US Attorney General to rally with anti-LGBT hate group behind Christian baker case
Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions is attending a rally held by the hate group seeking to undermine LGBT rights protections at the Supreme Court.
Trump’s legal chief Jeff Sessions today announced that he would be attending a summit held by Alliance Defending Freedom, a hardline evangelical law firm which battles against LGBT discrimination protections.
ADF chief Mike Farris has previously said the Trump administration provides a “window of opportunity” for push-back against LGBT reforms.
True to his promise, a case from the ADF is shortly set to head to the US Supreme Court.
The court is taking up the case of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. A negative ruling could have a chilling effect on LGBT rights protections country-wide, and equality activists fear it may end up creating a license for homophobic discrimination.
Though the ADF is framing the baker case around a religious objection to same-sex marriage, their other cases show a much wider support for anti-LGBT discrimination.
For instance, they have sued a school district over a transgender non-discrimination policy, and defended a T-shirt printer who refused an order from a Pride celebration.
Sessions will attend the ADF’s summit in California, delivering a speech that will be closed to the press.
Sessions’ heartfelt engagement with the ADF appears to be a massive conflict of interest, given the President recently tasked him with heading a supposed ‘review’ of religious liberty protections.
Earlier this year Trump signed an order tasking Sessions with “issuing guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law”.
Draft plans leaked from inside the White House previously included protections for people who discriminate based on “the belief that marriage is or should be recognised as the union of one man and one woman”.
Sessions is a strongly anti-LGBT former Republican Senator who co-sponsored the so-called ‘First Amendment Defence Act’.
His bill would have prevented the federal government from taking action against a person “on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman”.
The ADF recently filed a lawsuit against a school district’s pro-transgender policy.
The law firm claimed the trans-inclusive bathroom policy constitutes sexual harassment and a privacy violation.
ADF’s Legal Counsel Kellie Fiedorek said: “Our laws and customs have long recognised that we shouldn’t have to undress in front of persons of the opposite sex.
“But now some schools are forcing our children into giving up their privacy rights.”
