Graduation Year

2023

Publication Date

Spring 2023

Comments

The author also presented this work at the 2023 John Wesley Powell Research Conference.

Abstract

In the early ‘90s, several conservative Christian legal organizations (CCLOs) sprung up in the United States in response to pluralism. These CCLOs sought to match the strategies and power of long-standing liberal public interest groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Much literature has been produced on the activities of CCLOs, but few have considered the CCLOs’ lasting impact on the nation. Using Willamette University College of Law Professor Steven K. Green's framework of religious disestablishments across U.S. history, this paper proposes that the country has entered a prolonged period of moral reestablishment partly thanks to CCLOs. With a focus on the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), this twenty-year longitudinal case study demonstrates how the powerhouse firm has used the courts, media, and educational institutions to extend culture wars in America in the aftermath of the third religious disestablishment.

Disciplines

Political Science

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