I often say that a lot of anti-trans anti-gay anti-LGBTQ+ people have their feelings because they don’t feel different from the cis straight majority so can’t understand or accept that such things because they simply don’t feel that way. If they don’t feel it it can’t be real which is the same with how many white people feel about racism. Remember the old question of how do you know you’re gay or trans or lesbian or nonbinary or what ever simply because the people who grew up straight and cis felt normal in society? But if you ask them when they knew or how they knew they were straight and / or cis they are confused. If a boy at 10 comes out as gay the parents freak out, but if that same kid starts showing interest in girls the parents are ecstatic about their boy growing up. Why the difference? Because one fulfills their expectations and the other … well it just is not like them. It simply comes down to tradition and what feels normal for them. Every person who asked me if I tried to change my sexual orientation and there have been so many, to them I ask have you? They act offended. Why would I do that and I reply, then why should I. Then if they persist for some reason that I should do conversion therapy I ask could they convert from their straight / cis desires to being LGBTQ+? Again they are stunned why they would do that and instantly claim not I couldn’t do that. Then again why ask me to do it? Hugs
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On Oct. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that challenges Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy.
Shortly after, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sent an email to their supporters quoting Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
The email goes on to say, “You might think that a law like this might be just a ‘Colorado problem.’ Sadly, laws like this exist in 22 other states,” referencing other parts of the U.S. that have instituted conversion therapy bans.
This sort of language about conversion therapy is nothing new for the Christian legal group representing Kaley Chiles. Unlike most legal organizations, ADF is sharply anti-LGBTQ. Since their inception over 30 years ago, the group has fought to maintain anti-sodomy laws, uphold the right to discriminate against gay couples and overturn Roe v. Wade.
In recent years, a major element of their fight has been to legalize the discredited practice of conversion therapy.
The Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of ADF, which could effectively invalidate conversion therapy bans for minors by licensed professionals across the U.S. This victory would add to the organization’s already-high win streak, which they say is around 80%.
“I don’t think anyone is undermining LGBTQ rights as relentlessly as ADF,” Peter Montgomery, research director at the advocacy group People for the American Way, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. “They’re shaping the culture for generations to come.”
Although nearly every major medical association has denounced conversion therapy, ADF is arguing that disallowing the practice is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
“This case is part of its crusade to turn religious freedom into a license to harm others,” says Amy Tai, the co-author of an amicus brief in Chiles v. Salazar that is urging the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado law. “It is part of a larger effort and movement to harm LGBTQ people and strip them of their constitutional rights.”
ADF, originally the Alliance Defense Fund, was founded by evangelical anti-gay activists in 1994. Alan Sears, their former CEO and president, co-authored “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” The book calls homosexuality a “disordered sexual behavior” and equates it with pedophilia and states that gay people on college campuses are involved in “the promotion of sexual relations between adults and children.”
D. James Kennedy, another founder, has preached about “reparative” therapy for gay folks. In a 1993 fundraising letter for his Christian media organization Coral Ridge Ministries, he asked “Would you want your son, daughter, or grandchild sharing a shower, foxhole, or blood with a homosexual?”
A third founder was the late James Dobson, who advised several presidents and argued that conversion therapy could “cure” people.
Since ADF launched, many powerful political figures with anti-LGBTQ beliefs have worked for them. While working as an ADF spokesperson between 2002 and 2010, House Speaker Mike Johnson described gay folks as “destructive” and argued that support for homosexuality could lead to support for pedophilia.
Kristen Waggoner speaking at a press conference in 2018 (Groversawit)
And their current president, Kristen Waggoner, has delegitimized the harm conversion therapy causes by defining the practice as merely having conversations.
Today, their influence in the U.S. government is stronger than ever, with ties to all three branches. In addition to Speaker Johnson, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has been a paid speaker for ADF at least five times since 2011. And in May, President Donald Trump appointed Waggoner to the newly-formed Religious Liberty Commission.
All of these resources and connections are employed to advance an anti-LGBTQ agenda. “They want to see what they see as the God-defined order for gender and marriage be imposed into law,” Montgomery says. “They are trying to create a legal regime in which people can claim religious beliefs to opt out of laws that apply to everyone else.”
History of Fighting to Criminalize Homosexuality and Legalize Conversion Therapy
Over time, ADF has incorporated these viewpoints into their litigation to try and dismantle legal protections for LGBTQ people.
“Just 20 years ago, they were still arguing in court that states should be able to criminalize gay people,” says Montgomery.
In 2000, for example, ADF funded amicus briefs in Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, a case where an assistant scoutmaster sued the Boy Scouts after the organization revoked his membership for being gay. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of ADF.
In 2003, when support for gay marriage was still low in the U.S., they filed an amicus brief to uphold the criminalization of gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas, arguing that the state has a right to regulate “public health and morality.” The group lost the case and sodomy laws were banned nationwide.
As public opinion changed and gay marriage became legal across America in 2015, ADF shifted to more nuanced arguments. “Now, because they know that most Americans favor LGBTQ equality, they’ve really reframed their arguments [around] religious liberty and free speech,” says Montgomery.
The organization has since set its sights on overturning state bans on conversion therapy. In 2018, ADF Senior Counsel Matt Sharp argued against a California bill that classified conversion therapy as fraud. And in 2019, the group sued New York City for a similar law, which led the city to reverse the ban out of fear the case would reach the Supreme Court.
A few years later, in 2021, ADF fought to overturn a statewide conversion therapy ban in Washington, where they represented Christian therapist Brian Tingley. In this instance, they argued that Washington’s law censored Tingley from speaking about gender dysphoria.
A federal appeals court unanimously upheld Washington’s law, with Circuit Judge Ronald Gould shutting down ADF’s argument, writing that: “Washington, like other states, has concluded that health care providers should not be able to treat a child by such means as telling him that he is ‘the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school.’”
Learning from their mistakes, ADF tried again with Chiles v. Salazar, claiming the Colorado law discriminates against Chiles’ viewpoint. Chiles is an evangelical therapist who received her counseling training and education from a seminary.
In their arguments to the Supreme Court, ADF says the conversion therapy ban encourages therapists to help minors explore LGBTQ identities and condemns assisting patients to align with their assigned gender.
Though intended to ban conversion therapy for all LGBTQ people, ADF’s case focuses on gender identity, capitalizing on souring U.S. public opinion on trans rights.
“Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” ADF wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court.
“ADF has tried to draw a connection between laws prohibiting conversion therapy and states attempting to force mental health professionals or doctors to treat transgender youth,” Christopher Stoll, senior staff attorney at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES. But if the law passes, conversion therapy would become legal to practice on all LGBTQ people.
Another part of ADF’s success stems from manufacturing legal battles to advance cases that match their goals.
Chiles, for example, had not incurred any legal penalty from the Colorado district attorney. Instead, ADF filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit, claiming that she had censored herself and stopped accepting patients for conversion therapy following the law’s passage.
“All of these cases are, in a sense, made up cases. … They’re brought on behalf of therapists who have not actually been subject to any kind of investigation or penalty by either state or local governments,” says Stoll, who is representing Kansas City, Mo. as ADF and Missouri’s Attorney General challenge the city’s ban on conversion therapy.
This strategy is what makes ADF stand out. Montgomery says that unlike many other legal organizations, ADF also helps file lawsuits and writes the bills that directly challenge precedents and legislation they hope to change.
This was in part how they were effective in overturning Roe v. Wade. ADF drafted the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortion in Mississippi after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That law then became the central point of the Dobbs case, which overturned abortion rights nationwide.
“They’re just engineered to test these legal arguments, when really no dispute has arisen,” says Stoll.
