling seems to be a bit confused here, to be charitable. This was not a lesbian event. The organizer, Posie Parker, is married to a man. Speaker Maya Forstater is married to a man. Speaker Helen Joyce is married to a man. By their own definition of lesbian, they are certainly not lesbians, and I doubt the men from the far right groups present at the events identify as lesbians, to make a minor assumption, there.

There were some lesbians at the event, I’m sure, but there were also a bunch of straight conservative homophobes. Posie Parker herself has argued that the quote “LGBTQ community is attempting to indoctrinate and groom children" in a video titled “Thank you Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

Something else that needs to be mentioned here is Parker's association with an American group called Hands Across the Aisle, an organization that claims to want to unite radical feminists with conservative Christians in order to oppose what they call “gender identity ideology.” Hands Across the Aisle was founded by Kaeley Triller and Emily Zinos, both of whom oppose gay rights and campaigned to outlaw abortion. Zinos attends anti-abortion rallies, as seen here, and Triller writes anti-abortion articles like this one titled “Women Won't Be Liberated Until We're Free From Abortion” posted on the website The Federalist. (Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(website))

Hands Across the Aisle claims Posie Parker as a member. Here she is meeting founder Emily Zinos, and the group of posted fundraising campaigns in support of Parker on both their Facebook page and their website. So Parker is associated with and has taken money from conservative anti-abortion campaigners in the US, and this is something I want to highlight in particular here, because of course, the argument that the anti-trans crowd always uses to defend their position is that they're acting in defense of women's rights: They aren't attacking trans people, they're simply defending the rights that feminism has won for women, they say. But what does it mean for that claim when the person making it is working with and is funded by conservative anti-abortion groups?

On a similar note, one of the speakers at the event I showed there was Maya Forstater. Here's another picture of her getting all chummy with Rowling, there. And she says “JK Rowling has been such a source of strength to me and to so many women standing up for women's rights.“ So that's what Forstater is doing in her own words; standing up for women's rights. I mentioned this because Forstater is due to speak at another event very soon, that being “Lawfare: the use and abuse of law to fight for freedom.” That's an event being put on as part of the Battle of Ideas Festival by the group ADF UK.

So who are ADF UK? Well, they're the UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom and, to quote the Southern Poverty Law Center: “Founded by some 30 leaders of the Christian Right, the Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal advocacy and training group that has supported the recriminalization of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ adults in the U.S. and criminalization abroad; has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people abroad; has contended that LGBTQ people are more likely to engage in pedophilia; and claims that a "homosexual agenda" will destroy Christianity and society.”

The ADF also campaigns to outlaw abortion: Their website proclaims the overturning of Roe versus Wade as a victory, and is generally just covered in anti-abortion rubbish. The first president of the ADF was a man called Alan Sears who wrote a book called "The Homosexual Agenda: The Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today." The second President of the ADF was attorney and Baptist Minister Michael Farris, who in 2003 wrote a legal brief arguing against the Supreme Court overturning sodomy laws in the Lawrence v. Texas decision. So what is Maya Forstater doing speaking at an ADF event? She claims to be standing up for women's rights but she's working with people who campaign to take those rights away. They want to take away a woman's right to have an abortion, f she's a lesbian they want to take away her right to get married to anyone except a man, and if she had sex with another woman, they want to send her to prison.

Anyway, what about the other speaker at Posie Parker's event, Helen Joyce? Is she merely standing up for women's rights? Well, another person at the event was another Helen - Helen Staniland. Now Staniland hosts an online show called Wine with Women - that's "Wine" spelled without an H, there - and a few months ago, she had Helen Joyce on as a guest. Now this interview caused quite a bit of alarm, and rightly so. In it, Joyce openly talks about wanting to reduce the number of trans people: All trans people, even if they are happily transitioned, she says, are a problem for the world because they need what she calls "special accommodations. Every trans person is a difficulty, she says. I watched this whole interview and it was utterly horrible and very revealing. The clarification that she wants to reduce the number of people who transition even if they are happily transitioned is especially awful, and the talk about trans people being quote "difficulties who are problems for the world because they need special accommodations" just sounds like fascist eugenics rhetoric.

The first thing that came to mind for me listening to this interview were those Nazi party propaganda films about disabled people that I watched as part of making my video on The Bell Curve: They too talked about groups of people as costly problems burdening the rest of society. This interview again put lie to the claim that Joyce and her allies just have some concerns or just want to protect women's rights. This is her on the offensive talking about keeping down the number of trans people like there's some invasive pest or something.

Moving on, let's talk about Allison Bailey, who's standing between Joyce and Forstater in the picture there. Bailey is someone who has also defended joining forces with bigots, and I quote "to be clear: every woman & girl must know that their sex-based rights will disappear if they do not pay attention & join this struggle. This is so regardless of their skin color, age, economic status, politics, education etc. Whether they are non-racist, racist, homosexual, or homophobic." "This is a danger & a struggle the likes of which none of us has ever known. Adhering to any given political or philosophical belief system is not the immediate priority. If I am being attacked & someone is willing to come to my rescue, I'm not going to ask about their politics before welcoming their help." Don't worry, though. She doesn't personally condone bigotry, as she actually abhors it, she says, but just not enough to not welcome the help of racists and homophobes in her movement.

Allison Bailey is one of the founders of the anti-trans group LGB Alliance. Now another founder of LGB Alliance is Bev Jackson who has defended working with the US-based right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. I've mentioned the Heritage Foundation before in another video of mine, because they were anti-sex education. The Heritage Foundation are the worst; they're climate change deniers, they oppose gay marriage, they work to scale back voting rights, they campaigned to overturn Roe versus Wade. But Bev Jackson is open to working with them.

And speaking of the Heritage Foundation, let's give a mention to Julie Bindel, the person on the lower right of the picture, there. Julie Bindel is a journalist who frequently works with Heritage Foundation speaker Jennifer Lahl. There's Lahl talking on a Heritage Foundation panel, there. Here she is on another panel. Here she is doing a talk with Julie Bindel. Another talk with Julie Bindel. Here's a picture of them just hanging out. So it's safe to say that Julie Bindel is pretty obviously open to working with Heritage Foundation speakers, so that's a plus one to open to working with anti-abortion groups, there.

And before we move on, I should point out one of Jennifer Lahl's fellow Heritage Foundation speakers, Gary Powell, seated next to her there. And just to bring things full circle here, Gary Powell used to work with the LGB Alliance. He was on their online comms team and responsible for updating their social media feeds.

All this makes me wonder about the people who earnestly believe in the LGB Alliance - you know, the people who who take it at face value and trust that it's an organization that exists to defend gay rights. Did they ever think for an organization that exists to support gay rights, the LGB Alliance sure seems friendly with people who work with the Heritage Foundation, an organization that opposes gay rights? That's strange, isn't it? It's a little suspect, there. Not really what you'd expect.

Anyway, next up let's talk about Caroline Farrow. Now Farrow is someone who earlier this year tweeted out how she was feeling emotional because her life is being quote "invaded by insane trans rights activists." Then she'd say she saw JK Rowling "coming out fighting & she lost it" to which Rowling replied "big love to you xxx." What a lovely moment, there. So who is Caroline Farrow, the person to whom Rowling is sending love and kisses? Well Caroline Farrow is the director of the UK branch of the organization CitizenGO. So who are CitizenGO? Now if you've been paying attention to the rest of the video today, I doubt this revelation will be all that shocking to you, but CitizenGO are a far right anti-abortion anti-gay rights organization. This one originated in Spain and not the US, though, so that's a novelty at least. CitizenGO defended Russia's laws pertaining to so-called "gay propaganda." They've campaigned against abortion in Kenya, where they astroturfed the debates online. They paid Kenyan people to tweet health disinformation and anti-abortion arguments.

Farrow herself has written anti-abortion articles. She's tweeted that homosexual acts are sinful. Here she is campaigning against a Pride parade. You get the picture. Farrow is also notorious in Ireland for downplaying the Catholic Church's infant mass graves scandal. And as a side note here, Farrow is currently running a crowdfunder for her own legal fees through the CitizenGO site. There are people who call themselves feminists donating money to this organization.

So I want to talk about something in particular in relation to Farrow, and that is platform responsibility. Let's imagine a possibility: Maybe JK Rowling didn't know who Caroline Farrow was - she just saw someone praising her on Twitter and responded in kind, inadvertently supporting an anti-abortion homophobe in front of her millions of followers. Now that is lazy and irresponsible, but possible. Maybe. But here's the thing; following her tweet, hundreds of people immediately pointed out to Rowling who Farrow is, providing every sort of evidence you can ask for. It made the news, this tweet. Forbes talked about this tweet. So she knows now, doesn't she? But this tweet is still up. Rowling didn't delete this even after being told who Farrow was, and the sorts of things that CitizenGO are up to.

Now unfortunately, this is a pattern. As another example, Rowling has praised the anti-trans work of self-described "theocratic fascist" Matt Walsh, a man who is currently in hot water after an audio recording surfaced of him seeming totally cool with adult men impregnating minors, so long as they also get married to them. Matt Walsh has also spoken in favor of arranged marriages. But even after a flood of complaints about her praise for a creepy fascist, JK Rowling's tweet in support of his work remains online. Just a couple more examples, Rowling sent a nice reply to the account literarygoon - someone who had previously threatened to set those who believe in gender ideology on fire, urinate on them, kill them, and bury them in the desert. Lots of people informed Rowling about that, but her reply to him remains. Dennis Kavanagh, writing on the account jebedoo2, was suspended from Twitter for saying that he preferred AIDS to the work of charities like Stonewall and Mermaids. When he returned to Twitter, JK Rowling was there to welcome him back, even though she was told why he was suspended, and he himself claimed to quote "stand by every word." In her Twitter replies, he was later suspended again for threatening those charities and their friends, saying he would quote "fucking nail you to a wall." Rowling was also told about this, of course, but again ignored it. And we can't say that she doesn't see these replies because when people point these things out to her, she blocks them. She blocked me for criticizing her in her Twitter replies, so she is aware of all this, but ignores it because she has to.

She wants to pretend that all social media abuse - all the death threats, all the violent fantasies about setting people on fire and cutting them up and nailing them to things - she wants to pretend that all that is solely originating from people critical of her and her allies, and in order to preserve that fantasy she must deliberately overlook the abuse originating from inside her own camp. She just quietly pretends not to notice it and blocks anyone who points it out to her.

The last person I want to talk about today day is not one of JK Rowling's new friends, but one of her old friends; Baroness Emma Nicholson. Rowling co-founded the Children's High Level Group charity (note: now known as Lumos) with Nicholson way back in 2005, but still jokes around with her, making fun of trans people on Twitter. Emma Nicholson is a homophobic conservative politician who opposed same-sex marriage, opposed lesbians being parents, supported Section 28 (note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28), and she's proposed legislation to limit access to abortion. As recently as two years ago, Nicholson could be seen arguing against same-sex marriage, which saw her receiving much criticism as well as being removed from her position with the Booker Prize Foundation. Nicholson has also in the past had her house protested by a lesbian activist group.

Nicholson has also attended and given speeches at Posie Parker's events. At one of which, at least, she stated her intention to get Posie Parker into Parliament. Emma Nicholson is a typical example of a bigot who's found that homophobia simply doesn't have the same level of open institutional support that it once had, and so now uses transphobia as a way to advance her bigotry. And I want to make something very clear here; Emma Nicholson is a politician voting on and proposing actual laws. She isn't "yer Nan" who just doesn't know all the PC words, or whatever - she has actual power that she has wielded to attempt to stop same-sex marriage and roll back abortion rights, and she's been welcomed into the gender critical so-called "feminist" movement just because she's willing to be transphobic.

With this in mind, I want to think about JK Rowling's claim that she supports abortion and gay marriage. Twitter user Katy Montgomerie prompted Rowling earlier this year to say that she has always supported abortion and gay marriage, but I wonder what that means in light of everything that we've talked about today. What does it mean to support abortion rights and gay marriage if you also support people who are working to outlaw those things? If you're friends with politicians who introduce anti-abortion bills? Several groups we've talked about today actively campaigned to take away abortion rights and gay marriage rights, and many people that JK Rowling support either work for those groups directly or are open to working with them as part of an anti-trans movement. The transphobes are so desperate for allies in their crusade against trans people that some of them are willing to join up with groups who, if they got their way, would force all women back into the kitchen and all gay women back into a closet in that kitchen. The anti-trans movement claim to only be protecting their rights but these are the very same rights that they're willing to risk by allying themselves with far-right reactionary movements that seek to take those rights away.

