Alia Beard Rau

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Southern Poverty Law Center has for the first time included the Scottsdale-based Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom on its annual census of hate groups.

That brings Arizona's total number of hate groups, according to the national organization, to 18. Arizona has the fourth-most such groups in the western United States, following 79 in California, 55 in Texas and 21 in Washington. Additionally, Arizona now has the third-highest number of anti-LGBT groups in the nation according to the organization, following California and Illinois.

The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as one that has "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."

The Alliance Defending Freedom did not respond to requests for comment.

Here are eight things to know about the organization.

1. They're a bunch of lawyers:

The organization, which functions largely as a non-profit law firm, focuses much of its work at the impact point between the expanding rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and the religious rights of people who oppose that societal shift.

2. They've gone beyond the courtroom:

The alliance has taken its fight to city halls and state legislatures, from Arizona to North Carolina.

•It drafted model legislation for states to ban people from using public bathrooms and locker rooms that don't match the gender on their birth certificate, and advocated for similar legislation in North Carolina.

•It has fought efforts in Scottsdale and elsewhere to expand discrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

•It opposed California legislation that would require private colleges to comply with state anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

3. They believe in religious protection:

​The alliance sees itself as a ministry charged with countering activist groups that push to expand sexual freedoms and, as it says on its website, "campaigning to radically reshape America."

Ask supporters about their agenda, and they’ll say the alliance — powered by $40 million in annual donations and connections to powerful conservative Christian groups like Focus on the Family, Campus Crusade for Christ and the Center for Arizona Policy — is defending Christian beliefs, promoting "traditional family values" and restricting abortion.

"We ... ensure that all people have the right to peacefully live and work consistent with their religious beliefs," Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of legal services, told The Arizona Republic last year.

4. Why some consider them a hate group:

The SPLC accuses the Alliance Defending Freedom and its attorneys of "regularly demonized LGBT people, falsely linking them to pedophilia, calling them 'evil' and a threat to children and society, and blaming them for the 'persecution of devout Christians,'" as well as "generally making life as difficult as possible for LGBT communities in the U.S. and internationally."

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT advocacy group in the nation, calls the alliance "one of the nation’s most dangerous organizations working to prevent equality for LGBT people."

"They defend the freedoms of a select few, not everyone," Peter Renn, staff attorney with the national LGBT advocacy organization Lambda Legal, told The Arizona Republic last year. "The freedom they propose to protect comes at the expense of harm to minority groups."

5. They've fought same-sex Arizona couples:

Former Attorney General Tom Horne allowed the alliance to act as Arizona's legal counsel in defending Arizona's law defining marriage as between only a man and a woman. The courts ruled the law unconstitutional.

Alliance Defending Freedom is now using an Arizona lawsuit to further its argument that creative businesses should not be forced to use their talents to promote something that violates their strongly-held religious beliefs — in this case, the marriages of same-sex couples.

"We can largely tie it back to activist groups who want to ensure there's sexual autonomy and that sexual liberty trumps all other liberties regardless of the conflict that creates," Waggoner said. "The tolerance they are advocating is just going one way."

Senior counsel Jeremy Tedesco told The Republic last year that same-sex couples can get married, and live in a way that's consistent with their beliefs, so why can't individuals such as his clients do the same? "We're not dealing with something like interracial marriage, where there is no rational reason to object to that," he said.

6. They've challenged transgender issues:

The alliance is involved in ongoing federal lawsuits joined by more than two dozen states — including Arizona — challenging an Obama administration directive that public schools should allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms "consistent with their gender identity."

Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit challenging an Obama administration interpretation of federal anti-discrimination law that allows public school students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on gender identity instead of biological sex. The Illinois case, filed by 70 students at a school where a student who was born male chose to use the girls' locker room, is working its way through the courts.

Arizona is among 13 states challenging the rule as unconstitutional.

"These laws are used to force people that have a different viewpoint — a viewpoint that is being held by all cultures and all religions since the beginning of time — to shut up and move on and to have to violate their convictions," Waggoner said last year.

7. They've opposed contraception:

The organization also was part of the Hobby Lobby case to determine whether certain businesses have a right to not provide contraception coverage to their employees for religious reasons. They won, following arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.

8. They intentionally picked Arizona:

The founders of Alliance Defending Freedom chose to base the organization in Scottsdale to avoid the politics of Washington, D.C., alliance media relations director Bob Trent told The Arizona Republic last year.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys watch what's going on in Arizona. And in several instances, Arizona was the testing ground for their efforts that then spread across the nation.

​In 2014, Alliance Defending Freedom worked with the Center for Arizona Policy on the controversial Senate Bill 1062, which would have offered a legal defense for individuals and businesses facing discrimination lawsuits if they proved they had acted on a "sincerely held religious belief."

Alliance attorneys testified in support of the issue before legislative committees in Arizona and in other states with similar bills. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the bill following an international outcry from business leaders and community activists, a move Waggoner called "shameful."