When asked for comment, an Alliance Defending Freedom Media Relations Specialist redirected Uncloseted Media to a website criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying the group mischaracterizes ADF as a hate group.
How ADF Operates Globally
ADF’s efforts to dismantle conversion therapy and LGBTQ rights span far beyond the U.S. Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI) boasts about efforts in 70 countries, where they push anti-LGBTQ legislation as far as possible in each country.
In 2012, ADF’s then-legal counsel Piero Tozzi spoke at a conference in Jamaica, advocating for the prohibition of gay sex, stating that the “retention of the legislation prohibiting sodomy is a bulwark against this agenda.” And in 2013, members of ADF defended a statute in Belize that characterized LGBTQ sex as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”
“They’re one of the most powerful and influential Christian right religious extremist groups that we have operating in Europe,” Neil Datta, executive director of the European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Datta says with offices in six cities with international human rights centers, ADFI contacts political allies throughout the continent, feeding them legal briefs and direct arguments. Then, those partners take that information and rejig it to align with their country’s political discourse.
“They’re hiring Europeans, training them in the American model of social issues litigation from an anti-rights perspective, and then hoping that [they] will be running with this in European courts,” Datta says. “They bring know-how and capacity to the continent.”
Datta says the U.S. is where the organization conducts its litmus tests for anti-LGBTQ laws and legal arguments: “In the U.S., you have 50 little courts that you can try things out in,” he says. “[ADF] has their own range of different areas that they would like to be active in, and they hunt for opportunities where they can make some progress.”
That includes the defense of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen, who in 2021 was tried for hate speech for condemning a Lutheran church for supporting a Pride event. With ADFI’s assistance, Räsänen was acquitted in 2023.
Making Headway to Ban Conversion Therapy Abroad
While ADFI has yet to succeed in overturning conversion therapy bans in Europe, Datta says some politicians with links to the group have promoted reintegrative therapy, another form of therapy that attempts to help folks suppress same-sex attraction. While the term attempts to distance itself from conversion therapy, it uses similar procedures to the condemned practice.
However, Datta says ADFI is taking steps to shift the discourse by lobbying against the Digital Services Act, a European Union regulation for online hate speech.
In October, ADFI penned a letter to the European Commission asking the organization to review the law. ADF has also posted various blogs on the legislation, one posing a hypothetical about gender identity, stating, “Let’s say you went on Facebook … to post something as common sense as believing that there are only two genders. … If someone were to report that as hate speech, the E.U. could pressure Meta … to remove the post lest it face those stiff financial penalties.”
ADFI has also expanded its horizons to Africa. In May, Bettina Roska, an ADFI legal officer based in Geneva, joined a consortium of anti-LGBTQ advocates in a Pan-African conference on “family values” in Nairobi, Kenya.
“They are trying to do the same thing in Africa, around the African Union, and the African human rights system,” Jamie Vernaelde, senior researcher at Ipas, a non-governmental organization that focuses on reducing the harm of U.S. foreign policy, told Uncloseted Media and GAY TIMES.
Back in the U.S., the Supreme Court will rule on Chiles v. Salazar before the end of its current term next year. Their decision will potentially clear the way for conversion therapy to be practiced nationwide and abroad.
Vernaelde says that if Chiles v. Salazar is successful, ADF is hoping to bring their fight against conversion therapy worldwide in the same way they are expanding their anti-abortion lawsuits. Today, the group is attempting to undo abortion protections in the U.K. with the help of allies in the country’s right-wing Reform party.
“This is a template that they can use in other places that they can spread as widely as they want through their networks,” says Vernaelde.
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I am reading / hearing clips of a lot of pushback, especially in sports media that ICE is not going after the worst of the worst and instead is going after only hardcore murderers, rapists, predators, or other violent criminals. These people reject any mention or idea that ICE is targeting people who came here legally or have asylum, or even that they are detaining children. They simply watch only their right wing media bubble which lies to them or they are paid / make their clicks supporting the right wing talking points. So I post this with the question what crime did this child do against others? Because we can see the crime being committed against him. There is a video at the link below. Hugs
Ramos’ mother addressed his deteriorating health earlier this week: “Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,” she told MPR News on Monday. “He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat.”
Liam Conejo Ramos, the pre-school student who ICE agents in Minneapolis nabbed last week and shipped off to a Texas detention facility with his dad, is in poor health now, according to his school’s superintendent.
Zena Stenvik, the superintendent for Ramos’ Columbia Heights public school district, told HuffPost that she spoke to the 5-year-old’s mother on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, Liam’s health is not doing great right now,” said Stenvik. “He’s been ill. I’ve been told he has a fever. So I’m very, very concerned about his well-being in that facility.”
His mother is also “incredibly distraught,” she said.
Ramos’ mother addressed his deteriorating health earlier this week: “Liam is getting sick because the food they receive is not of good quality,” she told MPR News on Monday. “He has stomach pain, he’s vomiting, he has a fever and he no longer wants to eat.”
Marc Prokosch, the family’s attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, are being held at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. This is despite Arias entering the country legally and having no criminal record, according to Prokosch. Late Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked federal immigration officials from deporting Ramos and Arias, for now.
The conditions at the Texas facility where Ramos is being held are “absolutely abysmal,” according to attorney Eric Lee, who represents other families being held there.
“They mix baby formula with water that is putrid. The food has bugs in it. The guards are often verbally abusive,” Lee told Minnesota Public Radio on Monday. “One of my clients had appendicitis, collapsed in the hallway, was vomiting from pain, and the officials told him, ‘Take a Tylenol and come back in three days.’”
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was detained Jan. 20, 2026 in a suburb of Minneapolis.
Columbia Heights Public Schools
Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) visited the Texas ICE facility on Wednesday to meet with children and families being held there, including Ramos and his dad.
He posted a photo on social media after meeting with them. It shows Ramos either sleeping or lying weakly in his father’s arms, as Castro stands with them:
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) visits Liam Conejo Ramos and his father in a Texas detention center, a week after ICE agents detained them outside their home in Minneapolis.
Congressman Joaquin Castro
“Just visited with Liam and his father at Dilley detention center,” Castro wrote. “I demanded his release and told him how much his family, his school, and our country loves him and is praying for him.”
In a separate video, the Texas Democrat said he spent 30 minutes with Ramos and his dad. He said the 5-year-old “wasn’t in any kind of emergency or anything, physically,” but that he shared the photo of them together so people could see the state he’s in.
“His dad said he hasn’t been himself and he’s been sleeping a lot, because he’s been depressed and sad,” said Castro. “Liam actually was not awake during our visit.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday laid out his party’s demands for voting for Homeland Security funding: End roving patrols by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); tighten rules governing use of warrants by officers targeting migrants; establish a universal code of conduct governing federal law enforcement officers’ use of force; prohibit federal officers from wearing masks; and require officers to wear body cameras and proper identification.
As I keep saying ICE is full of white supremacist gang thugs with no decency or morals. They abused a minor and stole his phone then sold that phone. Think of it they steal like the crooks / criminals they are. These ICE people don’t see any nonwhite person as a human deserving rights. Hugs
In late October, a Houston-area 10th grader, 16-year-old U.S. citizen Arnoldo Bazan, watched his father tackled, choked and arrested in public by immigration officials who the teenager said refused to identify themselves and wore no official uniforms or insignia. Arnoldo Bazan was treated much the same: Put into a banned chokehold by whoever these purported law enforcement figures were supposed to be, he was beaten and choked, and had his phone confiscated, despite his pleas that he was underage and a citizen. His treatment at the hands of agents was later justified by professional murder-rationalizer and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who claimed that he had “assaulted” officers during the arrest by hitting one with an elbow, capping her statement with the following, incredibly smug flourish: “The federal law enforcement officer graciously chose not to press charges.”
The immigration agents in this account are effectively operating as something like federally sanctioned highwaymen–they might as well be privateers in tactical vests and masks, flying the U.S. flag as a defense for why they’re able to do literally anything they want, right up to stealing from citizens for personal profit, confident that nothing will happen to them.
Where is a person supposed to turn, if a man in a vest and mask, who may or may not be ICE, decides to leverage their power against them? Say they take your phone: What do you do? File a police report? Good luck with that–the family of Arnoldo Bazan tried to report their incident to the Houston Police Department, where officers made plain their lack of interest in getting involved in anything related to ICE or DHS. The Bazan family still hasn’t been interviewed by police about the incident, and a department spokesperson told ProPublica that there was no investigation. The message is clear: Federal agents can act with impunity, and local police will only intervene on their behalf.
In late October, a Houston-area 10th grader, 16-year-old U.S. citizen Arnoldo Bazan, watched his father tackled, choked and arrested in public by immigration officials who the teenager said refused to identify themselves and wore no official uniforms or insignia. Arnoldo Bazan was treated much the same: Put into a banned chokehold by whoever these purported law enforcement figures were supposed to be, he was beaten and choked, and had his phone confiscated, despite his pleas that he was underage and a citizen. His treatment at the hands of agents was later justified by professional murder-rationalizer and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who claimed that he had “assaulted” officers during the arrest by hitting one with an elbow, capping her statement with the following, incredibly smug flourish: “The federal law enforcement officer graciously chose not to press charges.”
This story is of course heinous in and of itself, but also typical to the experience of countless Americans who have had their families torn apart by the “immigration enforcement” campaign of DHS and ICE. If you asked Arnoldo Bazan, then surely he would cite the loss of his father Arnulfo Bazan Carrillo that day in October (he was eventually deported to Mexico) as the most important and gutting detail of the encounter. But when the 16-year-old’s case resurfaced this week in the context of a ProPublica deep dive into the widespread use of banned chokeholds by immigration agents, there was another detail that stood out as particularly galling in its sheer disregard for the idea that agents might face any kinds of consequences: The fact that the ICE agents in question allegedly sold Arnoldo Bazan’s confiscated phone for cash, potentially on the very same day that they took it from him.
In the midst of ProPublica’s investigation and interviews with Arnoldo, the teen explained that he had filmed much of the incident between the ICE agents and his father, who had been driving him to high school when they stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast. There, federal agents swarmed the Bazans’ vehicle, causing them to flee. The two fled on foot into a restaurant supply store, where agents tackled them and began to choke both. This portion of the incident was partially captured on video by bystanders, and Arnoldo Bazan can be heard pleading and crying as officers constrict his throat, hoarsely saying “I’m underage” and “I was going to school!” He later described the scenario as feeling “like I was going to pass out and die.” It’s little wonder he gave not much thought to his phone at the time, but after being returned to his home hours later, he used the Find My tool to locate where it had ended up–at “a vending machine for used electronics miles away, close to an ICE detention center,” according to ProPublica. Seemingly, he was able to somehow visit this location and retrieve the phone–the publication said it had later seen the footage, which “backed the family’s account of the chase.”
This is 10th-grader Arnoldo Bazan. A citizen.Immigration agents grabbed him and put him in a chokehold. "We're from the United States bro!' he screamed.Agents took and sold his phoneAnd when he finally got home hours later, his shirt was ripped, he neck had angry, red welts, and he sobbed.
