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'Kids Will Suffer': Supreme Court Axes Colorado’s Ban on Harmful LGBTQ+ ‘Conversion Therapy’
Young people are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide if they have been subject to conversion therapy, which LGBTQ+ rights advocates say is "proven to cause lasting psychological harm."
Mar 31, 2026
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy,” drawing warnings from LGBTQ+ groups that the ruling could expose children in dozens of states to the harmful practice.
Colorado's law forbade licensed physicians and mental healthcare providers from attempting to "convert" or change a minor's sexuality, a practice that the American Psychological Association has found to be both ineffective and dangerous, raising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide in LGBTQ+ youth.
The law defined "conversion therapy" as any treatment that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”
It allowed exemptions for pastors and religious organizations. It also allowed health professionals to engage in wide-ranging discussions with children about their sexual and gender identities, so long as they did not try to change the child's orientation.
Nevertheless, on Tuesday, the high court sided 8-1 with Kaley Chiles, a Christian counselor who said she wished to offer talk therapy to children who want to reduce same-sex attraction and argued that the ban on this practice was in violation of her First Amendment rights.
Chiles was backed by the Trump administration, as well as the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nationalist legal group with a long history of seeking to outlaw same-sex conduct.
Most famously, the group argued in support of state laws criminalizing homosexuality in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case, and it has since gone on to back many other cases attacking birth control access, same-sex marriage, and transgender equality.
In the majority opinion, the conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Colorado's law “censors speech based on viewpoint" and therefore must be subject to strict scrutiny—the highest form of judicial review, which the court determined it did not pass.
The lone dissenting justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that Chiles' treatment was not mere speech, but that it was acting in her capacity "as a licensed healthcare professional," which formed the crux of Colorado's defense of the ban.
She argued that the ruling "opens a dangerous can of worms" and "threatens to impair states’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect."
"Because the majority plays with fire in this case, I fear that the people of this country will get burned," Jackson said.
Two liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined the conservatives in striking the law down. However, they argued in a concurring opinion that a full ban on therapy aimed at changing minors' sexuality might be more lawful than the one Colorado passed, which included carveouts for specific circumstances.
Kagan also argued that allowing Colorado to outlaw conversion therapy could backfire and give red states the legal framework to also ban counselors from providing affirmative care to LGBTQ+ minors.
LGBTQ+ rights organizations have roundly condemned the court's decision, which is expected to weaken bans on conversion therapy in the 23 states and the District of Columbia that currently have them.
"Today’s reckless decision means more American kids will suffer," said Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign. "The Court has weaponized free speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health, and well-being of children."
A 2024 mental health survey by the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, found that 13% of LGBTQ+ young people have been either threatened with or subject to conversion therapy—including about 1 in 6 transgender or nonbinary youth.
Previously, the group published peer-reviewed research in the American Journal of Public Health, showing that young people subject to conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as their peers.
"These efforts, no matter what proponents call them, no matter what any court says, are still proven to cause lasting psychological harm," said Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black. "That’s why protections have been enacted in more than 20 states, and are supported by every major medical and mental health association in the country."
Carl Charles, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal who joined more than a dozen survivors of the practice in a friend of the court brief in support of Colorado's law, said, "I know firsthand the long-lasting harms of conversion therapy, having been subjected to it when I was 15 years old."
"This practice did not change my sexual orientation or gender identity," said Charles, a transgender man. "Instead, it destroyed important relationships and created shame and fear that took time and effort to undo. For many survivors, it is a reverberating life-long harm."
"LGBTQ+ youth do not need to be changed," Charles said. "Rather, like all youth, they need to be supported and celebrated for the unique and important people they are becoming."
Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has said he will seek to pass new legislation that complies with the Supreme Court's ruling.
"Conversion therapy doesn’t work, can seriously harm youth, and Coloradans should beware before turning over their hard-earned money to a scam," Polis said. "I am evaluating the US Supreme Court ruling and working to figure out how to better protect LGBTQ youth and free speech in Colorado."
In other states whose bans could be undermined by the ruling, efforts have already begun to ensure that providers who cause harm to children still face accountability.
In California, which has a similar ban on conversion therapy to Colorado’s, state Sen. Scott Weiner (D-11) introduced a bill proposing a longer statute of limitations and making it easier for LGBTQ+ individuals to bring malpractice claims against medical professionals who subject them to conversion therapy.
Weiner noted that the Supreme Court's ruling "explicitly states that malpractice claims for conversion therapy are different than bans," since they require a plaintiff to demonstrate injury caused by their treatment.
"You can’t 'convert' someone who’s LGBTQ—full stop—and people who think you can are peddling quackery," Weiner said. "California will always have the community’s back."
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988, or through chat at 988lifeline.org. The Trevor Project, which serves LGBTQ+ youth, can be reached at 1-866-488-7386, by texting "START" to 678-678, or through chat at TheTrevorProject.org. Both offer 24/7, free, and confidential support.
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Group That Helped Reverse Roe Sets Sights on Birth Control
"We tried to tell all those fuckers that if Trump was elected, we were going to get Handmaid's Tale-d," said one author.
Apr 16, 2025
Nearly three years after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' 2022 concurring opinion for the reversal of Roe v. Wade elevated fears of Americans losing the right to contraception, a far-right legal group is working to limit access to birth control.
Jezebel reported Wednesday on the current anti-contraception effort by the conservative Christian group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—which has bragged that its "attorneys and staff were proud to be involved from the very beginning" in the fight to overturn Roe, the 1973 ruling that affirmed the right to abortion nationwide up until the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision.
Last week, ADF wrote to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, urging HHS to "end funding to an organization that has become a radicalized opponent of health and of your agenda: the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG) and its related entities." The legal group also recommended opening "a civil compliance investigation into whether ACOG improperly used HHS cooperative agreements to promote" diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
"If you have a uterus, it's a great time to get permanent birth control, and stock up on some Plan B and Ella."
The ADF letter states that an HHS agency, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), "pays ACOG to create online content and podcasts advocating DEI, gender ideology, and abortion advocacy. This program has allocated ACOG over $15 million and needs to be ended promptly to prevent the continued waste of taxpayer funds."
In addition to taking aim at funding for the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM)—which, according to its website, works to "make birth safer, improve maternal health outcomes, and save lives" with its content—ADF wants the Trump administration to "end HRSA's cooperative agreement with ACOG that radicalized the women's preventive services mandate under Obamacare."
Jezebel explained how ADF's attack on the Women's Preventive Services Initiative (WPSI) threatens access to birth control:
The Affordable Care Act says insurance companies have to cover a range of women's preventive health services without cost-sharing like copays or deductibles. The law doesn't name which services, but rather tasks an HHS agency to determine what services have strong evidence showing health benefits. That agency gave a contract to ACOG, which convenes the WPSI panel that includes representatives from its membership and three other major professional organizations. One of the panel's recommendations is that "adolescent and adult women have access to the full range of contraceptives and contraceptive care to prevent unintended pregnancies and improve birth outcomes." So insurance in the U.S. has to cover birth control pills, patches, rings, implants, [intrauterine devices, or IUDs], and tubal ligation without additional costs beyond people's monthly premiums.
Groups like ADF do not like this requirement—especially the mandated coverage of IUDs and emergency contraception like Plan B or Ella. Conservatives falsely claim that these methods block implantation of fertilized eggs, which they believe is tantamount to abortion. (ADF represented one of the plaintiffs in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case who objected to covering these methods.) "This mandate has included a coverage requirement for contraception, including some items that can prevent the implantation of embryos after conception," the ADF letter notes. "The failure to offer robust religious and moral exemptions to that mandate led to years of litigation and repeated trips to the U.S. Supreme Court." Yes, they want employers to be able to object to covering birth control in their insurance plans for either religious or moral reasons, which could really mean anything, including sexist and eugenic objections to single women or people with disabilities being sexually active.
ADF urges HHS to "conduct any scientific reviews in-house," Jezebel pointed out, noting recent mass layoffs at the department. "Alternatively, HHS could add members of anti-abortion groups to the advisory panel. Whatever happens here, potential changes to insurance coverage of certain birth control methods—based on the false idea that they cause abortions—is alarming."
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump bragged about his role in reversing Roe—he appointed three of the court's right-wing justices—but also attempted to downplay reproductive rights as a key issue for voters.
Regarding contraception specifically, Trump swiftly tried to backtrack after signaling support for limits on birth control during a radio interview last May. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said at the time: "Trump is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Here he is encouraging the far right. Later, he claimed he didn't mean it. But he can't hide his record. And his allies still plan to restrict birth control nationwide."