This alliance threatens women's rights far more than anything trans people are accused of doing, and it seems obvious to say this, but it reveals that this movement is not really about protecting women's rights, but can only be about attacking trans rights. Unfortunately, the divide in the anti-trans movement between those open to working with conservatives and the far right and those who are not is being won by the people who are willing to do so. The people not willing to align themselves with racists, homophobes, and misogynists are being sidelined, and the ones who are are being left to run the ship. And this is who JK Rowling surrounds herself with - literally surrounds herself with.

Rowling herself has very recently shown where she stands on the issue: She posted a picture of herself in a shirt criticizing Nicola Sturgeon for being a quote "destroyer of women's rights." Now this shirt is a design from Posie Parker's online store, which can be seen advertising the shirts under Rowling's tweet. Posie Parker, remember, throws rallies that fascist groups are openly welcome to attend. She works with and is funded by an anti-abortion organization. She thinks quote "women who call themselves men should be sterilized." And JK Rowling is helping to advertise her t-shirts.

So what's my point today? Is it that JK Rowling is a bad person? Well, not really, although she is. My point today was to show the worrying links between the UK's anti-trans movement and far-right groups. JK Rowling just happens to be right in the middle of all this. If I had to make a concluding point about Rowling it would be that she knows what she's doing. I think we've seen enough evidence today to fairly make that judgment. When she shows kindness towards ultra-conservative bigots, she knows exactly what she's doing. When she attacks and mischaracterizes the people who protest those ultra-conservative bigots, she knows exactly what she's doing. She is a long time friend of ultra-conservative bigots, after all: That's just who she is, and everything she says about respecting trans people and marching with them if they were discriminated against or whatever else - it's just a lie. She's just a liar. The contradiction I mentioned at the start of the video isn't really a contradiction at all: It's just a conscious misrepresentation of the anti-trans movement.

And I'd like to end today by thinking again about Angela Wild, the person who said she was horrified about the gender critical movement being handed over to the far right. And I'd like to have a brief word with anyone who has thus far supported the anti-trans movement but now, like Angela, has some concerns about all the racists and homophobes turning up. So hello! Whatever you think trans people are up to, it has to be said that objectively it is some small beans compared to the outlawing of abortion and the re-criminalization of gay sex. Now I'm not speaking for anyone but myself here, but trans people are not your enemies, trust me, but the Heritage Foundation, CitizenGO, the ADF, Hands Across the Aisle, and groups like them, they are actually coming for your rights. They have people working around the clock trying to undo the last century of feminism. Are you content to be used by them? Especially if you're not straight yourself. You're going to be relegated to being the gay camouflage for a bunch of straight conservative homophobes who work with the US religious right. Do you really think that they'd stop after pushing just trans people back in the closet? Of course they wouldn't. The moment you're done helping them push trans people in, you'll feel the hands on your back, believe me. So, you know, get out now. That's my advice.

Anyway thanks a lot for watching, everyone, and thank you especially to all my supporters over on patreon, some of whom are scrolling by right now. Patreon backers get early access to all my videos, so if that's something you feel like checking out, I'll leave the link below in the video description. You can also follow me on Twitter and twitch, if you like. I will leave those links below as well. So thanks a lot for watching today, folks. I'll see you next time.

[jackiiiiiii]

unfriendly reminder that ADF is currently funding the defunding of public schools and actively attacking separation of church and state (tw anti-LGBT stuff)

Apparently punishing people who sexually assault pregnant youth and LGBT youth "threatens freedom of speech" and perpetrators shouldn't "be punished for speaking freely" because apparently it should be ok to scream fag in a middle school because free speech. they also claim it attacks "real" women's rights, even though their definition of "real" women are women with functioning uteruses, which means they could get pregnant.. which is who is being protected by this change.. almost as if they're secretly against women having human rights...

