UNMC LGBT bias survey called biased by Alliance Defense Fund in attack on proposed Omaha law; ADF got $9,321,592 from 3 donors it won't identify; $250,000 from Omaha couple

In advance of today's city council vote, the following ad ran on Omaha broadcast TV:


Equal Employment Commercial from Yay, You Did It on Vimeo. Produced by Mike Battershell, shot/edited by django g-s; Music: "From Stardust to Sentience" by High Places (www.myspace.com/hellohighplaces)

Little noticed in endless reports about church actions regarding Ben Gray's proposal to add LGBT protection to Omaha's code has been a quiet, determined, multipronged push to kill LGBT civil rights in Nebraska by the well funded, ultra-right wing Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF is a 503 (c) (3) corporation which got $9,321,592 from just three anonymous donors in 2010, according to its latest 990 form (scroll down to page 18.)



Last week the ADF submitted a one-page, 12-point "critique" via Omaha attorney John Chatelaine (see above video) which you may read below on page 28. The first accusation made by ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione was, "Probably the survey was done with the intent to support the ordinance."

A study was conducted by the University of Nebraska Medical school... and a friend of mine, Byrone Babione,  who is the senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, has written a critique of this study and I will share that with you... but basically the scientific requirements for a fair study were not complied with, in Mr. Babione's opinion. — Attorney John Chatelaine to Omaha City Council, 3/6/2012 

A much longer screed by the ADF on why Omaha's gay citizens shouldn't have the same protection extended in every city, town and village in Iowa sprawls across 15 pages of mostly boilerplate, starting on page 31.

Docs rec'd by Omaha City Clerk from opponents of LGBT protection ordinance

Alliance Defense Fund efforts to make sure that gay Omahans have no legal recourse in discrimination cases have been buoyed locally by over $200,000 in financial support over the years by the Bill and Berniece Grewcock Foundation. Grewcock is a multimillionaire former executive of Peter Kiewit and a donor to many radical right-wing groups, including the Family Research Council, a group so virulently (and dishonestly) antigay that it has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Grewcocks gave the ADF at least $120,000 through 2006 and another $100,000 in 2008.

Below is a particularly nasty and baseless attack by the Grewcock-funded ADF on the ACLU's Don't Filter Me campaign, which has sued school districts on behalf of gay students who are denied access to nonporn gay websites like the Trevor Project or the It Gets Better project by school districts which unfairly allow access to nonporn antigay websites such as those purporting to be able to cure homosexuality.

False, gutter-level ADF attack on the ACLU. You can read the truth here.

The ADF even tried to short-circuit Omaha's ability to decide the issue itself — via a state law, LB912, similar to one written in Tennessee by the ADF, which voided Nashville's LGBT protection ordinance. LB912, introduced by State Senator Beau McCoy of Elkhorn, appears to have died quickly in the Judiciary Committee. You can see Babione's testimony urging its passage below. Incidentally, in its 2010 filings, the ADF told the IRS it did no political lobbying. Presumably it will not make the same claim about its activities in 2012. Or 2011, considering its actions in Tennessee.