Be careful about sticking up for any student’s right to use a public bathroom without the opposite sex present in the same room. Be careful as well about trying to ensure that female athletes aren’t competing against men posing as women.
Why? Because you’ll be labeled a hate group.
That’s what the religious liberty group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is facing, having been asked to provide legal advice on the Hanover County, Va. school system’s transgender policy. Using the incredibly wealthy Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) hate-group list, the Virginia ACLU has filed an information request seeking all communications between school officials, school board members and the ADF, reports The Washington Times.
The SPLC put out its annual list of so-called hate groups (whom it hates) earlier this month, and ADF remains on the list because it “works to dehumanize LGBTQ+ people and restrict their rights for being who they are.” It is also accused of having helped to pass religious-exemption laws “that lead to discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.”
The Christian Action Network has appeared on SPLC’s list for years as a result of its coverage of Islamic terrorism and the incursion of Islamism into Europe, but this year was labeled for something the SPLC calls “general hate.”
The ADF has also filed lawsuits to block transgendered students from accessing bathrooms opposite their biological sex, and to block transgendered women from participating on women’s sports teams. Both efforts seek to protect the rights of non-transgender people to have both privacy and fairness in athletics.
“The organization’s disturbing and erroneous positions clearly should disqualify ADF from providing legal advice to the Hanover County School Board, a taxpayer-funded public agency, on a matter as sensitive as providing safe, discrimination-free schools for all students, including transgender students,” ACLU-VA officials said in a statement, siding firmly against both privacy and fairness for the non-trans.
The ACLU-VA is suing the school district for not implementing new state rules allowing “transgender” students to use bathrooms and locker rooms previously designated for males or females only.
