The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group that works to expand Christian religious liberties and practices within public schools and in government, outlaw abortion, and oppose LGBTQ rights. ADF is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with branch offices in several locations including Washington, D.C., and New York. Its international subsidiary, Alliance Defending Freedom International, with headquarters in Vienna, Austria, operates in over 100 countries.
Michael P. Farris is an American lawyer. He is a founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Patrick Henry College, which share a campus in Purcellville, Virginia. From 2017 through 2022, he was CEO of and general counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) is a US faith-based organization which focuses on upholding the historic Baptist principle of religious liberty.
Regent University School of Law is the law school of Regent University, a private Christian university in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It was founded in 1986 and accredited by the American Bar Association in 1996.
Robert Watson Ferguson is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 18th attorney general of Washington. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2016 and 2020. Prior to serving as attorney general, Ferguson was a member of the King County Council.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in the U.S. state of Washington have evolved significantly since the late 20th century. Same-sex sexual activity was legalized in 1976. LGBT people are fully protected from discrimination in the areas of employment, housing and public accommodations; the state enacting comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation regarding sexual orientation and gender identity in 2006. Same-sex marriage has been legal since 2012, and same-sex couples are allowed to adopt. Conversion therapy on minors has also been illegal since 2018.
Religion and business have throughout history interacted in ways that relate to and affected one another, as well as influenced sociocultural evolution, political geographies, and labour laws. As businesses expand globally they seek new markets which leads to expanding their corporation's norms and rules to encompass the new locations norms which most often involve religious rules and terms.
First Liberty Institute is a nonprofit Christian conservative legal organization based in Plano, Texas.
Sheryl Gordon McCloud is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court since 2013. She was elected to replace outgoing Associate Justice Tom Chambers on Seat 9 of the Washington Supreme Court, winning 55.24% of the vote and defeating former Associate Justice Richard B. Sanders. With her election, the Washington Supreme Court is now majority-female.
The Arlene's Flowers lawsuit was a group of merged civil suits brought against Arlene's Flowers of Richland, Washington, US, by a couple whose longtime florist declined service of their same-sex wedding, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The lawsuits gained national attention due to their religious and civil rights implications. The Supreme Court of the United States let stand two unanimous verdicts by the Washington state Supreme Court that same-sex couples cannot be discriminated against on the basis of religious freedom.
Klein, dba Sweet Cakes by Melissa, v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries was a legal case against a cake shop in Gresham, Oregon, in the United States. The cake shop gained widespread press attention in January 2013 when it turned away customers who wanted cakes for a same-sex wedding, who then made a complaint to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, claiming their civil rights under the Oregon Equality Act had been infringed.
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. 617 (2018), was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States that dealt with whether owners of public accommodations can refuse certain services based on the First Amendment claims of free speech and free exercise of religion, and therefore be granted an exemption from laws ensuring non-discrimination in public accommodations—in particular, by refusing to provide creative services, such as making a custom wedding cake for the marriage of a gay couple, on the basis of the owner's religious beliefs.
In the United States, a religious freedom bill is a bill that, according to its proponents, allows those with religious objections to oppose LGBT rights in accordance with traditional religious teachings without being punished by the government for doing so. This typically concerns an employee who objects to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, civil unions, or transgender identity and wishes to avoid situations where they will be expected to put those objections aside. Proponents commonly refer to such proposals as religious liberty or conscience protection.
Charles LiMandri is an American lawyer. In a case that made national headlines, he litigated against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the defense of the Mount Soledad Cross in San Diego. The battle over the religious symbol, which lasted more than 25 years, is one of the longest in the history on the United States. Limandri has a private law practice, and in 2002 he founded the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund to pay for his pro bono work on behalf of religious freedom.
Allison Blair Jones Rushing is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit since March 2019.
Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and others[2018] UKSC 49 was a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom discrimination case between Gareth Lee and Ashers Baking Company, owned by Daniel and Amy McArthur of Northern Ireland. Lee brought the case after Ashers refused to make a cake with a message promoting same-sex marriage, citing their religious beliefs. Following appeals, the Supreme Court overturned previous rulings in favour of Lee and made a judgement in favour of Ashers. The court said there was no discrimination against Lee and that Ashers' objections were with the message they were being asked to promote. The court held that people in the United Kingdom could not legally be forced to promote a message they fundamentally disagreed with. The case became known in the British and Irish media as the "gay cake" case.
Michael J. Norton is an American attorney who was United States Attorney for the District of Colorado from 1988 to 1993, and who serves as council for conservative lobbying groups.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 593 U.S. 522 (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with litigation over discrimination of local regulations based on the Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The specific case deals with a religious-backed foster care agency that was denied a new contract by the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, due to the agency's refusal to certify married same-sex couples as foster parents on religious grounds.
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023), is a United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with the intersection of anti-discrimination law in public accommodations with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a 6–3 decision, the Court found for a website designer, ruling that the state of Colorado cannot compel the designer to create work that violates her values. The case follows from Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), which had dealt with similar conflict between free speech rights and Colorado's anti-discrimination laws but had been decided on narrower grounds.