They also hate the Johnson Amendment because it makes it illegal for tax exempt organizations to promote politicians, and are claiming it infringes on religious freedom because Christianity is actually about Ron DeSantis, not Jesus and God you silly goose!

They also hate public schooling, and that's shown BY THE 1000+ CASES THEY HAVE AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS.

They advocate for voucher schools, which according to the NEA "There is ZERO statistical significance that voucher programs improve overall student success". Many voucher schools are promoting the fact they are racially segregated, have no LGBTQIA students, have conversion therapy available, or have no special need students, because the left are snowflakes but extreme far-right people will have a temper tantrum like a 3 year old if they see a wheelchair accessible parking spot. These voucher schools take money that would be sent to public schools, because these voucher schools are still publicly funded, which prevents public schools from getting adequate funding.

The ADF is also behind Amy Coney Barret and Mike Johnson and fund their political campaign and give them "gifts" aka bribes. They also fund Promise to America's Parents Coalition, who fund No Left Turn, Parents Defending Education, and Moms for Liberty. Moms of Liberty and the ADF are currently on SPLC's watchlist due to their extremist and hateful nature.

The main reason that the ADF wants to get rid of separation of church and state is due to the fact it prevents them from advertising to kids in public schools, and because they are pushing very hard for the denial of good and services to LGBTQIA people to the point LGBTQIA people die because they are literally denied everything, and they also advocate for the nonconsensual sterilization of trans women and men who could have had children, which is sorta illegal in the U.S. They also claim groups like ACLU and HRC are "attacking religious freedoms". They also want to claim the "seven mountains", which is the term for family, religion, education, media, arts & entertainment, business, and government. They want complete control over every aspect of Americans lives because it will maximize the amount of religious people and that will maximize the green in their pocket and the power in their hands.

[lenbryant]

If only I had a store or restaurant, I'd totally deny service to this anti-gay POS. Thanks, SCOTUS.

[lookninjas]

Anyway, while we're talking Super Bowl ad conspiracy theories, it's probably worth noting that the "He Gets Us" ads have changed ownership to a brand-new organization, Come Near, after news broke last year that the founders of the ad campaign, The Signatry/The Servant Foundation, had donated fifty million dollars to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that works to block abortion access and trans health care, reduce/eliminate LGBTQA+ rights, and expand the influence of Christianity in schools. I can't find much more information about Come Near apart from that its CEO is Ken Calwell and the ads might very well still be funded by Hobby Lobby CEO David Green.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mira Lazine at LGBTQ Nation:

Two Christian families in Vermont, alongside the Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, are suing the state after it stripped their foster care licenses over their homophobic and transphobic beliefs. “Vermont says they’re unfit to parent any child because of their traditional religious beliefs about human sexuality,” said ADF legal counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse in a press release. “Vermont seems to care little about the needs of vulnerable children, much less the constitutional rights of its citizens. That’s why we’re suing them in federal court.”

The Wuoti and Gantt families filed the lawsuit along with the ADF on Tuesday, initiating a formal complaint against the state.  Vermont changed its policies regarding foster families in recent years to better support LGBTQ+ youth. It requires that foster parents are supportive of young people’s identities – such as properly gendering trans youth or allowing kids to embrace their sexual orientation.  It strictly prohibits “discrimination and bias based on a child or youth’s real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

The lawsuit argues that both families are required by their religion to misgender any foster children, stating that “a person’s sex is binary and fixed by God at conception.” It goes further in arguing that, in the case of the Gantt family, they believe that trans people must detransition and that people should not gender trans people correctly. The lawsuit also claims that Kaitlyn Wuoti had gender dysphoria as a child, leading her to be filled with “compassion” for children. Both Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti believe that they cannot even associate with a Pride parade or those in it because “they convey a message about human sexuality that goes against their faith.”

Two Christian conservative families, the Gantts and the Wuotis-- along with far-right anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom-- are suing the state of Vermont over being prohibited from mistreating LGBTQ+ and trans foster children in their care.

Both the Gantts and Wuotis support the misgendering and forcing detransition of trans foster children, along with opposing LGBTQ+ identity.

[happinessbunny]

Here’s the HQ of the organization that’s helping to push through the ban on the abortion pill!!

Just in case anyone would like to personally thank them for all of their hard work, you know? 🥰