{"id":13169,"date":"2023-11-05T13:56:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T18:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/au.org\/?page_id=13169"},"modified":"2025-07-04T00:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T04:21:12","slug":"first-liberty","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/first-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"First Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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First Liberty: demanding supremacy, not liberty<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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First Liberty Institute is the Christian Nationalist legal outfit with a deceptive name. The group seeks supremacy for its version of fundamentalist Christianity, not liberty.<\/p>

To achieve its goals, First Liberty isn\u2019t above peddling misinformation. A federal appeals court accused First Liberty of spinning a \u201cdeceitful narrative\u201d in a case from Washington state involving a public high school football coach who demanded the right to pray with students at the 50-yard line after games.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Eroding church-state separation for decades<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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That case,\u00a0Kennedy v. Bremerton School District<\/a>, concerned Joseph Kennedy, a former football coach at Bremerton High School who repeatedly prayed with his team at the end of games, violating students\u2019 First Amendment rights by pressuring them to join.<\/p>

Despite the school district\u2019s attempts to find options for him to have time and space for personal prayer while on the job, Kennedy demanded that he be able to pray at the center of the field, out loud, and with students. When the district, seeking to protect students\u2019 rights, told Kennedy to stop interfering in students\u2019 religious choices, he sued the district.<\/p>

Americans United, which defended the school district, noted that this case was\u00a0never about the coach\u2019s rights<\/a>. It was engineered by First Liberty to get before the U.S. Supreme Court and undermine church-state separation. The radicalized high court accepted the false narrative built by First Liberty and ruled for the coach, ignoring the pressure he put on students.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Football, school, and crosses<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u201cTo build the perception that it\u2019s fighting for equality rather than supremacy, the Institute seeks stories that it can blow out of proportion and bend into the Christian persecution narrative,\u201d Seidel adds. That narrative is why the Institute took up Joe Kennedy\u2019s cause in 2015. Trump and the Federalist Society hadn\u2019t yet packed the Supreme Court, and the law was clearly and uniformly against it:\u00a0public school officials couldn\u2019t use their power and position to impose their personal religion on other people\u2019s children<\/a>. The Institute ignored the law, perhaps because they saw a cash cow: football, the name Kennedy, a military veteran, and Christian prayer. And it raked in the cash. Before Kennedy, the Institute brought in about $8 million per year; by June 2020 that was up to nearly $15 million.<\/p>

AU also clashed with the Institute in another Supreme Court case:\u00a0\u00a0Carson v. Makin<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>This case from\u00a0\u00a0Maine forced taxpayers to fund religious education and indoctrination. In 2019, the Institute fought to keep a massive concrete\u00a0Christian cross in Bladensburg, Maryland<\/a>, on government property and fully fund its repairs with your tax dollars\u2014and the Supreme Court agreed. The Institute is currently urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case of\u00a0Oregon bakers who discriminated against a same-sex couple<\/a>.<\/p>

The Institute wants Christian supremacy. It fought to keep evolution out of public schools; and advocated for proselytizing Bible classes, Jesus portraits, and school-imposed prayer in public schools. Like other Crusaders, the Institute wraps this supremacy in religious freedom, which the average American understands as equality.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Political influence and access<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Like the rest of this shadowy network, the Institute has political influence and access.\u00a0U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson<\/a>, now the Speaker of the House, worked as an attorney for First Liberty Institute. The Institute hired a Breitbart editor as senior counsel, who then joined the Trump administration; the January 6th Committee subpoenaed him. Trump nominated another former Institute lawyer for a federal judgeship, but his anti-LGBTQ bigotry was so extreme (for instance, he referred to LGBTQ rights as part of \u201cSatan\u2019s plan\u201d) that the nomination failed. That lawyer is now back with the Institute and helped spin the \u201cdeceitful narrative<\/a>\u201d in the Bremerton case.\u00a0<\/p>

But another Institute lawyer, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is now a federal judge in Texas and using that power to advance the Institute\u2019s Christian Nationalist vision for America by ADD\u2026<\/p>

Kelly Shackleford has run First Liberty Institute for decades and his tentacles reach right up to our highest court. Shackelford\u2019s ties to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, were exposed in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/i>\u00a0earlier this year: \u201cwhen Ginni Thomas was serving as one of eight members on the C.N.P. Action board, it was chaired by Kelly Shackelford.\u201d (C.N.P. is the Council for National Policy, perhaps the most shadowy and powerful member of this network; it\u2019s an umbrella organization formed in 1981 by Christian Nationalist Tim LaHaye.)\u00a0<\/p>

The Institute also challenged public health measures during the pandemic, an issue that repeatedly came before the Court, while Shackelford and Ginni Thomas were serving together on a committee that condemned Covid-19 health orders, explained\u00a0The New Yorker<\/i>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\"To build the perception that it\u2019s fighting for equality rather than supremacy, the Institute seeks stories that it can blow out of proportion and bend into the Christian persecution narrative.\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTO BUILD THE PERCEPTION THAT IT\u2019S FIGHTING FOR EQUALITY RATHER THAN SUPREMACY, THE INSTITUTE SEEKS STORIES THAT IT CAN BLOW OUT OF PROPORTION AND BEND INTO THE CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION NARRATIVE.<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Americans United is fighting corruption, dark money, and an overfunded crusade against the separation of church and state. We need your support.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDONATE TODAY<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Recommended Readings<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Kennedy v. Bremerton School District<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Wash. football coach who sued over prayers quits after attending one game<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Exposing A Shadow Network Of Religious Extremists<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Carson v. Makin<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Government-sponsored religion is the opposite of religious freedom<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Dark Shadows: For More Than 40 Years, Christian Nationalist Groups Have Worked To Topple The Church-State Wall.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Liberty: demanding supremacy, not liberty First Liberty Institute is the Christian Nationalist legal outfit with a deceptive name. The group seeks supremacy for its version of fundamentalist Christianity, not liberty. To achieve its goals, First Liberty isn\u2019t above peddling misinformation. A federal appeals court accused First Liberty of spinning a \u201cdeceitful narrative\u201d in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"issue_tax":[],"class_list":["post-13169","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13169"},{"taxonomy":"issue_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.au.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_tax?post=13169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}