In yesterday's RI marriage equality hearing, ADF lobbied against gay rights for the second time in two weeks — despite claims to IRS that it doesn't lobby

That Kellie Fiedorek of the ADF really gets around!
     Yesterday, in Rhode Island, her more fallacious arguments got the pushback they didn't get in Lincoln, Nebraska last week.
     One dubious and oft-repeated contention was that the religious freedom of Christians is violated — even in businesses that are not religious in nature — when they are "forced" to obey the same public accommodations laws in respect of gay people that gay people must obey when accommodating bigoted, but legally class-protected Christers. This rationale was offered by Fiedorek in a Rhode Island hearing about marriage equality, not public accommodations.
     Fiedorek also made the amusing argument that opposing marriage equality in Rhode Island would somehow help gay bars achieve the freedom of not having to hire heterosexuals — which only makes sense if you buy into her specious conflation of public accommodations laws with marriage equality laws.
     At least, in Rhode Island, she didn't get away unscathed with the ADF fiction about Catholic Charities being forced out of the adoption business in Massachusetts by the state, a particularly laughable ADF lie, since the Mormon Church still orchestrates adoptions in Massachusetts, although they are no longer allowed do so in their discriminatory way with taxpayer money.
     Two Rhode Island legislators called Fiedorek on her falsehoods and irrelevant comparisons. Unfortunately none in Nebraska did.
     Fiedorek's organization has an annual budget approaching $40 million and a web site which helpfully explains why Charity Navigator lowered ADF's rating and why ADF doesn't belong to the Better Business Bureau.
     In its form 990s, the ADF has consistently maintained (to the IRS) that it does not engage in substantial lobbying. Below is a copy of ADF's 2010 form 990 for its fiscal year July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011.
     Like many other ADF misrepresentations, its web site also offers a link to download the organization's Form 990 for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012. But if you click on ADF's link, you don't get that — what you get instead (as of this writing) is the form 990 for the fiscal year ending in 2011.
     In 2012 in Lincoln, NE, ADF lobbied against LB912; in Colorado in 2013 it lobbied against civil unions; in Lincoln, NE, again last week, it lobbied against LB485 (a statewide LGBT antibias ordinance) and yesterday in Rhode Island the ADF lobbied against marriage equality.

Kellie Fiedorek... in Nebraska:



Kellie Fiedorek... in Rhode Island: