Friend,

This month, our Shadow Network email series exposes the Becket Fund: a frequent opponent of AU in court, a prominent member of the billion-dollar Shadow Network of Christian Nationalist organizations seeking to undermine church-state separation, and a group bent on using religious freedom as a weapon.

Consider some of Becket Fund’s most well-known Supreme Court cases:

• Becket got the Supreme Court to grant religious exemptions to corporations like Hobby Lobby and religious employers like the Little Sisters of the Poor so they could deny their workers access to birth control that was promised by the Affordable Care Act.
• Becket also represented a taxpayer-funded foster care agency that wanted to violate the anti-discrimination protections in its contract with Philadelphia and refuse to serve LGBTQ parents. The Supreme Court ruled in the agency’s favor.
• In several cases, Becket has convinced the Court to broaden the definition of a “minister” to protect religious schools that fire lay teachers because of characteristics such as disability or age, preventing the teachers from fighting for their civil rights in court.

And now, Becket is asking the Supreme Court to review two Americans United cases – one involving a teacher fired for trying to combat pervasive racism in a Colorado Christian school, the other involving a priest challenging colleagues and others who publicly defamed him and damaged his reputation. Becket argues these folks should have no civil rights or other legal protections and is asking the Supreme Court to slam the courthouse door on them. 

Becket also opposes AU in the case of our client Aimee Maddonna, a mother of three who was denied the opportunity to help foster children because, as a Catholic, she didn’t share the taxpayer-funded foster-care agency’s Evangelical Protestant beliefs. Becket represents South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who permits such discrimination by state-contracted foster care agencies.

Becket Fund has deep Shadow Network connections. Leonard Leo (see our last Shadow Network email) sits on Becket’s board of directors. According to Leo’s former media relations director, “Becket was saved at least two times by Leonard Leo before Hobby Lobby … Only Leo could raise that kind of money.” And before her lifetime judicial appointment, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined a Becket letter insisting religious employers should be able to deny workers access to birth control.

Like most members of the Shadow Network, Becket Fund has deep pockets and deep political connections. But it doesn’t have what we have: the support of the majority of Americans, who believe that religious freedom is meant to be a shield, not a sword.

The shield in Americans United’s logo represents the intent of church-state separation and religious freedom – to be a shield that protects people’s freedoms, not a sword used to harm others. (Tellingly, Becket Fund once aptly incorporated a sword into its logo.)

I firmly believe that with passion and commitment from supporters like you, our legal team at Americans United will have the resources we need to continue taking on these challenges.

In Solidarity,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO