Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions is working with an anti-LGBT hate group
Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Win McNamee/Getty)
Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions is working with an anti-LGBT hate group.
Sessions, a hardline opponent of LGBT rights, has worked over the past few weeks to undermine protections for LGBT people across the federal government, in a series of decisions reversing Obama administration guidance.
He issued a directive last week protecting “the right to perform or abstain from performing certain physical acts in accordance with one’s beliefs”, granting an unlimited license to discriminate against LGBT people based on religion.
Under his leadership, the Justice Department has rolled back civil rights protections for transgender people, and has also made an uninvited intervention into a discrimination case this year to argue against discrimination protections for gay employees.
But it has now emerged that his actions were taken after extensive consultation with Alliance Defending Freedom, a listed anti-LGBT hate group that has lobbied to undermine LGBT rights across the US.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
According to ABC, ADF chief Michael Farris confirmed that Sessions had repeatedly met with the group while “seeking suggestions regarding the areas of federal protection for religious liberty most in need of clarification or guidance.”
In turn, the ADF has poured glowing praise over Sessions of Trump over their actions in recent weeks.
Farris said: “I commend the president for taking another step to honor his campaign promise to make religious liberty his ‘first priority’ by directing the Department of Justice to issue this guidance, which simply directs the federal government to adhere to its legal and constitutional obligation to respect existing religious freedom protections.
The Southern Poverty Law Center classes the ADF as an anti-LGBT hate group due to its repeated deployment of homophobic propaganda and anti-LGBT work.
(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
The ADF has also allegedly pressured countries around the world to keep sodomy laws banning gay sex.
The ADF has framed much of its work in the US around a religious objection to same-sex marriage, but its lobbying work shows a much wider support for licensing 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.
The ADF has also battled adoption rights, fought against LGBT people serving openly in the U.S. military, and involved itself in litigation that would continue to criminalise sex between consenting gay or lesbian adults around the world.
The group also offers free legal support for anyone who has been fired for being homophobic.
The ADF is currently behind a Supreme Court case seeking to create a Constitutional license to undermine discrimination protections for LGBT people.
