Trump Judge Orders ‘Religious Liberty Training’ For Airline Lawyers
A federal judge appointed by trump four years ago has ordered three airlines employees to attend “religious liberty training” after an airline company employee was fired for voicing anti-abortion comments about the 2017 Women’s March in Washington.
U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, in the northern district of Texas, directed the employees of Southwest Airlines to attend the eight-hour training conducted by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has designated ADF as an anti-LGBT hate group, that was “one of the most influential groups informing the [Trump] administration’s attack on LGBTQ rights.”
The ADF opposes same-sex marriage, decriminalization of same-sex sexual activity, and anti-discrimination laws, as well as taking an active role in writing model anti-transgender bills for state legislators. ADF has led efforts to restrict the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone and helped draft a Mississippi abortion ban that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating a women’s constitutional right to abortion.
Starr said the ADF is among the “esteemed non-profit organizations that are dedicated to preserving free speech and religious freedom.”
Starr, 54, was appointed by trump to the federal bench in August 2019. Starr was previously a deputy attorney general under Texas GOP Attorney General Kenneth Paxton, who was a strong trump supporter.
Paxton has been suspended since he was impeached in May on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust. A trial is scheduled before the state Senate in September. Paxton also is facing a long delayed trial on securities fraud charges.
If Starr’s name is familiar it is because he is the nephew of Kenneth Starr, the former special counsel whose investigation lead to the impeachment of President Bill Carter. Carter’s wife, of course is Hillary, trump’s former nemesis. Ken Starr is a member of ADF’s Supreme Court Advisory Council.
Paxton also has been a member of the right wing Federalist Society since 2005.
Southwest flight attendant Charlene Carter sued after she said she was fired because she called the president of Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union “despicable” for attending the 2017 Women’s March in Washington. At the event, demonstrators protested trump’s inauguration and called for protecting abortion rights, among many issues. Carter has said she is a Christian who opposes abortion.
Southwest claimed Carter was fired for harassing coworkers about the Women’s March on social media in violation of a company “civility policy.”
Carter won an $800,000 judgment against the airline and the flight attendant’s union and got her job back.
Starr later also ordered the airline to inform flight attendants that “under Title VII, they may not discriminate against flight attendants for their religious practices and beliefs, including, but not limited to, those expressed on social media and those concerning abortion.”
Instead, three company lawyers drafted a memo to employees that the company “does not discriminate,” and that flight attendants must follow the airline policy that it cited in firing Carter.
Starr responded by ordering the company’s three top lawyers, Kerrie Forbes, Kevin Michey and Chris Maberry, to attend the so-called religious training. Southwest said on Wednesday that it would appeal the judge’s orders.
Another trump appointee, Kyle Duncan, was named to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana in 2017 and has been a speaker for Alliance Defending Freedom in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Duncan also often worked against LGBT groups in private practice. In 2015, Duncan argued before the U.S. Supreme Court against the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Duncan said the Supreme Court ruling which approved same sex marriage, was an “abject failure” that “imperils civic peace”, and that the decision “raises a question about the legitimacy of the court.”
While he was a judge in the Fifth Circuit, Duncan refused to identify a transgender defendant by their assumed name and preferred gender pronouns.
Alliance Defending Freedom, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., was formed in 1993. One of its goals is for Christianity to be incorporated into the U.S. legal system, based on the organization leaders’ interpretation of the Constitution. ADF materials said the group seeks to spread a belief in “the framers’ original intent for the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights as it reflects God’s natural law and God’s higher law.”
The organization also pursues its goals through litigation.
In 2003, ADF unsuccessfully called for the recriminalization of homosexual acts, filing a Supreme Court brief supporting Texas’ sodomy law in the landmark Lawrence v. Texas case which declared sodomy laws unconstitutional. ADF opposed laws that would protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; and it falsely linked homosexuality to pedophilia.
The ADF has been involved in several U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding the use of public buildings and public funds for religious purposes. It supports Christian prayer at public town meetings and the use of religious displays such as crosses and other religious monuments in public buildings and on public lands
The non-profit lists 395 employees and 1,351 volunteers, as of 2022. The company had 2022 revenues of $104,490,113; expenses of $81,311,475; and an endowment of $20,295,829.
The Alliance Defense Fund, now called the Alliance Defending Freedom, is a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that tries to expand Christian practices in public schools and in government. ADF has offices around the U.S. and in more than 100 countries. The international subsidiary, Alliance Defending Freedom International, is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
Individuals associated with ADF have included U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, former vice president Mike Pence, former attorney generals William Barr and Jeff Sessions and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., among many other influential Americans.
The Alliance Defense Fund was founded by members of the evangelical Christian right movement to prevent what its founders saw as threats to religious liberty in America. In 2020, ADF founder Alan Sears was paid more than $803,000 and President Michael Farris received $455,000. In 2021, Farris, who was then President and CEO, made $503,000 while then-General Counsel Kristen Waggoner was compensated $337,000. On Oct. 1, 2022, Waggoner succeeded Farris as CEO and president of ADF, while retaining her role as General Counsel. Wagner attended Northwest University, a Christian school and is affiliated with Assemblies of God.
Several founding members wrote books condemning homosexuality, including longtime president Alan Sears, who wrote the 2003 book “The Homosexual Agenda” and Marlin Malloux, who wrote 1994’s “Answers to the Gay Deception.”
Another founder, Pastor D. James Kennedy, described same-sex marriage as “counterfeit marriage” and supported conversion therapy “for homosexuals who want to change, through the power of Jesus Christ.” Founder James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” ministry called “Love Won Out” was formed to convince people that homosexuality is a sin and that same-sex attraction could be “overcome.”
After trump lost the 2020 presidential election and falsely claimed he lost because of voter fraud, former ADF CEO Farris worked with Texas attorney general Ken Paxton to overturn the election results.
The Servant Foundation, a Christian grant-making organization, donated more than $50 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom between 2018 and 2020. The foundation’s financial arm, The Signatry, was responsible for the “He Gets Us” campaign, highlighted by a series of pro-Christian, Super Bowl advertisements.
The organization has worked internationally to prevent decriminalization of homosexuality in Jamaica and Belize. In Europe, ADF International has supported mandatory genital surgery and sterilization of transgender people before they are allowed to change the gender marker on government IDs.
The ADF also has campaigned against the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in the United Kingdom, Belgium and India.
ADF opposes transgender rights based on an idea that “God creates each person with an immutable biological sex — male or female.” The organization has sued against transgender employment protections, access to bathrooms, and participation in sports for transgender people.
In 2022, ADF took on a case defending a Tennessee-based Christian adoption agency that refused to work with Jewish prospective parents. The case was dismissed on technical grounds but an appeal is pending before the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, ADF joined in a legal challenge against the Biden administration’s OSHA vaccine mandate. In Uganda, ADF joined a Texas libertarian organization in backing a campaign to end restrictions on large gatherings that the government had implemented to reduce COVID-19 spread.
The extensive list of people who are currently or have been affiliated or associated with ADF includes: Tony Abbott, former prime minister of Australia; William Barr, former U.S. Attorney General under George H. W. Bush and trump; Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a paid speaker at ADF’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship; Lisa Biron, a New Hampshire lawyer associated with ADF, who was convicted of manufacturing and possessing child pornography; Chapman B. Cox, former General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, is an ADF chairman emeritus; and former Vice President Mike Pence appointed former ADF President Farris to the vice president’s Advancing American Freedom Advisory Board.