Fox News continues to provide a safe space for extreme anti-LGBTQ group ADF
Alliance Defending Freedom has appeared twice this week on Fox to promote a case that the Arizona Supreme Court will hear in January
Published
In the past week, Fox News has twice given a platform to Kristen Waggoner, an attorney from influential and extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and clients of hers who are challenging a Phoenix nondiscrimination ordinance that prohibits businesses and others from discriminating against LGBTQ people.
Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, ADF’s clients who own a calligraphy studio called Brush & Nib, are seeking to overturn the ordinance so that they can legally discriminate against potential LGBTQ customers. The Arizona Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the case, Brush & Nib Studio v. City of Phoenix, after the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled against ADF’s clients and upheld the ordinance. ADF’s case is a “pre-enforcement” challenge, a common ADF legal tactic in which people sue over a law that has not yet been enforced against them. This case is one of at least half a dozen license-to-discriminate cases that ADF and its allies are pushing through the courts.
Waggoner and her clients appeared on both the November 29 edition of Fox & Friends and the November 27 episode of Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream. These weren't ADF's first appearances on the network to promote its cases. ADF senior counsel Kate Anderson appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight earlier this month to discuss another case, regarding whether an Alaska women’s shelter can deny services to homeless transgender women, and ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco and two other ADF clients appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show in October. In these appearances and cases, ADF often relies on the false premise that increased rights for LGBTQ people, such as nondiscrimination policies, result in the loss of rights for Christians and other religious people. In fact, majorities of most religious groups believe homosexuality should be accepted, and faith leaders representing hundreds of thousands of congregants have come out against anti-LGBTQ discrimination by businesses.
From the November 29 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends: