2/26/2024 0 Comments Alan sears alliance defending dom![]() Yet he wanted to maintain the group’s style of avoiding being abrasive. “I am willing to be more visible publicly, and so I think visibility partly is a CEO duty, and I plan to have a fairly substantial Washington presence,” he said. Sears founded the group and played the role of spiritual guide, embedding the organization with his ethos of a humble attitude and crushing court briefs.īut while Sears shied from the limelight, Farris said he wants to publicize not just the “colorful stories” of his clients, but also himself. He quickly took a more hands-on approach in lawsuits than his predecessor, Alan Sears, according to staffers. Many had expected him to pick one of the staid, older male litigators the group traditionally relies on for big cases. He chose Kristen Waggoner, the fast-talking, always-smiling head of the group’s legal affairs in the US, to argue the baker’s case before the Supreme Court. Farris said he loves his one gay friend - they met online playing bridge - but he also fears the spread of gay-rights laws.įarris bucked fears he’d be a dinosaur, and pleasantly surprised some staff. “So far they’re all walking in a Christian life,” he explained. In 2003, Farris coauthored a brief to the Supreme Court arguing gay sodomy should remain a jailable offense in Texas, writing, “The history of this country reflects a deep conviction that sodomy is criminally punishable conduct and not a constitutionally protected activity.”įarris said he thinks none of his 18 grandchildren, including infants, would grow up to be gay. Farris came with battle scars as the former Washington state director of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority in the 1980s and a former sidekick to Phyllis Schlafly, who fought to stop the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. ![]() “I was really grateful that my friend was going to be vice president of the United States,” he recounted in February.įarris’s pedigree - and baggage - made him a surprising pick for some staffers inside ADF’s headquarters in suburban Phoenix. On election night, that meant sending congratulatory texts to his friend Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Yet Farris, who during the election was running a Christian college and a homeschooling defense group in Virginia, had significant ties to the Trump team. He accused Trump of “arrogance,” saying he was unreliable in the fight to stymie transgender rights and defend religious expression. Before taking the reins at ADF, he was an outspoken critic of Trump during the 2016 election. Lee, like other congressional Republicans, has a close relationship with ADF and he has sponsored bills that ADF supports - such as one that would protect people with a religious objection to same-sex marriage.īut the relationship between Farris and the White House is far more complicated. “ADF’s influence has been building, and I think Mike Farris has helped them move forward.” Mike Lee of Utah said of Farris in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “They’ve chalked up a whole lot of victories in free speech and academic freedom under his leadership,” Republican Sen. “The question is, how do you get recognized without screaming?” “I think the biggest misconception about ADF is that we don’t exist,” Farris said, cutting into his chicken. So, as Farris started his new job, he wondered how the group could stand out. But through this, ADF itself has held a low profile, even being an occasional outsider in the evangelical political movement. Millions of Americans have heard of ADF’s biggest case: a dispute over a wedding cake that will go before the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Taking reins of the 24-year-old group, which now has a staff of 250 and a $59 million budget, is the opportunity of his lifetime, said Farris, a constitutional lawyer with a hairdo befitting a 1970s newscaster.ĪDF has spent years cultivating high-profile religious freedom bills in statehouses while slogging through courts, particularly defending Christian shopkeepers who refused service for same-sex weddings. It was a hot February afternoon, and Farris, wearing a slightly-too-large gray suit, had been named CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom four weeks earlier. “Father, thank you so much for this beautiful day and providing for our needs,” he said above the chicken-and-steak lunch special. The same hour Jeff Sessions was sworn in as the nation’s 84th US attorney general in Washington, DC, Mike Farris was at a strip mall in Scottsdale, Arizona, bowing his head over a sizzling platter of fajitas.
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