A few weeks ago, we accomplished something big. We called on Phoenix’s Washington Elementary School District to end a teacher training contract with the discriminatory Arizona Christian University, over its policies of hate and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
Unfortunately, it seems high-powered lawyers from hate group Alliance Defending Freedom have pressured the school district into reversing the decision.
The decision to cancel the contract had nothing to do with faith—a fact board members said clearly and unanimously. It had everything to do with the fact that public resources should not benefit an organization that teaches LGBTQ+ people are evil and bans them from their campuses.
WESD might have prevailed with this case, but legal intimidation did instead. We think the well-funded ADF scared the district with the threat of sending even more public dollars down the drain.
This whole episode illustrates two clear cases to further fund the secular movement:
- We are making an impact on school boards—enough to draw the Christian nationalist big dogs into the fight.
- Imagine how much further we could have taken this with even a fraction of ADF’s resources.
That’s the vision we’re building toward little by little. We invite you to be part of us getting there.