faith & justice: vital signs
DESCRIPTION
In this issue: one tiny church prompts a Supreme Court debate on whether religious speech is less valuable than secular speech. ADF International sees growing success, why this Planned Parenthood employee left, and the story of the churches almost evicted from public schools in New York City.TRANSCRIPT
VITAL SIGNSOne tiny church prompts a Supreme Court debate
on whether some speech is more valuable than others
Volume VIII, Issue 2
Volume VIII, Issue 2 CONTENTS
C o v e r S t o r y :
Alliance Defending Freedom would enjoy hearing your comments on the stories and issues discussed in Faith & Justice. Please direct comments/questions to www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org, call 800-835-5233, or write: Editor, Faith & Justice, Alliance Defending Freedom, 15100 N. 90th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260.©2015, Alliance Defending Freedom. All rights reserved.
@AllianceDefends www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.orgAlliance Defending Freedom Editor Chuck Bolte
Senior Writer Chris Potts
Art Director/Photography Bruce Ellefson
Contributors Gary McCaleb, Sue Thayer, Chris Potts, Alan Sears
Alliance Defending Freedom15100 N. 90th Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
[Phone] 800-835-5233
[Fax] 480-444-0025
Jonathan Lopez found few supporters when he challenged an abusive professor on his college campus.
8 VITAL SIGNS“The greatness of God,
that He would take a wee little church like ours, and maybe make a change
for the whole country.”
— Ann Reed —
4 HOW CHURCHES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS BENEFIT OUR CITIES“Behind this policy, there is an agenda. And I think
that the church in America needs to wake up.”
6 ADF INTERNATIONAL SEES GROWING SUCCESS“Our objectives are the same internationally as they are in the United States … to keep the door open for the Gospel.”
14 WHY I LEFT PLANNED PARENTHOOD“Planned Parenthood presents itself as a non-profit,
but it’s actually very profit-oriented.”
16 ALLIANCE PROFILE: CHUCK LIMANDRI“We’re not just serving our clients, but in a very real sense,
serving our Lord.”
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys Kristen Waggoner and Jeremy Tedesco compare notes following the January 12 Supreme
Court hearing for Reed v. Town of Gilbert (see story, p. 8).
M i n u t e s W i t h A l a n
Alliance Defending Freedom | 3
Watch a special message from Alan. Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice.”
Remembering Whyby Alan Sears, President, CEO and General Counsel
It’s a heartbreaking scene, and sadly, one most people of faith are called to experience, at one point or an-other. I was invited to a funeral for a young man who, as far as anyone knew, had no faith. And I watched, and hurt, for his family and friends as they grieved without hope ... mourning a life over too soon, and with no clear expectation of eternal life beyond the veil.
All agreed that he was a good man … kind, loving, con-
siderate. His loved ones shared delightful stories of mo-
ments and adventures fondly remembered, and there was
laughter. But then the laughter faded, and with it the light in
their eyes, replaced by shadows of doubt and uncertainty.
His was a wealthy family, and generous with their
wealth. The candles and flowers and décor were beauti-
fully well done. But these handsome accoutrements were
just window dressing for a room filled with mourners who
could talk only of their dearly loved son, brother, nephew,
uncle in terms of his past … not of his future.
Our time here is so brief. We all know that—and we
all try to shove it aside, to obscure and conceal it behind
a rush of activities and plans, dreams and diversions. But
something always brings it surging back to the surface of
our minds: a milestone birthday, a near miss in traffic, the
painful loss of someone we loved and cared about.
Some people ask, and no doubt many wonder, why we
do the work we do at Alliance Defending Freedom. The long
hours forging strategy, writing legal briefs, allotting grants,
building relationships with other legal groups and ministries,
the endless travel and nights away from loved ones … so
much effort, and so much of it battering against entrenched
legal and political agendas determined to submerge truth
and liberty to their own causes and profits.
It’s easy to say that we’re working for the great, his-
toric ideals—reforming the legal system, turning back
Roe v. Wade, restoring our society’s understanding of mar-
riage and family. And those are indeed objectives of this
organization. But the term we use most, in our speeches
and publications, is something simpler than that: we want
“to keep the door open for the Gospel.”
As long as that door is open … as long as you and I and
our children and our pastors and all those who share our
timeless faith have the freedom to live out the truth of the
love of Christ in our daily lives and language … people will
find their way out of the darkness and into the light.
And that, I thought—watching the aching souls at that
funeral stare into the darkness—is worth everything we
have to give.
John 15:5–Apart from Christ, we can do nothing.
How Churches In Public Schools Benefit Our Cities
With the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear the case of Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, the for-now final outcome of this 20-year-old case—centered on the public’s right to meet for worship in rented public school facilities—is now in the hands of the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio. While he has assured Alliance Defend-ing Freedom attorneys and their allies (includ-ing many New York civic and religious lead-ers) that, under his administration, churches like Bronx Household will be allowed to hold worship services in public buildings, the only permanent hope for that freedom now lies with the state legislature.
Among the most outspoken civic lead-ers in support of Bronx Household is Dr. Fer-nando Cabrera, pastor of New Life Outreach International in the Bronx. Cabrera, a former professor of counseling at Mercy College, is now in his fifth year on the New York City Council, representing the 14th District, which includes the West Bronx. In that capacity, he has chaired the council’s committee on Juve-nile Justice, and co-chaired both the Black, La-tino and Asian Caucus and the Gun Violence Task Force. He is actively pressing state legis-lators to pass a measure ensuring the right of New York churches to hold worship services in city facilities. with
B r o n x C o u n c i l m a n F e r n a n d o C a b r e r aQ &A
O n T h e S q u a r e
4 | Alliance Defending Freedom
Then New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio and Councilman Fer-nando Cabrera (front row, second and third from left) lead a 2012 Brooklyn Bridge rally urging New York City to allow worship services in public schools.
How Churches In Public Schools Benefit Our Cities
Alliance Defending Freedom | 5
What is New York City losing by not allowing churches to hold worship services in public schools?
A lot of people don’t understand how important
it is to have these churches be able to function out of
public schools. One, they’re providing revenue that is
needed in the city. Two, they’re providing free servic-
es … Celebrate Recovery groups, working with young
people, after-school programs, educational programs,
senior programs. We’re talking about millions upon mil-
lions of dollars’ worth of tangible outreach events and
activities that they are providing to the community. The
city right now cannot fill that gap. We have seen count-
less [monies] that were supposed to go to after-school
programs totally being eliminated, and who stepped in?
It was the houses of worship, specifically those who are
renting right now from public schools.
Why are these churches able to make such a significant impact?
Because they’re there. They coordinate with the
principals, they know firsthand what the needs are
—not only in the school, but in the community. So
whether it’s immigration services, adult literacy pro-
grams, whatever it is, the churches have come in and
filled the gap.
Are church groups being singled out for discrimination in a different way than other groups?
Over 10,000 applications [to use public schools]
go in every year for nonprofit organizations. The only
group that has been targeted, the only group that has
been marked to be eradicated from public schools has
been these churches [because of their worship servic-
es]. And we’re talking about churches and synagogues
that are giving frontline help. There’s an obvious level
of unfairness that is taking place here. Behind this pol-
icy, there is an agenda. And I think that the church in
America needs to wake up.
What are the implications of such discrimination, for communities beyond New York City?
Whatever happens in New York City, for whatev-
er reason, usually is replicated and copied all around
the world, and particularly in the U.S.
Policies often determine behavior,
and the message and the behavior of
the city says, “Religious people can-
not have the same kind of freedoms
that other people have in terms of be-
ing able to use public space, namely
public schools [for worship services].”
Are you confident of Mayor de Blasio’s support for the churches’ position?
We’ve been in talks with the mayor’s staff, and
they’ve been assuring me that the city is going to con-
tinue letting churches rent from public schools. We
commend him—he’s kept his word. I’m delighted by
that … but at the same time fearful, because—in the
future—we don’t know who the mayor’s going to be.
That places churches in a predicament. This becomes
a political issue … the very thing the Constitution was
trying to avoid, putting churches at the mercy of the
state. Every election puts this [equal access] up for
grabs, unless it becomes a state law.
Do you still believe there’s a “strong possibility” of a measure being voted on in the state assembly this summer that would secure churches’ definitive right to meet in public schools?
We’re very confident. We will definitely make a
lot of noise. The main issue is whether they will allow
democracy to have its way … whether they will let the
issue come to the floor for a vote.
How, over the 20 years of litigating this case, has ADF been able to help the nearly 100 New York churches affected by the city’s actions?
The Bronx Household of Faith, the right to wor-
ship movement, has brought churches to work to-
gether like I’ve never seen before in New York City.
If it wasn’t for ADF, we would have been history.
Without them, public schools would
have been closed and shut down to
every church. ADF came to our res-
cue and right now, we have all of our
churches being able to rent from pub-
lic schools. The fight continues, and
ADF is there to help us. We couldn’t
do it without them.
The right to worship movement has brought churches to work together like I’ve never seen before in New York City.
Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice” for the
latest news on Bronx Household of Faith and to learn more of what
ADF is doing to protect the religious freedom of all Americans.
6 | Alliance Defending Freedom
It’s been 10 years since Alliance De-
fending Freedom successfully defended
the case of Ake Green, a Swedish pastor
threatened with jail time for preaching a
sermon that addressed sexual morality,
including homosexual behavior. The min-
istry’s defense of Pastor Green at the Su-
preme Court of Sweden set a solid legal
precedent for free speech in that country
and throughout Europe.
More than that, though, the case
marked the beginning of ADF involve-
ment in overseas legal actions—actions
that have, “through God’s own providence
and design,” says Benjamin W. Bull, execu-
tive director of ADF International, had far-
reaching effects not only on the laws of
other nations, but of America as well.
“God has allowed us to accomplish
extraordinary results,” says Bull. If that
success continues, he adds, “countries all
over the world will be the beneficiary and
the U.S., too, will continue to reap good
results from our successes in carrying out
ADF’s core mission.” A mission that hasn’t
changed in expanding overseas.
“Our objectives are the same interna-
tionally as they are in the United States,”
Bull says, “to keep the door open for the
Gospel, to defend religious liberty, life,
S p e c i a l F e a t u r e
Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org
and click on “Faith & Justice” to learn more about the work
of ADF International.
ADF International Sees Growing Success
Our objectives are the same internationally as they are in the United States, to keep the door open for the Gospel.
- Benjamin W. Bull Executive Director, ADF International
Alliance Defending Freedom | 7
marriage and family, and to protect the sovereign-
ty of nations. The tactics and strategies are dif-
ferent, because the venues are different, and the
challenges are different. But when we succeed,
the results can have an incredible ripple effect.
“A year ago,” he says, “the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR) decided there was no inter-
national right to same-sex marriage.” Meanwhile,
in the U.S., ADF filed briefs in a similar marriage
case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Cir-
cuit, which upheld the freedom of the states to
affirm marriage as the union of one man and one
woman. “That decision,” Bull explains, “prompted
the U.S. Supreme Court to review the entire mar-
riage issue. You know what case the 6th Circuit
cited? The marriage case at the European Court of
Human Rights.”
But ADF International is also succeeding in
bringing religious freedom to parts of Europe that
had lost it—in some cases, for centuries.
“We have a case at the ECHR that has the po-
tential to open up Turkey to religious freedom for
the first time in centuries,” Bull says. “Turkey in
1952 subordinated itself to the ECHR, because it
wants to be part of the European community. We
represent church planters who, under Turkey’s
law, don’t have the right to legal existence. [They]
can’t open a bank account, rent space, buy prop-
erty, or hire anybody.
“And for the first time in centuries, we’re
holding Turkey accountable,” he says. “They can’t
have it both ways, that is, be a part of the Eu-
ropean community and simultaneously suppress
religious freedom. Now we’re on the verge of get-
ting a judgment that will open Turkey to modern
notions of religious freedom.”
In Italy, ADF International has even been able
to stave off the kind of legal assaults atheists in
America used to remove references to God from
public schools half a century ago. “As a result of
the victory we helped win in Europe in Lautsi v.
Italy,” Bull says, “every country in Europe is free
to put the Christian cross in public school class-
rooms—a right we lost in the U.S. 50 years ago.”
Strategy, Bull says, is the key to the once and
future success of ADF International cases.
“Our strategy in Europe is focusing like a laser
on the major institutions of international gover-
nance,” he says, “where we can obtain the highest return on
investment of our human and financial resources.”
The United Nations, for instance. “When you win there, you
win in 193 nations,” Bull says. “When our clients win a judg-
ment at ECHR, it establishes the law of 47 nations, from Russia
to Spain, to the U.K. to Greece. The European Union, located in
Brussels, has jurisdiction over 28 nations. And the U.N. Human
Rights Council, in Geneva, Switzerland, has jurisdiction over
193 nations. That’s why, standing with our allies in Europe who
have sought our assistance, we’re opening up three new offices
in Brussels, Geneva, and Strasbourg (where the ECHR and Eu-
ropean Parliament are located), fully staffed with lawyers from
those regions.
“In the last four years,” Bull says, “we’ve been involved in
more than 50 cases at the European Court of Human Rights,
which is one of the most important courts in the world. We’ve
been blessed to win over 80 percent of our engagements there
for our clients. Today, as a result of our success in working
with allies and winning a single case at that court [ABC v. Ire-
land], every country in Europe—all 47 nations—has the right to
ban abortions, except to save the life of the mother. A virtual
total ban. That’s a right lost in the U.S. with Roe v. Wade.
“So, on many of our issues, in a very short time, and as a
result of a very strategic and focused activity, we’ve seen God
turn the playing field 180 degrees. And when people in Europe
who have a heart for serving the Lord hear about these oppor-
tunities, they want to come alongside and be a part of it.”
Sophia Kuby, director of European Union Advocacy for Alliance Defending Freedom, discusses upcoming legal questions with Bastiaan Belder (left), a Dutch member of the European Parliament, and Jan Figel, vice president of the National Council of the Slovak Republic.
8 | Alliance Defending Freedom8 | Alliance Defending Freedom
One tiny church prompts a Supreme Court debateon whether some speech is more valuable than others
Vi tal Signs
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to attend the services at Pastor Clyde Reed’s church … and you have to know where you’re going. There’s no steeple, no church-looking building to draw your attention. No stream of cars or teeming crowds. And hardly a sign to tell you where to go.
Where you go is to Gilbert Elementary School … a vast campus, as elementary schools go, but away from the main thoroughfares of this fast-growing Arizona town just southeast of Phoenix. You have to take a side street, turn into the sprawling park-ing area the school shares with several city government buildings, drive down to the far, far end of the lot, hang a right, and drive down to the end of another long, narrow parking area.
If you get out there early enough, you can help Clyde and his wife, Ann, carry their church stuff—a little table, some flowers, a heavy box of hymnals—across the grass and around a few corners to the building that houses the school’s music classroom. You can
— by Chr i s Pot t s —
join the 15-20 other folks making their
way into the cheerful mix, laughing
and talking weather and helping set
up the chairs and the accoutrements
of communion.
It’s the pretty usual group for a
suburban Sunday morning: mostly
older; coats and ties, blue jeans and
open collars; couples and widows. They
smile easily and genuinely to greet the
Reeds, who know them all very well. It
may be a small congregation, but Clyde
takes a caring interest in each of them,
asking questions about their families
and the week’s events.
Time is short—the Reeds will fin-
ish here in time to reload the car and
head over to a nearby senior living
center for a second, late-morning ser-
vice. They’ll just have time for lunch
before moving on to an Alzheimer’s
facility for their third service of the
day. It makes for a full but tiring Sun-
day for the couple, now in their early
80s. No microphones, no TV cameras,
no megachurch audience. Theirs is a
warm but obscure ministry, lived out
in the easygoing backwaters of a quiet
desert town.
And yet … their obscurity some-
how isn’t enough for this town’s lead-
ing administrators, whose curious
determination to make the Reeds all
but invisible has inadvertently drawn
national attention to their community,
surprised Clyde and Ann in a late-in-life
spotlight, and raised far-reaching ques-
tions at the U.S. Supreme Court about
freedom of speech for all Americans.
Clyde harbored no ambitions to rock
small-town boats or make legal waves
some 60 years ago when he moved to
Schenectady, New York, fresh out of
tech school, to take up a new job with
General Electric. He had no intentions
of preaching, either, and no great inter-
est in God. The only reason he joined
a local Presbyterian church, he admits,
was to find himself a girl.
“I didn’t find the girl, but I did find
the Lord,” he says, and his new faith
took sufficient hold on his personality
and conversation that his minister de-
cided he had the makings of a preach-
er. Clyde took the hint, moved north to
Montreal, and enrolled in pre-seminary
courses at McGill University. His faith
remained strong, and he became a
leader among the Christian students on
campus. But gradually the zeal for pro-
fessional ministry faded. He switched
back to his original ambition, engineer-
ing—and met the girl.
Ann was a McGill student from
Vermont who had grown up in church
but knew God only from afar. She had
already taken an instant shine to Clyde
when, back home during a summer
break, she made her own decision for
Christ. “The Lord just ‘zapped’ me,” she
laughs, “and I knew I was ‘zapped!’”
Back on campus that fall, Clyde be-
gan to notice her, too, and soon enough
the two graduated, married, and moved
back to the U.S. They were well along in
starting a family and building Clyde’s
career when his fellow engineers—the
ones who weren’t Christians—began
telling him the same thing his pastor
had, years before … that he should
consider going into the ministry. Clyde
took that as divine nudging, and elect-
ed to give seminary one more shot.
He and Ann sold their house,
packed up their children, loaded the
car and the truck and the U-Haul trail-
er, and headed out again for seminary.
As they pulled out for Canada, a neigh-
bor came out to wish them well on
their new careers. “We’ll pray that this
is the Lord’s will!” he called.
“It was,” Ann says, sharing a smile
with her husband. “And it’s been great.”
A half-century can go by pretty fast
when you’re investing yourself in the
lives of others. The Reeds poured
themselves into congregations and
communities of varying size in New
York, North Carolina, Arizona, Geor-
gia, and Maryland. Retirement age
eventually came and went, but fish-
ing, golf, bingo, watching TV—none of
those held much appeal for Clyde. The
only thing that really interested him
was the thing he was already doing:
sharing the Gospel.
One idea did take hold. Retiring,
he realized, might give him the free-
dom and time to be a missionary, as
well as a pastor. “We could just start
churches,” he told Ann. “That’s the
most fun.” They bought a “fifth wheel”
trailer and hit the road, trying their
hand at growing churches in Mary-
land. But the golden opportunity came
in a phone call from their daughter,
Paula, who was living with her fam-
ily in Gilbert, an Arizona town not far
from where the Reeds had ministered
years before.
“If you’re going to start another
church,” she suggested, “come here.
10 | Alliance Defending Freedom
“When your service is at 9,
[posting a sign] two hours before doesn’t do much
for you.”
– ANN REED
We’re having trou-
ble finding one we
really like.” Her
folks took her up on
the offer.
It was slow go-
ing, at first … feel-
ing their way in a
new community,
where many either
had a church home
already or weren’t
especially interested
in finding one. But
Clyde, particularly,
enjoyed the chal-
lenge. Their denomi-
nation “had nothing
out here,” he says.
“And I guess it was
advantageous for us,
because we sort of
were left on our own.
We enjoyed that.”
“It was lots of excitement—nothing
laid out for you,” Ann says. “You sort
of winged it—and he likes winging it.”
The church they began struggled
to take root. The Reeds moved their
fledgling congregation from one loca-
tion to another, as attendance ebbed
and flowed … somebody’s home, a
public-school classroom, a different
school in a more growing part of town.
Though they tried several kinds of ad-
vertising, their best turned out to be
the small signs Clyde put out at major
cross streets, directing passersby to
the latest meeting place.
“That was our main way to reach
people,” he says. The church finally
settled into more-or-less permanent
weekly residence at one particular
school, “and the growth there was the
best we’d had anywhere, mainly be-
cause of the signs.”
But the signs, as it turned out,
weren’t just pointing visitors to the
location of the church. They were also
pointing the Reeds toward a most un-
expected destiny.
“We got in trouble,” Ann says.
“We were putting them out on Sat-
urday, and we didn’t know the [city
ordinance] was that they could only
be out two hours before your ser-
vice, and they were to be down one
hour after.” The problem, of course,
was that “when your service is at 9
o’clock, two hours before doesn’t do
very much for you.”
One Sunday, retrieving his signs,
Clyde found that one of them had a
citation on it. Another was missing
—the city had confiscated it. Clyde
went down to city hall to see what the
problem was. He learned that Gilbert
had very detailed restrictions on the
kind of signs he was posting—what
size they could be, where they could
be posted, some even requiring writ-
ten permission.
Clyde was confused. He saw many
other signs posted all over town …
realty signs, signs promoting politi-
cal candidates and causes. He found
it hard to believe that all those sign
posters had been jumping through
the same bureaucratic and legal
hoops now being spelled out for him
by city officials.
In fact, they weren’t. The Town
of Gilbert, it turned out, had a differ-
ent set of rules for signs promoting
churches. The other signs the Reeds
saw throughout the community were
not nearly as restricted as to size,
number, placement, or how long they
could be posted. Why the special fuss
about church signs, they wondered.
They never got a satisfactory ex-
planation. Gilbert officials simply told
Clyde that if he continued to violate
the city’s code, he could be subject to
criminal fines, even jail time. All for
a few small signs, up for little more
than a day, telling passersby where a
church was meeting. Clyde thought it
over, and decided to take action.
“You know, we view ourselves, as
Christians, as making good citizens,”
he says. By bringing church and faith
to communities, he says, pastors like
himself “are out there helping these
cities and towns, and we don’t un-
derstand why they want to make it
difficult.” They didn’t like finding
themselves in opposition to the gov-
ernment … but they weren’t ready to
give up their rights, either. The ques-
tion was, where to turn for help?
“What you need to do is call Alliance
Defending Freedom,” a minister friend
told Clyde. The Reeds, whose church
had no money to retain a lawyer or
pursue legal action, made the call—
Alliance Defending Freedom | 11
“To see a sign is a lot easier
for me, and for a lot of people, than to get on
a computer and research.”
– IRL NOBLE, member of the Reeds’ church
12 | Alliance Defending Freedom
and were delighted to find not only that
ADF attorneys were interested in their
case, but would represent them free
of charge. The lawyers, for their part,
were impressed with the Reeds, too.
“Just really warm, loving, genuine
people to be around,” says Senior Le-
gal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco, the ADF
attorney who first contacted them.
“You’re never far away from a laugh
with Clyde, and you’re never far away
from an interesting story with Ann.”
Still, while working to help them, he at
first had no inkling that theirs was any
more than a local case about local is-
sues, to be resolved with minimal ado.
“You have certain cases in your
mind as a First Amendment attorney,”
he says. “We strategize about certain
cases that we think have a good chance
of making it to the Supreme Court, cas-
es that will advance our legal goals in
the First Amendment realm. A sign or-
dinance case wasn’t one of the ones we
were really targeting. But, you know,
God has greater plans. And the case
turned out to involve some critical First
Amendment issues.”
At first, even Gilbert officials
seemed willing to make the case go
away. Faced with the prospect of a
preliminary injunction barring them
from enforcing their sign code against
the Reeds, the town quickly offered to
amend the code. But “amending,” it
turned out, meant applying their un-
lawful free speech restrictions to more
than just religious assemblies.
“So it was, essentially, ‘We’re going
to add more people to the back of the
free speech bus,’” says Tedesco. “We
told them that wasn’t going to solve
the problem.” With that, the legal battle
was joined in earnest—and ultimately
turned into an eight-year donnybrook.
“We litigated the case hot and
heavy in the lower courts,” Tedesco
says. ADF argued for the Reeds twice
before a district court, and twice more
at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit—and lost all four times. “But
we kept fighting,” says Tedesco. “We
knew that our cause was right, and we
really felt like the law was on our side,
even though the courts, we thought,
kept getting it wrong. So that’s what
inspired us to petition the U.S. Su-
preme Court to hear the case.” On July
1, 2014, the High Court granted that
petition.
“What’s amazing about this case,”
says ADF Senior Counsel David Cort-
man, who argued on behalf of the
Reeds at the Supreme Court, “is you
look at it and, on its surface, it’s about
signs. And you think, ‘Well, who really
cares? There are too many signs out
there anyway.’ But there are so many
layers, as you unravel it … it’s not only
about their church, it’s not only about
signs, it’s about speech in all contexts
—whether you’re speaking orally, or
using a forum, or distributing leaflets,
or using signs. And the Supreme Court
is basically going to decide what tests
we should use to figure out if the gov-
ernment can discriminate against reli-
gious speech.”
Gilbert officials, Cortman says,
are “actually arguing in their brief that
they should be able to ban the Reeds’
signs because they don’t have any val-
ue … that church speech is of lesser
value than other types of speech,” such
as political, ideological, and homeown-
ers’ association signs.
“One of the arguments we’re mak-
ing is that inviting someone to church
to hear about the Gospel, is, we think,
more important than political speech,”
Cortman says. “The justices may not
agree with that, but we hope they will
agree that the government shouldn’t
get to pick and choose which speak-
ers are its favorites and which are not,
and which are of lesser value under
the First Amendment.”
“If the government can do that,
they can basically eliminate entire
ideas or viewpoints from the market-
place,” says Tedesco. “They’re small
signs, but the First Amendment stakes
are enormous.”
On January 12 of this year, Cortman
presented the Reeds’ case at the U.S.
Supreme Court. Clyde and Ann were in
the courtroom, a little agog at what all
these years of litigation had brought
them to.
“It’s still surreal,” Ann says. “And
so wonderful … the number of people,
the number of hours involved in our
case. The way the Lord orchestrated
everything. You realize that God can
pick you out of nothing, and say, ‘I’m
“It’s still surreal, and so wonderful …
the way the Lord orchestrated everything.”
– ANN REED
ADF team members and Ministry Friends line up in the rainy, predawn darkness to secure seats for the Reed hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court.
See an inspiring video of the Reeds’ story by visiting AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and
click on “Faith & Justice.”
Alliance Defending Freedom | 13
“Our signs inviting people to church are very important, yet are treated as second-class speech.”
– CLYDE REEDClyde Reed speaks to reporters on
the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.
going to use you in this way.’ It’s very
humbling.”
After the hearing, Clyde—so ac-
customed in recent years to talking to
a sprinkling of churchgoers, or a room-
ful of wandering Alzheimer’s patients
—found himself standing on the great
marble steps of the nation’s highest
court, in a freezing rain, facing the mi-
crophones and cameras of the national
media.
“This whole experience has been
shocking to me,” he told the gathered
reporters. “Our signs inviting people
to church are very important, yet are
treated as second-class speech. We
aren’t asking for special treatment; we
just want our town to stop favoring
the speech of others over ours. I pray
that the Supreme Court will affirm our
First Amendment freedoms and uphold
our church’s and others’ free speech
rights.”
On June 18, his prayer was an-
swered. The High Court ruled 9-0 in
favor of the Reeds, affirming their First
Amendment rights and freeing them
to post their small signs on the quiet
streets of Gilbert once more.
“One of the most effective ways for
churches meeting in a temporary space
to tell people where they are is to put
up these kinds of temporary signs and
advertise their services, and invite peo-
ple to come,” Tedesco says. “Clyde and
Ann have struggled for eight years be-
cause of this town’s sign code, just to
tell people where they meet. My hope is
that now they can put up more signs to
invite more people to hear the Gospel
at their church.” The Reeds see ADF as
a partner in that outreach.
“We have great admiration for
ADF,” Clyde says. “We’re working to-
gether to build the Kingdom, that Jesus
might be exalted. It’s great to find fur-
ther allies. We thank them for that.”
In truth, the long struggle to build
a church without benefit of signs or
advertising has taken its toll on the
Reeds. So has leading three services
every Sunday, often for only a hand-
ful of people. But in its way, their legal
case—and its ultimate success—have
given them new perspective, and a
sense of God using them in a different,
perhaps more important way than they
ever imagined.
After all, Clyde says, big churches
with permanent sites don’t really need
signs. Only little, impermanent ones
do. “Maybe the sign thing is part of the
reason we’ve stayed small,” he says.
“If the church had been big, the signs
would never have been an issue.”
“The greatness of God,” Ann mar-
vels, “that He would take a wee little
church like ours, and maybe make
a change for the whole country, and
churches all across our country, that
they can put out signs that will not be
stomped on, inviting people to come to
church and meet the Lord.”
“We hope that will be the result,”
Clyde says, but he is content to leave
the results of this long struggle in the
hands that brought them through it.
“All this is of God,” he says. “He bears
the fruit.”
14 | Alliance Defending Freedom
M y V i e w
WHY I LEFT PLANNED PARENTHOODIn 1991, Sue Thayer, a struggling mother living in a small, rural Iowa town, answered an ad for an entry-level assistant at a near-by Planned Parenthood facility. The job of-fered good benefits, was close to her home, and—to Sue’s mind—promised an opportu-nity to help other women.
Within a couple of months, she had been promoted to office manager, a position she held for the next 17 years. Sue did the hir-ing, firing, and training, oversaw patient re-cords and scheduling, maintained the build-ing and the books. She enjoyed the family counseling side of the business, believing she was helping women who needed help. Opposed to abortion, she took solace in the fact that abortions weren’t performed at the small facility where she worked.
But, as years passed, Sue found it harder to reconcile her conscience with the realities of Planned Parenthood’s practices. She began to question other aspects of the corporation … and to realize how much the business depends on abortions for its profits.
by Sue Thayer
Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org/InvestigateTheirPlan
to learn more about this ministry’s efforts nationwide
to expose the truth about Planned Parenthood and
preserve the sanctity of life.
Alliance Defending Freedom | 15
Planned Parenthood presents itself
as a non-profit, but it’s actually very
profit-oriented. At monthly manag-
ers’ meetings, those managing abor-
tion facilities were given quotas, and
those who didn’t meet them had to
provide a plan for increasing their
numbers.
The company is just as high-
pressured about selling birth control
pills. Their contract with drug manu-
facturers lets them buy these pills in
bulk at a big discount … say, $2.98
for one 28-day cycle’s worth. When a
woman asks for a cycle (often having
seen ads for “Free Contraception”),
Planned Parenthood sends the bill to
Medicaid—for $35. But staff members
are also urged to press the woman for
a $10 “donation” to help offset costs.
(Many, feeling guilty, pay more.)
Planned Parenthood doesn’t tell
Medicaid about these women’s con-
tributions. So the company pockets
two profits on each pill (one provided
by the woman, the other by the tax-
payers). If you multiply that by every
woman who comes into each facility
in the course of a day, you can quick-
ly see the potential for huge profits.
But they’re not big enough to suit
Planned Parenthood.
I had qualms about the pill bill-
ing, and I asked questions. But my
real wake-up call came with the an-
nouncement at one of our monthly
managers’ meetings that all the facili-
ties—including mine—would soon be
offering something called “webcam
abortions.”
Webcam abortions work like this.
A woman comes in for a pregnancy
test. If it comes out positive, staff
members are instructed to tell her,
“We can take care of that for you to-
day—in and out in 45 minutes.” (Iowa
has no waiting period for abortions.)
If the woman agrees, she’s shown into
a room where an entry-level staffer
—not a doctor, not a nurse—does a
transvaginal ultrasound. The images
are scanned to a doctor at a remote
location. If he decides
that the baby in the
womb is 70 days old
or younger, and the
woman wants the
abortion, he pushes
a button.
The button pops open a drawer
in the exam room; inside are two sets
of pills. The first she takes immedi-
ately; it chemically kills the baby. The
second—taken at home a day later
—initiates contractions to eject the
dead baby from her body.
The woman is given a card with
an 800 number on it, and told that
if anything goes wrong, she can call
and talk to a nurse. She isn’t told that
the nurse will simply refer her to the
nearest ER—and suggest that, rather
than mention the pills, she just say
that she’s having a miscarriage.
Planned Parenthood charges
these women the same fee for a
webcam abortion that they’d pay for
seeing a doctor face-to-face. But since
one doctor, sitting at a desk, can han-
dle all these brief conversations with
patients in several states—no nurse,
no crash cart, no travel expenses—
the company can cut costs to the
bone. Managers are urged to aggres-
sively sell as many women as possible
on these low-cost, high-profit chemi-
cal abortions—no matter the danger
to the women.
