If the ACLU is the "voice of civil liberties" from teh Left, then the Right has two such groups -- the ACLJ and the Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF is profiled today in the Washington Post.

A 29-foot war memorial shaped like a cross should be allowed to remain on public land. A teacher should be able to emphasize references to God in the Declaration of Independence. Protesters should be permitted to approach women near the doors of an abortion clinic.

These courtroom fights and dozens of others pending across the country belong to the portfolio of the ambitious Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium. It spends $20 million a year seeking to protect what it regards as the place of religion -- and especially Christianity -- in public life.

Considering itself the antithesis of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Scottsdale-based organization has used money and moxie to become the leading player in a movement to tug the nation to the right by challenging decades of legal precedent. By stepping into the nation's most impassioned debates about religion in the public sphere, the group aims to bring law and society into alignment with conservative Christianity.

There are those who argue that the group's Christian orientation puts it at odds with the First Amendment. That is nonsense. While the First Amendment clearly forbids establishing a religion as the national church, there is nothing in it which prohibits the people from enacting laws which reflect their views -- even if those views grow from their faith. And there is certainly no requirement that people of faith take a backseat to secularists. That is why the Alliance Defense Fund exists.

Posted by: Greg at 09:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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