The ideas in ADF's letter "did not appear out of thin air," Jezebel stressed Wednesday. "Ending mandated insurance coverage of Ella is a proposal in Project 2025 (page 485), as is restoring religious and moral exemptions (page 483), and ending this contract with ACOG (page 484). Trump tried to disavow the Project 2025 playbook on the campaign trail, but his administration is implementing much of it and conservative groups are asking him to enact parts he hasn't gotten to yet."
HHS cutting ties with ACOG is just a step. Many far-right forced pregnancy advocates want the Supreme Court to—as Thomas wrote three years ago—"reconsider all of the court's substantive due process precedents," including the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruling, which affirmed that the government cannot interfere in the procurement of contraceptives.
The new reporting led reproductive rights advocates to share their own healthcare experiences and encourage patients to seek out longer-term birth control like IUDs now, while they still have access to such options.
Feeling really grateful right about now for the tubal ligation I started fighting tooth and nail for at 19 and finally managed to score by age 27. We tried to tell all those fuckers that if Trump was elected, we were going to get Handmaid's Tale-d. www.jezebel.com/far-right-gr...
[image or embed]
— Brianna Karp ( @briannakarp.bsky.social) April 16, 2025 at 5:22 PM
"I've said this repeatedly but I'll say it again: If you're able, get an IUD," said content designer Shauna Wright. "It's easily removed but otherwise lasts for years. (Voice of experience here: Ask for a paracervical block pre-insertion, and if they refuse, find another dr.)"
Writer Effie Seiberg similarly said: "If you have a uterus, it's a great time to get permanent birth control, and stock up on some Plan B and Ella. (Ella works better for people 165-195 lbs.)"
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Abortion Defenders Decry 'Baseless' Attack on Mifepristone as SCOTUS Hears Case
"The overturn of Roe was just the first step in the far right's relentless campaign to restrict women's reproductive freedom," said one advocate. "We always knew they would come for medication abortion, too."
Mar 26, 2024
As the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case brought by right-wing activists seeking to sharply limit access to a commonly used abortion pill, reproductive rights advocates renewed warnings that Republicans' endgame isn't just making abortion a states' rights issue, but rather forcing a nationwide ban on all forms of the medical procedure.
The high court justices—including six conservatives, half of them appointed by former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—are hearing oral arguments in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a case brought by the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of anti-abortion doctors. The case involves the abortion pill known by the generic name mifepristone, which was first approved by the FDA in 2000 as part of a two-drug protocol to terminate early-stage pregnancies.
"If the Supreme Court refuses to follow the evidence and imposes medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, it will be just another stepping stone in the anti-abortion movement's end goal of a nationwide ban on abortion."
"Mifepristone has been used by millions of women over the last 20 years, and its safety and effectiveness have been well-documented," said Jamila Taylor, president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. "The drug has taken on even greater importance for women's health since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the far right has moved to block women's access to healthcare at every turn."
In a dubious practice known as "judge shopping," the plaintiffs filed their complaint in Amarillo, Texas, where Matthew Kacsmaryk, the sole federal district judge and a Trump appointee, ruled last April that the FDA's approval of mifepristone was illegal. Shortly after Kacsmaryk's ruling, a federal judge in Washington state issued a contradictory decision that blocked the FDA from removing mifepristone from the market. The U.S. Department of Justice subsequently appealed Kacsmaryk's ruling.
Later in April 2023, the Supreme Court issued a temporary order that allowed mifepristone to remain widely available while legal challenges continued. A three-judge panel of the right-wing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last August that the FDA's 2016 move to allow mifepristone to be taken later in pregnancy, mailed directly to patients, and prescribed by healthcare professionals other than doctors, was likely illegal. However, the court also allowed the pill to remain on the market pending the outcome of litigation.
In an analysis of the case published Tuesday, jurist Amy Howe explained:
There are three separate questions before the justices on Tuesday. The first one is whether the challengers have a legal right to sue, known as standing, at all. The FDA maintains that they do not, because the individual doctors do not prescribe mifepristone and are not obligated to do anything as a result of the FDA's decision to allow other doctors to prescribe the drug.
The court of appeals held that the medical groups have standing because of the prospect that one of the groups' members might have to treat women who had been prescribed mifepristone and then suffered complications—which, the FDA stresses, are "exceedingly rare"—requiring emergency care. But the correct test, the FDA and [mifepristone maker] Danco maintain, is not whether the groups' members will suffer a possible injury, but an imminent injury.
Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, called the plaintiffs' claims "baseless."
"If the Supreme Court refuses to follow the evidence and imposes medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, it will be just another stepping stone in the anti-abortion movement's end goal of a nationwide ban on abortion," she said on Tuesday. "As the court weighs its decision, let's be clear that the only outcome that respects facts and science is maintaining full access to mifepristone."
As more than 20 states have banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court's June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling overturned Roe v. Wade and voided half a century of federal abortion rights, people have increasingly turned to medication abortion to terminate unwanted pregnancies. And while Republicans have often claimed that overturning Roe was not meant to ban all abortions but merely to leave the issue up to the states, GOP-authored forced pregnancy bills and statements by Republican lawmakers and candidates including Trump—who last week endorsed a 15-week national ban—belie conservatives' goal of nationwide prohibition.
Project 2025, a coalition of more than 100 right-wing groups including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and other anti-abortion organizations, wants to require the FDA to ban drugs used for medication abortions, protect employers who refuse to include contraceptive coverage in insurance plans, and increase surveillance of abortion and maternal mortality reporting. The coalition is reportedly drafting executive orders through which Trump, if reelected, could roll back Biden administration policies aimed at protecting and expanding abortion access.
"The overturn of Roe was just the first step in the far right's relentless campaign to restrict women's reproductive freedom. We always knew they would come for medication abortion, too," Taylor said. "But conservatives seeking to block access to mifepristone are not concerned about women's safety; they want to block all abortion options for women and prevent them from making their own reproductive decisions, even in their own homes."
Right-wing groups including the Heritage Foundation have been pressing Trump to invoke the Comstock laws, a series of anti-obscenity statutes passed in 1873 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration. One of the laws outlawed using the U.S. Postal Service to send contraceptives and punished offenders with up to five years' hard labor. Named after Victorian-era anti-vice crusader and U.S. postal inspector Anthony Comstock, the laws were condemned by progressives of the day, with one syndicated newspaper editorial accusing Comstock of striking "a dastard's blow at liberty and law in the United States."
Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern said Tuesday that far-right Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—who wrote the majority opinion in Dobbs—"are clearly eager to revive the Comstock Act as a nationwide ban on medication abortion, and maybe procedural abortion, too."
"That would subject abortion providers in all 50 states to prosecution and imprisonment," he added. "No congressional action needed."
Progressive U.S. lawmakers joined reproductive rights advocates in rallying outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
"Mifepristone is safe and effective and has been used in our country for decades," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). "These far-right justices need to stop legislating from the bench."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) asserted that "medication abortion is safe, effective, and routine healthcare."
"Over half of U.S. abortions are done this way and we have decades of scientific evidence to back up its safety," she added. "SCOTUS must protect access to mifepristone and we must affirm abortion care as the human right that it is."
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Post-Dobbs Abortion Pill Surge Highlights Stakes of Looming Supreme Court Case
"Next week as we hear oral arguments in the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case, remember who will be impacted," said one group.
Mar 20, 2024
As abortion bans and restrictions have taken hold in at least 21 states since the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade nearly two years ago, Americans' reliance on medication abortion became increasingly clear—with the use of abortion pills reported in 63% of all abortions that took place within the formal healthcare system in 2023.
Medication abortion represented 53% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2020, signifying a substantial increase since the court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
The Guttmacher Institute released the results of its Monthly Abortion Provision Study on Tuesday, a week before the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Food and Drug Administration, et al., Applicants v. Alliance For Hippocratic Medicine, et al., a case brought by the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of anti-abortion doctors.
The group filed the case aiming to revoke the FDA's approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions, more than two decades after it was approved following years of research.
"As our latest data emphasize, more than 3 out of 5 abortion patients in the United States use medication abortion," said Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy for Guttmacher. "Reinstating outdated and medically unnecessary restrictions on the provision of mifepristone would negatively impact people's lives and decrease abortion access across the country."
Right-wing Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled last year in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that mifepristone's registration should be invalidated, a decision that was quickly put on hold by the Supreme Court.
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear the U.S. Department of Justice's appeal of Kacsmaryk's decision with a focus on two issues: whether the Alliance of Hippocratic Medicine has legal standing and whether the FDA did adequate research before it expanded access to mifepristone in 2016 and 2021. A ruling is expected this summer.
Guttmacher's research showed a 10% increase in all abortions in the U.S. between 2020-23, with a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age last year—the highest rate and number of abortions in more than a decade.
States without total abortion bans saw a 25% rise in abortion care compared to 2020, and the increase was even sharper in states bordering those with bans—37% between 2020-23.
"Next week as we hear oral arguments in the FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine case, remember who will be impacted," said Whole Women's Health, which runs reproductive health clinics in several states.
Rachel Jones, principal research scientist for Guttmacher, said the group's findings show that "as abortion restrictions proliferate post-Dobbs, medication abortion may be the most viable option—or the only option—for some people, even if they would have preferred in-person procedural care."
Reproductive rights advocates and medical experts including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have long warned that restrictions on mifepristone—adopted by the FDA under pressure from the pro-forced pregnancy movement—are medically unnecessary and aim only to stop people from receiving care.
Advocates fear that the Supreme Court could rule that the FDA's 2021 decision to allow mifepristone to be dispensed via telemedicine and the mail violates the Comstock Act, a law that dates back to 1873 and prohibited the distribution of "obscene" materials through the mail.
"The modern anti-abortion movement wants to reinvent the Comstock Act as an abortion ban," University of California, Davis, law professor Mary Ziegler told Ms. magazine on Tuesday.
If healthcare providers can no longer dispense mifepristone via telemedicine, people seeking abortions would be forced to go in person to get care, "exposing them not only to delays and increased costs but also to harassment, threats, and other types of violence from anti-abortion extremism, which has increased dramatically since the fall of Roe," reported Ms.
Ahead of the Supreme Court's hearing in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine's "groundless case challenging FDA approval of mifepristone," said Guttmacher, "mifepristone is available and the facts remain clear: medication abortion is safe, effective, widely used, and critical to bodily autonomy for all."
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Jesus Didn’t Teach Hate, But the Group Behind the ‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl Ads Funds It
Over the last five years the Servant Foundation has become the main identifiable source of funding for Alliance Defending Freedom, described as an anti-LGBTIQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Feb 13, 2024
A U.S. nonprofit that aired two ads during Sunday’s Super Bowl attempting to rebrand Jesus for Gen Z is also the main funder of a designated hate group opposing abortion and LGBTIQ rights, openDemocracy can reveal.
The Servant Foundation has plunged millions of dollars into its “He Gets Us” ads, which paint Jesus as an “influencer” who was “cancelled” for standing up for his beliefs. The controversial adverts were shown at the Super Bowl for the second year running and have been plastered across billboards in the United States over the last year.
But analysis of financial accounts by openDemocracy shows over the last five years the Servant Foundation has also grown to become the main identifiable source of funding for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), described as an anti-LGBTIQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)—an allegation it denies.
In total Servant gave the group $65.9 million from 2018 to 2021—an average of more than $16 million a year. As a result, ADF’s grant income rose from $55 million in 2017 to $96.8 million in 2021.
Servant’s boom coincides with its split from the National Christian Foundation (NCF), of which it was an affiliate from its launch in 2000 through to 2017. During this time, it would hand out an average $1.3 million a year and receive around $4 million. But after the split with NCF, Servant pocketed more than $1 billion in contributions—a large chunk of which actually came from the NCF.
NCF and Servant Foundation are among 12 DAF operators that from 2017 to 2020 gave $272 million to 36 American groups that work to restrict the rights of women and LGBTIQ people in the U.S. and abroad.
The NCF is considered the biggest U.S. charity for Christian causes and has been accused of channeling millions of dollars to hate groups. Almost immediately after the split with Servant, it gave the group $307 million, followed by another $11 million in 2019. It also received more than $222 million from Servant between 2018 and 2021, showing a mutual flow of money that, according to experts, “adds a layer of secrecy” to donations they make on behalf of clients.
This type of money transfer from one donor-advised fund (DAF) operator to another grew by 409% between 2015 and 2019, and hit $1 billion only in 2019, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies published in 2021. That study only focused on the biggest commercial DAF operatorsthose nonprofit branches of financial companies, thus excluding DAF operators like Servant and NCF.
“Wealthy people give to intermediaries, such as private foundations and DAF operators, which in 2021 received almost a third of all donations,” Chuck Collins, director for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, told openDemocracy. “When these donor-controlled intermediaries pass money back and forth, they can add layers of secrecy so the public doesn’t know where the funds are ending up.”
Stephanie Peng, research manager with the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), which supports marginalized communities, told openDemocracy: “Anonymity is really dangerous, because you don’t know who is really behind all that money; who is controlling massive, massive amounts of money; and necessarily where that funding is going.”