In 2013, Iowa’s Board of Medi-
cine passed a regulation requiring
that a doctor perform a physical pre-
examination of any abortion patient,
be on hand in person when abortion
drugs are given, and do a follow-up
exam after the abortion. But the Iowa
Supreme Court (urged on by Planned
Parenthood) issued an injunction al-
lowing the company to ignore those
directives while the legality of the
regulation is debated in the courts.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood at-
torneys continue to make it clear that
the company’s real concern is its bot-
tom line, not women’s health.
I was the proverbial frog in the ket-
tle who finally realized the water was
boiling. It wasn’t until Planned Par-
enthood was about to begin training
me in how to facilitate webcam abor-
tions that I realized, “I can’t do this.”
I called our local Right to Life office,
and told them all about the webcam
strategy. Surely they could do some-
thing that would block these abor-
tions from happening.
The Iowa Right to Life people
found it hard to believe the webcam
idea was for real, but I finally con-
vinced them enough that they put
me in touch with Alliance Defending
Freedom. An ADF attorney came to
Des Moines to meet me. I was ner-
vous: I’d never thought of “Christian”
and “attorney” in the same sentence
before. But I found the ADF team to
be made up of godly people who tru-
ly stood for life, and would help me
stand up for it, too. They’ve been an
inspiration to me.
I left Planned Parenthood in
2008. They asked me to sign a paper
promising never to tell what I knew of
the inside workings of the company.
But God put it on my heart not to do
that. Instead, I became an active part
of 40 Days for Life, praying for the
closure of the clinic I once managed.
Praise God, it’s now closed. We hope
to replace it with a Pregnancy Help
Center.
God continues to give me op-
portunities to speak out against the
evils of abortion, and about Planned
Parenthood’s disregard for the
health and safety of women. If, in
His mercy, He can use me to make a
difference, think how much more He
might use you.
Managers are urged to aggressively sell as many women as possible on these low-cost, high-profit chemical abortions—no matter the danger to the women.
JUDICIARY BLOCKS OBAMACARE MANDATE Vol. V, Iss. 3
16 | Alliance Defending Freedom
A l l i a n c e P r o f i l e
In college, Chuck LiMandri’s career
aptitude test said he was most suited
for ministry, social work, or the law.
“Doing religious liberty work kind of
wraps up all three,” he says with a
laugh. “So I’m fulfilling my destiny.”
LiMandri’s destiny also primed
him to become one of Alliance Defend-
ing Freedom’s most dependable allies
in defending the three key issues both
care deeply about: life, marriage and
family, and religious freedom.
“They’re all integrally related,” he
says. “You cannot have a loss of re-
spect for marriage without having a
loss of respect for life. And that’s go-
ing to cause a problem with religious
liberty, for people who are bucking
against the [cultural] trend, to try and
preserve marriage and life.”
Something of a legal Renaissance
man, the San Diego native defended
the cross on that city’s Mount Soledad
against ACLU efforts to remove it for
more than a decade, took a leading
role in the defense of Proposition 8 in
California, and successfully defended
Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice” to learn how ADF and its allies are
working to defend life, marriage and family, and religious freedom.
(with the help of ADF attorneys) four San Diego firefighters forced to participate
in a homosexual pride parade. (In the course of those and many other cases,
LiMandri has contributed over $2 million worth of pro bono service.) He’s also
represented Priests for Life and Legatus (a group of Catholic business leaders) in
litigation against the HHS abortion pill mandate.
The breadth, depth, and generosity of LiMandri’s legal contributions have
brought him not only the appreciation of his ADF allies but also the ministry’s
2015 Service Award honoring outstanding pro bono work. He says that, as a civil
lawyer, he finds joy in working alongside fellow Christians for something bigger
than a mere financial settlement.
“These disputes that I work on with ADF transcend the issue of money, be-
cause they’re about ideas and values that define our culture and determine the
course of our nation and, to a large extent, the future of our children and grand-
children.”
“ADF is a very classy group,” he adds. “Everything they do is first-rate. I was
trained, in big law firms, that excellence is the standard—and that’s how ADF
practices.” But more important, he says, “is the spirit of fellowship, and sense of
mission and purpose and higher calling ... that we’re not just serving our clients,
but in a very real sense, serving our Lord.”
PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS Vol. VII, Iss. 1
Allied Attorney Chuck LiMandri has been instrumental in defending the Mount Soledad cross in San Diego.
On March 16, a federal dis-
trict court issued a permanent
injunction in favor of the New-
land family, owners of Hercules
Industries—a final legal victory
for the first family business in
the nation to challenge the
Obama administration’s abor-
tion pill mandate.
Alliance Defending Freedom
attorneys represented the New-
lands in their opposition to the
mandate, which compels employ-
ers, regardless of their religious
convictions, to provide insurance
coverage for abortion-inducing
drugs, sterilization, and contra-
ception under threat of heavy
financial penalties through the
Internal Revenue Service.
The federal court’s opinion
rejected the Obama administra-
tion’s argument that the admin-
istration must sign off on the
injunction before the court can
issue it, saying, “This proposed
arrogation of authority offends
the very structure of our gov-
ernment, and ignores the ex-
clusive jurisdictional author-
ity of the United States District
Court to provide such relief.”
Alliance Defending Freedom | 17
One of the most volatile issues of 2015 has
been the media uproar over efforts by several
states to implement Religious Freedom Resto-
ration Act (RFRA) laws. Some things to know:
• In situations where a law forces someone to
take an action that conflicts with his faith,
RFRAs provide courts with a legal test for
balancing the government’s interest in its
own law with a person of faith’s determina-
tion not to violate his conscience.
