The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservative Christian legal advocacy group. It works to expand Christian religious practices within public schools and in government. 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.
ADF is one of the most organized and influential Christian legal interest groups in the United States based on its budget, caseload, network of allied attorneys, and connections to significant members of the political right. Mike Johnson, a former ADF attorney, was elected speaker of the House of Representatives on October 25, 2023. Others who have been associated with ADF include U.S. Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett, former vice president Mike Pence, former attorneys general William Barr and Jeff Sessions, and Senator Josh Hawley. Since the election of President Donald Trump, ADF has become "one of the most influential groups informing the [Trump] administration". It has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBT hate group.
As of 2025, ADF was included in at least 74 Supreme Court decisions and directly represented 15 parties in Supreme Court wins. It has taken positions including support for religious activity in public school and Christian prayer at town meetings, narrowing insurance coverage for contraceptives, prohibiting same-sex marriage, and supporting businesses in the wedding industry that refuse to service gay marriages. ADF lawyers wrote the model for Mississippi's anti-abortion legislation, leading to the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to overrule Roe v. Wade that had established a right to abortion in America in 1973. ADF's representation in two cases has been accused of citing inaccurate or falsified evidence.
History and structure Founding
The Alliance Defense Fund was founded by members of the Christian right movement to prevent what its founders saw as threats to religious liberty in American society. ADF was incorporated in 1993 by six conservative Christian men, most of whom belonged to evangelical movements. The co-founders were Bill Bright, who also founded Campus Crusade for Christ; Larry Burkett; James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; D. James Kennedy, founder of Coral Ridge Ministries; Marlin Maddoux; Mark Siljander; and Alan Sears. ADF is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.
In its early years, Alliance Defense Fund funded legal cases rather than litigating directly. It particularly targeted the work of the American Civil Liberties Union, which its founders saw as contributing to an erosion of Christian values.
Shift to direct litigation The Alliance Defense Fund changed its name to Alliance Defending Freedom in 2012. The name change was intended to reflect the organization's shift in focus from funding allied attorneys to directly litigating cases.
By 2014, the organization had more than 40 staff attorneys, and had "emerged as the largest legal force of the religious right, arguing hundreds of pro bono cases across the country." ADF garnered national attention in the 2012 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case as well as its 2014 challenge to the Affordable Care Act.
Leadership and international expansion The ADF's first president, CEO and Chief Counsel was Alan Sears, who was also a founder of the organization. Sears has been described as "an ardent antipornography crusader", and had previously served as staff executive director of the Reagan administration Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, which produced the 1986 Meese Report.
Sears led the organization for over 20 years, until 2017. From 2017 to 2022, Michael Farris, the founder of Patrick Henry College, was CEO of ADF. Farris lobbied Congress for the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. He has been closely associated with the Christian homeschooling movement since the 1980s and is the founder of the Christian organization Home School Legal Defense Association, which offers legal representation to home-schooling parents. In 2016, Farris voiced opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy for president, opining that "Trump most clearly fails the traditional standard championed by the Christian right on the subject of personal character." However, after Trump refused to concede the 2020 presidential election and made false claims of voter fraud, Farris worked to overturn the election results, drafting a legal complaint with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the unsuccessful case Texas v. Pennsylvania.
On October 1, 2022, Kristen Waggoner succeeded Farris as CEO and President of ADF, retaining her role as General Counsel.
ADF International Since 2010, ADF's global arm, ADF International, has been increasingly active around the world. In 2015, ADF International stated that it had been involved in "over 500 cases before national and international tribunals," in the United States of America, Argentina, Honduras, India, Mexico, Peru, the European Union Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The organization reported 580 "ongoing legal matters" in fifty-one countries as of 2017, and had a budget of $11.5 million worldwide in 2020–2021. The organization established an affiliate group in India (ADF India) in 2012, headquartered in Delhi. In addition, ADF is incorporated in a number of European countries under "ADF International": Belgium, Germany (as ADF International Deutschland), France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Austria (as ADF International Austria GmbH). The organization also lobbies the European Union Parliament via ADF International Belgium, which participates in the intergroup organization "Freedom of Religion and Religious Tolerance." As part of EU advocacy, its members have presented on issues including Christian minority persecution in Iraq and Myanmar.
ADF International's budget was US$11.5 million (€9,489,000) in FY 2020–21. In the EU, the organization spent about $9.8 million (€8.7 million) from 2008 to 2016. In 2020, it reported a budget of about $2 million per year (£1.5 million), including approximately $430,000 on lobbying EU officials. Its registered EU lobbying group, ADF International Belgium, had five employees and a $585,000 budget for the 2022-23 financial year. In its financial disclosure information, ADF International Belgium lists its source as a donation from Alliance Defending Freedom.
Finances and donors The Servant Foundation donated over $50,000,000 to the Alliance Defending Freedom between 2018 and 2020, via the foundation's financial arm, The Signatry. The most public use of these funds has been the "He Gets Us" campaign during Super Bowl commercial breaks. Other donors include: the Green family, the Covenant Foundation, the Bolthouse Foundation, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute. The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, one of largest charities in the Pacific Northwest, donated nearly $1,000,000 to ADF from 2007 to 2016.
Supreme Court
ADF attorneys have argued, and won, a number of cases before the Supreme Court. Free speech The 2023 case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis addressed an intersection between the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and LGBTQ rights. It pitched Lorie Smith, a graphic designer represented by ADF's Kristen Waggoner, against a Colorado public accommodations law that she feared would have compelled her to also create expression about same-sex marriages that contradicted her religious beliefs if she designed websites celebrating marriages between men and women. In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment forbade the state of Colorado from compelling speech that contradicted her beliefs.
The 2018 case National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra addressed the issue of Free Speech and abortion. At issue was California's Reproductive FACT (Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency) Act that compelled pro-life pregnancy care centers, represented by ADF's Michael Farris, to post information in their waiting rooms saying that California provides free or low-cost abortion, as well as providing a number to call for abortion referrals. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that requiring those notices was a free speech violation.
The 2001 case Good News Club v. Milford Central School concerned a public school's exclusion of a club from using the school building after hours based solely on the club's religious nature. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Good News Club, represented by ADF's senior counsel Thomas Marcelle, was the victim of impermissible viewpoint discrimination. and that religious clubs must be afforded equal access to use public school facilities.
Abortion The 2022 case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, considered the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that placed a ban on abortions after 15 weeks, in conflict with Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The Mississippi law was based on ADF's model legislation, specifically designed to provoke a legal challenge that could then be appealed up to the Supreme Court. ADF lawyers then served on the Mississippi Attorney General's legal team to defend the ban. The strategy succeeded: the Justices voted to overturn Roe v Wade, and Casey, and to return the power to regulate abortion to the States.
Gender The 2026 case Little v. Hecox addressed Idaho's "Fairness in Women's Sports Act". The law was the first categorical ban on transgender women and girls participating in women's sports teams in the United States. The ADF represented student athletes Madison Kenyon and Mary Marshall while arguing in support of the ban. "We want to ensure that we protect women based on their sex, so that they have those opportunities Title IX was designed to provide them," said ADF lawyer Christiana Holcomb.
Allegations of falsified evidence In multiple cases ADF has argued before the Supreme Court, there have been allegations of inaccurate, misleading or falsified evidence after investigative reporting has contested its authenticity.
Ethical and legal issues were raised in the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis case about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court after it ruled in favor of a website designer who did not want to provide services to a gay couple. ADF represented the plaintiff which misrepresented a gay couple that did not exist. The 2023 ruling was considered controversial and received criticism from prominent legal theorists and law reviews.
In 2025, The Guardian reported that ADF "profoundly" misrepresented its research on the "psychological damage" of conversion therapy and manufactured claims in the Chiles v. Salazar case. Chiles claimed that her free speech rights were infringed upon by Colorado's conversion therapy ban and she had "begun censoring herself in conversations with clients". The state's attorneys did not find an official complaint filed, rather a "pre-enforcement challenge" three years after the ban had passed.
Litigation positions ADF's positions include supporting the place of religion in public institutions, opposing LGBTQ rights, opposing abortion and contraception, and other positions aligned with conservative Christianity in the United States.
Religion in public institutions