The Servant Foundation was set up in Kansas by evangelical lawyer Bill High. Its partnership with the NCF included the NCF performing “accounting and other back-room tasks” for Servant. High ended the relationship in 2017, reportedly to offer lower fees to clients, and also changed Servant’s public-facing name to The Signatry.
Servant made headlines with its Super Bowl ads, which were part of the $300 million He Gets Us campaign hoping to fuel conservative evangelical goals.
NCF and Servant Foundation are among 12 DAF operators that from 2017 to 2020 gave $272 million to 36 American groups that work to restrict the rights of women and LGBTIQ people in the U.S. and abroad, an openDemocracy investigation revealed earlier this year. Servant donated a fifth of that sum and the NCF almost a half.
Hobby Lobby Money
By the time Servant split from the NCF, High had forged a crucial relationship with David Green, until then a substantial client of NCF whose retail giant Hobby Lobby plays a prominent role in battles against sexual and reproductive rights.
In 2014, Hobby Lobby won a big case when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could deny contraception coverage under their workers’ health insurance policies, if doing so would violate their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” The NCF had given millions of dollars to the law groups litigating this case—ADF and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm that has represented the Greens since 2012.
High, who retired as Servant CEO in January, and Green have co-authored several books about Christian charitable giving. Green also appeared in a 2020 promotional video for Servant.
Among other beneficiaries of money channeled through Servant are at least seven U.S. organizations well-known for their attacks against equal rights: ADF, the Fellowship Foundation, Focus on the Family, American Center for Law and Justice, Family Research Council, Heartbeat International, and the Heritage Foundation.
Analysis of donation flows suggests cash from Green that once moved through the NCF could now be getting channeled through Servant. Since 2018, Servant has given big money to two groups focused on international evangelism and distribution of Christian literature that are also listed on the Hobby Lobby donation webpage. They rank second and third in money received from Servant from 2018 to 2021—Every Home for Christ ($181 million) and OneHope ($107 million). Meanwhile, the NCF, which had given $47 million to Every Home for Christ and $25 million to OneHope in 2017, has drastically reduced its contributions to these organizations since then. Green was also reportedly a major donor for the He Gets Us campaign. Both Hobby Lobby and Green did not respond to questions about whether they had stopped donating cash via the NCF and instead donated it via Servant.
The Museum of the Bible, founded by the Green family in 2017 at a cost of $500 million—and marred by scandals for buying looted and smuggled archaeological artifacts and exhibiting “modern forgeries” of Dead Sea Scroll fragments—is another big grantee of the Servant Foundation. It was given more than $3.2 million between 2018 and 2021 and before that had received hundreds of millions from the NCF since 2013.
Funding Hate and Misinformation
Among other beneficiaries of money channeled through Servant are at least seven U.S. organizations well-known for their attacks against equal rights: ADF, the Fellowship Foundation, Focus on the Family, American Center for Law and Justice, Family Research Council, Heartbeat International, and the Heritage Foundation.
ADF won a Supreme Court case this year that allows businesses to discriminate against gay couples on free speech grounds, and was one of the groups that masterminded the strategy to overturn the constitutionally protected right to abortion in the U.S. It has defended the sterilization of trans people in Europe and fought the decriminalization of gay sex in Belize. It also launched efforts to ban transgender students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity.
Also a SPLC-designated hate group, Family Research Council makes false claims about LGBTIQ people, and has been involved in funding and promoting harmful conversion therapies against LGBTIQ people, as well as opposing U.S. local bans to these activities.
The exchange of money between DAF operators as Servant and NCF is a model extending internationally.
In 2021, openDemocracy revealed how Focus on the Family, another organization funded by Servant, had platforms for the provision of conversion therapies in the U.S. and Costa Rica.
openDemocracy requested interviews with all the organizations and individuals named in this investigation. Only the NCF answered through a short written statement signed by its communications vice president, Steve Chapman.
“The NCF does not develop or implement strategies about which charities or causes to support [and] does not rely on third-party designations or labels in our grantmaking process,” Chapman said. “All grants are initiated by the recommendations of our givers.”
In the statement, the DAF operator claimed to serve “over 25,000 givers that use Giving Funds [donor-advised funds] to individually support their favorite causes and charities,” and to have given more than $14 billion since 1982 to more than 70,000 charities that “are providing clean water to the thirsty, rescuing victims of human trafficking, translating the Bible into new languages, and much more.”
A Global Model
The exchange of money between DAF operators as Servant and NCF is a model extending internationally. The NCF, for example, partnered with TrustBridge Global, a charitable giving vehicle that declares itself as the first truly global DAF operator. Registered in 2016 in Florida and Switzerland, its CEO is a former NCF employee. TrustBridge has set up affiliate foundations around the world and claims to have 70,000 nonprofits vetted to receive DAFs. The list includes the ADF branch in the U.K. TrustBridge has also received millions of dollars from Servant.
Servant presents itself as a “global community” that has given $4 billion in “transformational grants for nonprofits around the world,” and supports projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The fund also claims to have given $2 million in 150 grants for emergency relief in Ukraine, and over $1 million “for supporting missionaries around the globe, fueling the spread of the gospel in at least 43 countries,” especially in Africa.
Its website says it gave out over $470 million in grants in 2021, while receiving $899 million in contributions. As a DAF operator, it is able to accept other assets beyond cash, such as property, cryptocurrency, stocks, and mutual funds, as well as life insurance payouts.
“We want donors to be accountable to who they’re giving money to.”
When clients “give” assets other than money to these funds, they can write off the total amount the gifts are worth. This way, donors can bypass capital gains taxes from these gifts, which they would have to pay if they converted them into cash holdings.
Some DAF operators even have estate-planning options to bypass estate taxes and continue charitable giving after a donor dies.
For the NCRP, this is troubling.
“We want donors to be accountable to who they’re giving money to. So if donors are putting all of this money into a DAF, but that money sits there for years and years, and there are no beneficiaries, if the donor made a commitment and that commitment doesn’t make its way down to the recipient organisation, then that’s a problem,” NCRP’s Stephanie Peng said.
Legislative efforts to establish “reasonable timeframes” for paying out assets have so far failed.
High, Servant’s founder, has argued against any effort to make DAFs more accountable. “A hallmark of American charity has always been a right to privacy. We should not take away that privacy right. On the contrary, donor-advised funds have done much to democratize giving, as witnessed by their rapid rise,” he wrote in a Forbes article.
His foundation continues to court new donors. Its website even has a calculator for prospective customers to see how much in taxes they could save by donating.
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In Historic Move, Leading Rights Group Declares 'State of Emergency' for LGBTQ+ People in US
"The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived—they are real, tangible, and dangerous," said Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson.
Jun 06, 2023
For the first time ever, the Human Rights Campaign—the largest LGBTQ+ political advocacy group in the United States—has declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people, citing the torrent of discriminatory and dangerous legislation emerging from Republican-controlled legislatures across the country.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat this," Human Rights Campaign (HRC) president Kelley Robinson said Tuesday in a report—LGBTQ+ Americans Under Attack—accompanying the group's declaration. "During this legislative session, there have been over 525 state bills introduced that attack the LGBTQ+ community, and over 220 of those target the transgender community. As of press time, more than 70 of those have become law."
"These laws are fueled by an anti-LGBTQ+ Republican establishment—and coordinated, well-funded extremist groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, Heritage Foundation, and the Family Policy Alliance—insistent on trying to control our families and lives," she added.
As the report details:
Just look at what's playing out in Texas and Tennessee and Florida. These states are banning educators from talking about LGBTQ+ issues and teaching Black history, and are banning gender-affirming care and abortion care. These same states do nothing to ensure the freedom of children to be safe from gun violence and do nothing to protect the freedom of democracy when Black and trans voices are silenced in state legislatures.
Or look at Governor Ron DeSantis, who has weaponized his position as a lawmaker to target LGBTQ+ families, Black and Brown Floridians, immigrants, and private businesses. Even with the majority of Floridians forcefully opposing his anti-LGBTQ laws and despite surging support for LGBTQ+ families nationally, DeSantis has been crisscrossing the country to attack our community.
HRC notes some bright spots, like Michigan, which recently became the 22nd state to codify LGBTQ+ protection and Minnesota, which this year banned so-called "conversion therapy."
(Graphic: Human Rights Campaign)
The report also hails Democratic state lawmakers including Machaela Cavanaugh—who unsuccessfully filibustered Nebraska's ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth—and Zooey Zephyr, whose vocal opposition to Montana's gender-affirming care ban got her kicked out of the Legislature by her Republican colleagues.
In addition to the emergency declaration, HRC published a downloadable guidebook for the LGBTQ+ community that includes information on health and safety resources for travelers, a summary of state laws, and a "know your rights" section.