• A federal RFRA was signed into law in
1993, and 21 states have enacted similar
laws since then. President Obama, while a
member of the Illinois legislature, voted in
favor of the RFRA bill that passed there in
1998.
• Much of the current political animosity
against RFRA is being stirred by advocates
of same-sex marriage, who oppose the bills
based on their potential to shield Chris-
tian business owners from government-
enforced support for same-sex marriage.
“RFRA doesn’t pick winners and losers,” says
ADF Senior Counsel Austin R. Nimocks. “It
simply ensures that freedom gets a fair hear-
ing in court when government intrudes on it.
How can anyone be opposed to that?”
On April 28, Alliance Defend-
ing Freedom attorneys appealed
to the Washington Supreme
Court to hear the case of floral
artist Barronelle Stutzman of
Richland, who was sued by the
state’s attorney general and a
same-sex couple for politely de-
clining to create floral arrange-
ments for a same-sex ceremony,
based on her Christian beliefs.
In February, a judge ruled
that Stutzman could be held
personally liable for damages
and attorneys’ fees and that—
despite her faith convictions
—she must provide full
wedding support for same-
sex ceremonies. When the
attorney general offered to
drop his lawsuit if she would
pay $2,001 and give up her
religious freedom, Stutzman
replied that her stand was
“about freedom, not money. I
certainly don’t relish the idea of
losing my business, my home,
and everything else that your
lawsuit threatens to take from
my family, but my freedom to
honor God in doing what I do
best is more important.”
JUDICIARY BLOCKS OBAMACARE MANDATE Vol. V, Iss. 3
U p d a t e s
WHAT RFRA IS REALLY ABOUT
I n T h e N e w s
PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS Vol. VII, Iss. 1
So often, the big speeches we hear
from our nation’s leaders—the in-
augurals, the convention keynotes,
the State of the Unions—seem less
about getting to the bottom of the
problems facing the country than
about whatever is top-of-mind with
the congressman, the candidate, the
man-in-charge at the moment. We
tune in longing to hear a word of
vision, candor, wisdom … and get
bromides, platitudes, the party line.
For Christians, in particular,
the dominant events of recent
months—the deadly attacks on be-
lievers overseas, the extraordinari-
ly aggressive censure of people of
faith in the U.S.—leave us longing
for a “state of the union” that would
honestly address the real source of
growing disunion in America ... the
rapid erosion of religious freedom.
What we would give, so many of us,
to hear something clear and reso-
nant and true. Something like …
All about us rage undeclared wars
—military and economic. All about
us grow more deadly armaments—
military and economic. All about us
are threats of new aggression—mili-
tary and economic.
Storms from abroad directly
challenge three institutions indis-
pensable to Americans, now as al-
ways. The first is religion. It is the
source of the other two—democracy
and international good faith.
Religion, by teaching man
his relationship to God, gives the
individual a sense of his own dignity
and teaches him to respect himself
by respecting his neighbors.
Democracy, the practice of self-
government, is a covenant among
free men to respect the rights and
liberties of their fellows.
International good faith, a sister
of democracy, springs from the will
of civilized nations of men to respect
the rights and liberties of other na-
tions of men.
In a modern civilization, all
three—religion, democracy and in-
ternational good faith—complement
and support each other.
Where freedom of religion has
been attacked, the attack has come
from sources opposed to democracy.
Where democracy has been over-
thrown, the spirit of free worship
has disappeared. And where religion
and democracy have vanished, good
faith and reason in international af-
fairs have given way to strident am-
bition and brute force.
An ordering of society which rel-
egates religion, democracy and good
faith among nations to the back-
ground can find no place within it
for the ideals of the Prince of Peace.
The United States rejects such an or-
dering, and retains its ancient faith.
There comes a time in the af-
fairs of men when they must prepare
to defend, not their homes alone, but
the tenets of faith and humanity on
which their churches, their govern-
ments, and their very civilization
are founded. The defense of religion,
of democracy, and of good faith
among nations is all the same fight.
To save one we must now make up
our minds to save all.
Actually, I didn’t have to make
that up. A great leader did see
the situation that clearly, and un-
derstood the eternal threat all too
well. Franklin Roosevelt shared
those words in his State of the
Union speech of January 1939, on
the verge of World War II. And a
great people responded with the
supreme effort and extraordinary
sacrifices that earned their reputa-
tion as “the greatest generation.”
Faced with challenges no less
daunting, it falls to us to summon
the same courage and determina-
tion in facing down the enemies
of religious freedom—foreign and
domestic—who, in threatening the
liberty of people of faith, threaten
all people … and, indeed, the very
idea of America. Without the free-
dom to believe, and to live out
our beliefs, we have nothing to of-
fer the world, or each other. With
those freedoms, we can face any-
thing else arrayed against us.
Seventy-six years later, I still
see the dangers FDR saw. And pray
that, as Americans, we will once
more rise to the challenge.
Gary McCaleb is chief solicitor
and senior vice president of
Strategy Implementation for
Alliance Defending Freedom.
Gary McCaleb
18 | Alliance Defending Freedom
O p i n i o n
Now Is The Time For All Good Men …
Alliance Defending Freedom | 19
The defense of religion, of democracy, and of good faith among nations is all the same fight. To save one we must now make up our minds to save all.
Pass on a legacy of freedom. Please contact Lisa Reschetnikow at 800-835-5233 or [email protected] to discuss your legacy giving.
TODAY’S PLAN
TOMORROW’S PROMISE
Alliance Defending Freedom is a Christ-centered
organization, the Light burning on the hill protecting
our Christian values, now and into the future, through prayer, witnessing, and deeds that honor God and country!
— Roger and Ramona R.