These victories have been on behalf of pastors, churches, religious organizations, college students, family-owned businesses, pro-life pregnancy centers, and a town council. Since 2011, ADF has represented parties in 15 victories at the Supreme Court. ADF will ask the Court to affirm the right of all Americans to speak or stay silent consistent with their deepest beliefs without fear of government punishment.ĪDF has played various roles in 74 Supreme Court victories. Elenis, a case that should answer whether the government can force artists to promote messages that contradict their faith. This December, ADF will be back at the U.S. But because the free-exercise violation was so clear in Masterpiece Cakeshop, the Court left an important speech question unanswered. It protects the free-exercise right of all Americans to live and work according to their faith without fear of government hostility or discrimination. The government shouldn’t decide those things for us.ĪDF’s recent 7-2 Supreme Court victory in Masterpiece Cakeshop helps secure this freedom. The principle at stake in these cases is that we all have a line and that everyone should decide for themselves what messages to speak and what art to create. Sure, others may have different views and decide that they can in good conscience participate in that celebration. One such case is Arlene’s Flowers, which involved Barronelle Stutzman, a floral artist who faithfully served a client for nearly a decade but was punished by the government when she politely declined to create custom floral arrangements for his same-sex wedding and referred him to three other florists nearby. Our clients’ decisions about whether to create expression or participate in sacred ceremonies always focus on what the message is, not who the person is requesting it. Sometimes we represent people who share these beliefs and simply want the freedom to participate in society without fear that the government will punish them for their views or their speech on these topics. Thankfully, the Supreme Court has recognized that this belief about marriage is held by reasonable people, based on decent and honorable religious and philosophical premises, and constitutionally protected. Our faith also instructs us that God created man and woman as complementary equals and that sex is binary and biologically determined. Consistent with all Abrahamic faiths, ADF believes that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Today, the government has begun legislating in areas that violate core tenets of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths. Sometimes that means listening to and tolerating viewpoints with which we vehemently disagree.įor many years, religious freedom cases in the United States focused mostly on protecting certain minority religious beliefs. A free and tolerant society requires all of us to extend the same constitutional freedoms to others that we ourselves want. These guarantees cannot depend on cultural popularity or political power. It's rooted in human dignity and the constitutional principle that government should have limited power over its citizens. Religious freedom ensures that every person has the right to explore life’s deepest questions and to live out one’s religious convictions in the public square, just as in the home or a place of worship.
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