"LGBTQ+ Americans are living in a state of emergency," Robinson said in a statement. "The multiplying threats facing millions in our community are not just perceived—they are real, tangible, and dangerous. In many cases they are resulting in violence against LGBTQ+ people, forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states, and triggering a tidal wave of increased homophobia and transphobia that puts the safety of each and every one of us at risk."
"As we kick off LGBTQ+ Pride month, HRC will be working tirelessly to educate and arm the LGBTQ+ community with information and resources to ensure their safety," said Robinson, "whether they're planning summer travel through regions that are becoming increasingly hostile to LGBTQ+ people, or whether they already live in a state where legislative assaults and political extremism are continuing to put a target on our backs."
"There is an imminent threat to the health and safety of millions of LGBTQ+ people and families, who are living every day in uncertainty and fear."
HRC's emergency declaration follows an April travel advisory for Florida issued by LGBTQ+, racial justice, and immigrant rights groups.
"There is an imminent threat to the health and safety of millions of LGBTQ+ people and families, who are living every day in uncertainty and fear," Robinson asserted. "Our number one priority will always be ensuring that LGBTQ+ people are safe and have the tools they need to defend and protect themselves against acts of hostility, discrimination, and—in the most extreme cases—violence."
"It's also incumbent on our allies across the country to stand with us and make it clear that they won't sit idly by while extremists attack and malign LGBTQ+ people and our families," Robinson added. "We'll fight tooth and nail to ensure the safety and dignity of every LGBTQ+ person is respected and protected—without exception."
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What You Should Know About the Abortion Case that Could Ban Mifepristone
A baseless lawsuit targeting mifepristone could effectively ban the most commonly used method of abortion—very soon.
Feb 12, 2023
Access to abortion has been decimated in the United States since June when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and took away our right to control our own bodies. Laws banning abortion are now in effect in more than a dozen states, denying more than 20 million people of reproductive age access to essential health care. And as hideous as this is, we know that is only the latest step in their plan to ban abortion and other essential health care nationwide.
The next step in their plan is an attempt to impose a nationwide ban on mifepristone — one of two medications in a regimen that accounts for more than half the abortions in this country. This would be a ban in every state in the nation — even in states where abortion is legal and protected under state law.
In any rational universe, this case would be laughed out of court on multiple grounds. Mifepristone was approved more than two decades ago and has been used by millions of people for early abortion care and to treat miscarriages. Study after study has confirmed its safety and efficacy, and its critical role in abortion and miscarriage care. The claims in this case have no basis in law and distort decades of scientific evidence.
The case was filed by an organization known as Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has been labeled a hate group, and helped write the Mississippi law which the Supreme Court used to overturn Roe v. Wade. They are going so far as to use a 150-year-old anti-obscenity law, the Comstock Act, to argue that it’s illegal to send or receive mifepristone, and any other medication or device used to provide an abortion, through the mail. That’s a wild claim that has never been accepted.
But if these claims are so wild and unprecedented, why are we concerned? Here’s the thing: ADF was able to hand-select their judge and just happened to pick one who, before he was appointed to the bench by President Trump, worked for an organization that represents business owners who discriminate against LGBTQ people and public school employees who coerce students to pray on school grounds.
And since his appointment to the bench, he has issued a series of radical decisions on everything from immigrants’ rights to trans justice to birth control. In fact, the judge has said it was an “open question” whether politicians could make it a crime to use contraception. That’s right — whether states can outlaw birth control. This is the judge who will decide whether mifepristone can remain on the market.
"We continue to fight the state bans. We have blocked bans in Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Utah."
We won’t let this happen without a fight. We’ve been doing everything in our power to increase access to medication abortion and other essential reproductive health care. In recent years, we’ve filed two cases on behalf of leading medical associations, physicians, and reproductive justice advocates, aiming to get rid of the FDA’s medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone. Our lawsuit prompted the FDA to remove some of those barriers and led to its finally permitting people to get the medication from a pharmacy, after consultation with their health care provider, rather than having to travel in person to an abortion clinic.
As this case develops, we’ll continue working with government officials and our partners to respond to any ruling that takes away a safe, effective, and common method for medication abortion.
At the same, we continue to fight the state bans. We have blocked bans in Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Utah. We are asking the state supreme courts in Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida to step in and block those states’ bans. And earlier this month, we filed a new case in West Virginia challenging provisions of the state’s total abortion ban.
We will not stop fighting until everyone can get the care they need, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they have.
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