Just consider, for a moment, the thought process of the immigration agents making this kind of decision. You detain a man under the suspicion of being an illegal immigrant, and brutalize both him and his teenage son who is on his way to high school. You take the phone that the kid is using to record the experience–prior to when you start choking him, that is. One would expect there to be some kind of lip service here about how the phone was being taken for “evidence” or “investigation,” or in greater likelihood the thought that perhaps it can be wiped of any incriminating evidence. Nevertheless, if a federal agent takes your phone from you, do you not expect for them to hang onto it in some kind of official capacity? Maybe to even return your property to you afterward, if you’re really lucky? One thing I’m pretty certain isn’t in the operations manual: Bringing your phone to a kiosk, to sell for cash, and then pocketing the modest payday.
As if it needs to be said, this isn’t law enforcement–this is the kind of behavior that law enforcement is intended to dissuade and prevent. The immigration agents in this account are effectively operating as something like federally sanctioned highwaymen–they might as well be privateers in tactical vests and masks, flying the U.S. flag as a defense for why they’re able to do literally anything they want, right up to stealing from citizens for personal profit, confident that nothing will happen to them. If this was the Old West, this is the type of scenario where the citizens would be expected to find a U.S. Marshal and round up a posse in order to exact justice. Only today, it’s the federal “lawmen” who are doing the robbery, backed by millions of dollars in federal PR and spin to convince half of the U.S. population that you clearly deserved anything that was done to you. Oh, an ICE agent stole your phone and sold it? Well, turns out that as of this moment, that’s the new retroactive penalty for being “disrespectful” or “obstructive.”
What’s also beyond clear is that nothing can be believed from the statements of spokespeople for these federal apparatus, because they’re so often shown to be shameless lies. An unnamed “ICE spokesperson” was quoted by the Houston Chronicle in the immediate wake of the incident with Arnoldo Bazan, claiming the reports that the agents “beat up” the teenager (he ended up in a hospital trauma unit, receiving X-rays and CT scans) were “outright lies,” going on to claim that “it wasn’t even an ICE officer who was engaged in the physical altercation with him at the store or in the video,” while simultaneously refusing to explain who these men were supposed to be if not ICE. In the midst of ProPublica’s piece written several months later, meanwhile, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has given up on pretending that the men were not ICE–something she’s demonstrably lied about in the past as well–and had instead pivoted to the claim that Arnoldo Bazan had assaulted the officers in order to justify their use of banned chokeholds on him. She gave no statement at all about Bazan’s phone turning up at a sell-your-electronics kiosk.
Where is a person supposed to turn, if a man in a vest and mask, who may or may not be ICE, decides to leverage their power against them? Say they take your phone: What do you do? File a police report? Good luck with that–the family of Arnoldo Bazan tried to report their incident to the Houston Police Department, where officers made plain their lack of interest in getting involved in anything related to ICE or DHS. The Bazan family still hasn’t been interviewed by police about the incident, and a department spokesperson told ProPublica that there was no investigation. The message is clear: Federal agents can act with impunity, and local police will only intervene on their behalf.
To be clear: Topics like the use of violent, potentially deadly chokeholds are of far more pressing importance than the threat of say, a lost phone. But I can’t stop thinking about that phone, all the same. The immigration agents in question could have done anything with the device after taking it from Arnoldo Bazan. They could have stuck it in an evidence locker. They could have dropped it in the trash. But they seemingly went out of their way to specifically sell it–the private property of a U.S. citizen–as a way of monetizing the cruel business of enforcing the “immigration” policy of Donald Trump. Just a perk of the job, you know! It’s just one more indication that despite all the talk of the rights of citizens vs. illegal immigrants, “citizenship” truly (and predictably) doesn’t mean anything in the eyes of the men who have chosen to become part of this Trump zealot army of ICE goons. They carry out their actions as if they’ve already come to the conclusion that the Supreme Court will retroactively strip the children of immigrants born in the U.S. of citizenship, and have thus decided to simply act accordingly–visualizing the racist world in which they dream of living.
ICE gang thugs ganged up on a man and while beating him they shot him several times. Then they started attacking the crowd. Watch the second video first. Hugs
BREAKING: Law enforcement responding to another shooting in Minnesota involving federal officers
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