Jeremy Tedescp, senior vp corporate engagement, Alliance Defending Freedom, left, and Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center | ADFLegal.org / Splcenter.org
Jeremy Tedescp, senior vp corporate engagement, Alliance Defending Freedom, left, and Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center | ADFLegal.org / Splcenter.org
A spokesperson for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defending Freedom (AD) criticized The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) after the latter listed ADF in its “Year In Hate and Extremism 2022” report.
“Alliance Defending Freedom exists to advance the God-given right to live and speak the truth,” Jeremy Tedesco, ADF’s senior vice president of corporate engagement, told NE Valley Times. “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a thoroughly discredited, blatantly partisan activist outfit known for sexism, racism, and condoning domestic terrorism.”
“No one should be listening to the SPLC,” he said. “It is preposterous to now see the SPLC target moms and dads who simply want to have a voice at school board meetings—this is an organization that has lost its way entirely.”
The SPLC says its report includes “1225 hate and anti-government groups across the U.S.,” an increase from 733 groups listed in the SPLC’s 2021 report.
ADF’s Web site says the organization “is the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.”
NW Valley Times reported last month that ADF successfully argued in federal district court on behalf of Arizona Christian University in a lawsuit against Washington Elementary School District (WESD), located in the West Valley. WESD settled the lawsuit, which was filed after the district’s governing board ended a student teaching internship contract with Arizona Christian University (ACU) over concerns of the university’s “biblically informed values.”
This is not the first time SPLC has included ADF in its report.
On February 4, 2021, The Federalist’s Gabe Kaminsky wrote that, “The SPLC is notorious nowadays for identifying a whole swath of right-leaning organizations as hate groups for simply supporting conservative causes. The Family Research Council, Ruth Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom are among those blackballed for pushing traditional family values, as well as non-woke views concerning gender and sexuality.”
ADF was founded in 1993, and named Kristen Waggoner as CEO in 2022, succeeding Michale Farris. Waggoner has worked with the organization since 2013, when she was hired by the ADF’s founding CEO, Alan Sears. Waggoner also serves as the organization’s general counsel.
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