Faith & Justice: Vital Signs

Volume VIII, Issue 2

VITAL SIGNS

One tiny church prompts a Supreme Court debate on whether some speech is more valuable than others

CONTENTS

Volume VIII, Issue 2

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).

Jonathan Lopez found few supporters when he challenged an abusive professor on his college campus.

Cover

4 HOW CHURCHES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS BENEFIT OUR CITIES

Story:

“Behind this policy, there is an agenda. And I think that the church in America needs to wake up.”

8 VITAL SIGNS

6 ADF INTERNATIONAL SEES GROWING SUCCESS

“The greatness of God, that He would take a wee little church like ours, and maybe make a change for the whole country.”

@AllianceDefends

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.”

— Ann Reed —

Alliance Defending Freedom

“Our objectives are the same internationally as they are in the United States … to keep the door open for the Gospel.”

www.AllianceDefendingFreedom.org

Editor

Chuck Bolte

Alliance Defending Freedom

Senior Writer

[Phone] 800-835-5233

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.

[Fax] 480-444-0025

©2015, Alliance Defending Freedom. All rights reserved.

Gary McCaleb, Sue Thayer, Chris Potts, Alan Sears

15100 N. 90th Street Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Chris Potts

Art Director/Photography Bruce Ellefson

Contributors

Minutes With Alan It’s a heartbreaking scene, and sadly, one most people of faith are called to experience, at one point or another. 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, considerate. His loved ones shared delightful stories of moments 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 beautifully 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, historic ideals—reforming the legal system, turning back Roe v. Wade, restoring our society’s understanding of marriage 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.

Remembering Why

by Alan Sears, President, CEO and General Counsel

Watch a special message from Alan.

Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice.”

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On The Square

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 Defending Freedom attorneys and their allies (including many New York civic and religious leaders) 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 leaders in support of Bronx Household is Dr. Fernando 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 Juvenile Justice, and co-chaired both the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the Gun Violence Task Force. He is actively pressing state legislators to pass a measure ensuring the right of New York churches to hold worship services in city facilities.

Then New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio and Councilman Fernando 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.

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How Churches In Public Schools Benefit Our Cities Q&A

with

Bronx Councilman Fernando Cabrera

What is New York City losing by not allowing churches to hold worship services in public schools?

Are you confident of Mayor de Blasio’s support for the churches’ position?

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 services … Celebrate Recovery groups, working with young people, after-school programs, educational programs, senior programs. We’re talking about millions upon millions 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 countless [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.

We’ve been in talks with the mayor’s staff, and they’ve been assuring me that the city is going to continue 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

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 programs, 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 services]. 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 policy, 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?

The right to worship movement has brought churches to work together like I’ve never seen before in New York City. 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 worship movement, has brought churches to work together like I’ve never seen before in New York City.

Whatever happens in New York City, for whatevIf it wasn’t for ADF, we would have been history. er reason, usually is replicated and copied all around Without them, public schools would the world, and particularly in the U.S. have been closed and shut down to Policies often determine behavior, every church. ADF came to our resand the message and the behavior of cue and right now, we have all of our the city says, “Religious people canchurches being able to rent from pubnot have the same kind of freedoms Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org lic schools. The fight continues, and that other people have in terms of beand click on “Faith & Justice” for the ADF is there to help us. We couldn’t ing able to use public space, namely latest news on Bronx Household of do it without them. public schools [for worship services].”

Faith and to learn more of what

ADF is doing to protect the religious freedom of all Americans.

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Special Feature

ADF International Sees Growing Success It’s

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

Visit AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice” to learn more about the work of ADF International.

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been 10 years since Alliance Defending 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 ministry’s defense of Pastor Green at the Supreme 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 involvement in overseas legal actions—actions that have, “through God’s own providence and design,” says Benjamin W. Bull, executive director of ADF International, had farreaching 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 internationally as they are in the United States,” Bull says, “to keep the door open for the Gospel, to defend religious liberty, life,

marriage and family, and to protect the sovereignty of nations. The tactics and strategies are different, 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 international 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 Circuit, 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 marriage 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 potential 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 property, 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 European community and simultaneously suppress religious freedom. Now we’re on the verge of getting 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 classrooms—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-

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.

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 judgment 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 European 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. Ireland], 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 opportunities, they want to come alongside and be a part of it.”

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Vital Signs

One tiny church prompts a Supreme Court debate on whether some speech is more valuable than others

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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 parking 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 Chris Potts —

surprised Clyde and Ann in a late-in-life spotlight, and raised far-reaching questions at the U.S. Supreme Court about freedom of speech for all Americans.

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 began 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 elected 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 trailer, and headed out again for seminary.

As they pulled out for Canada, a neighbor 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.”

Clyde harbored no ambitions to rock

A half-century can go by pretty fast

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 interest 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 decided he had the makings of a preacher. 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 professional ministry faded. He switched back to his original ambition, engineering—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

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, Georgia, and Maryland. Retirement age eventually came and went, but fishing, 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 freedom 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 Maryland. But the golden opportunity came in a phone call from their daughter, Paula, who was living with her family 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.

“When your service is at 9, [posting a sign] two hours before doesn’t do much for you.”

– ANN REED

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 finish here in time to reload the car and head over to a nearby senior living center for a second, late-morning service. 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 Sunday 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 somehow isn’t enough for this town’s leading administrators, whose curious determination to make the Reeds all but invisible has inadvertently drawn national attention to their community,

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We’re having trouble finding one we really like.”

Her folks took her up on the offer.

It was slow going, at first … feeling 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 challenge. Their denomination “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 location 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 advertising, 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 because 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 unexpected destiny.

“We

got in trouble,” Ann says.

“We were putting them out on Saturday, and we didn’t know the [city

“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 Reed s’ chur ch

ordinance] was that they could only be out two hours before your service, 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 written permission.

Clyde was confused. He saw many other signs posted all over town … realty signs, signs promoting political 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 different 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 explanation. 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 understand why they want to make it difficult.” They didn’t like finding themselves in opposition to the government … but they weren’t ready to give up their rights, either. The question 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

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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 Legal 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

from enforcing their sign code against the Reeds, the town quickly offered to amend the code. But “amending,” it turned out, meant applying their unlawful 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

“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. more than a local case about local issues, 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, cases that will advance our legal goals in the First Amendment realm. A sign ordinance 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

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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. Supreme 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 government can discriminate against religious 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 value … that church speech is of lesser value than other types of speech,” such as political, ideological, and homeowners’ association signs.

“One of the arguments we’re making 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 speakers 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 marketplace,” 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

“Our signs inviting people to church are very important, yet are treated as second-class speech.”

– CLYDE REED

going to use you in this way.’ It’s very humbling.”

After the hearing, Clyde—so accustomed in recent years to talking to a sprinkling of churchgoers, or a roomful 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 microphones 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 answered. 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.

See an inspiring video of the Reeds’ story by visiting AllianceDefendingFreedom.org and click on “Faith & Justice.”

“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 people to come,” Tedesco says. “Clyde and Ann have struggled for eight years because 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 together to build the Kingdom, that Jesus might be exalted. It’s great to find further 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

Clyde Reed speaks to reporters on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Reeds. So has leading three services every Sunday, often for only a handful 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 marvels, “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.”

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My View

WHY I LEFT PLANNED PARENTHOOD

by Sue Thayer

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In 1991, Sue Thayer, a struggling mother

living in a small, rural Iowa town, answered an ad for an entry-level assistant at a nearby Planned Parenthood facility. The job offered good benefits, was close to her home, and—to Sue’s mind—promised an opportunity 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 hiring, firing, and training, oversaw patient records and scheduling, maintained the building 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.

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.

Planned Parenthood presents itself as a non-profit, but it’s actually very profit-oriented. At monthly managers’ meetings, those managing abortion 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 highpressured about selling birth control pills. Their contract with drug manufacturers 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 contributions. So the company pockets two profits on each pill (one provided by the woman, the other by the taxpayers). If you multiply that by every woman who comes into each facility in the course of a day, you can quickly see the potential for huge profits.

But they’re not big enough to suit Planned Parenthood.

I

had qualms about the pill billing, and I asked questions. But my real wake-up call came with the announcement at one of our monthly managers’ meetings that all the facilities—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 today—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

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.

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 immediately; 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 handle 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 aggressively sell as many women as possible on these low-cost, high-profit chemical abortions—no matter the danger to the women.

In 2013, Iowa’s Board of Medicine passed a regulation requiring that a doctor perform a physical preexamination 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 allowing the company to ignore those directives while the legality of the regulation is debated in the courts.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood attorneys continue to make it clear that the company’s real concern is its bottom line, not women’s health.

I was the proverbial frog in the kettle who finally realized the water was boiling. It wasn’t until Planned Parenthood was about to begin training me in how to facilitate webcam abortions 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 something that would block these abortions from happening.

The Iowa Right to Life people found it hard to believe the webcam idea was for real, but I finally convinced them enough that they put me in touch with Alliance Defending Freedom. An ADF attorney came to Des Moines to meet me. I was nervous: 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 truly 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 opportunities 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.

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Alliance Profile 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 Defending 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 respect for marriage without having a loss of respect for life. And that’s going 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

(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, because 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 grandchildren.”

“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.”

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.

Allied Attorney Chuck LiMandri has been instrumental in defending the Mount Soledad cross in San Diego.

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Updates

In The News

PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS

On April 28, Alliance Defending 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 declining to create floral arrangements for a same-sex ceremony,

Vol. VII, Iss. 1

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 samesex 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.”

WHAT RFRA IS REALLY ABOUT One of the most volatile issues of 2015 has been the media uproar over efforts by several states to implement Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) laws. Some things to know:

• In situations where a law forces someone to

JUDICIARY BLOCKS OBAMACARE MANDATE

Vol. V, Iss. 3

On

March 16, a federal district court issued a permanent injunction in favor of the Newland family, owners of Hercules Industries—a final legal victory for the first family business in the nation to challenge the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represented the Newlands in their opposition to the mandate, which compels employers, regardless of their religious convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties through the Internal Revenue Service.

The federal court’s opinion rejected the Obama administra-

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 determination 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

tion’s argument that the administration must sign off on the injunction before the court can issue it, saying, “This proposed arrogation of authority offends the very structure of our government, and ignores the exclusive jurisdictional authority of the United States District Court to provide such relief.”

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 Christian business owners from governmentenforced 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 hearing in court when government intrudes on it.

How can anyone be opposed to that?”

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Opinion

Gary McCaleb

Now Is The Time For All Good Men …

So often, the big speeches we hear from our nation’s leaders—the inaugurals, 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 believers overseas, the extraordinarily 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 resonant and true. Something like …

A ll 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—military and economic.

Storms from abroad directly challenge three institutions indispensable to Americans, now as always. 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

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individual a sense of his own dignity and teaches him to respect himself by respecting his neighbors.

Democracy, the practice of selfgovernment, 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 nations of men.

In a modern civilization, all three—religion, democracy and international 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 overthrown, the spirit of free worship has disappeared. And where religion and democracy have vanished, good faith and reason in international affairs have given way to strident ambition and brute force.

An ordering of society which relegates religion, democracy and good faith among nations to the background can find no place within it for the ideals of the Prince of Peace.

The United States rejects such an ordering, and retains its ancient faith.

There comes a time in the affairs of men when they must prepare to defend, not their homes alone, but the tenets of faith and humanity on which their churches, their governments, 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.

A ctually,

I didn’t have to make that up. A great leader did see the situation that clearly, and understood 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 reputation as “the greatest generation.”

Faced with challenges no less daunting, it falls to us to summon the same courage and determination 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 freedom to believe, and to live out our beliefs, we have nothing to offer the world, or each other. With those freedoms, we can face anything 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.

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.

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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.

Pass on a legacy of freedom. Please contact Lisa Reschetnikow at 800-835-5233 or LisaR@AllianceDefendingFreedom.org to discuss your legacy giving.