As state legislatures around the country move to enact marriage equality and civil unions, an anti-gay Christian legal and policy coalition calling itself the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has become a ubiquitous presence at committee hearings. But their misleading testimony in defense of the right to discriminate has done virtually nothing to advance their cause — and may even undermine it.

As the Delaware Senate debated a marriage equality bill earlier this month, opponents brought ADF senior counsel Jordan Lorence to the floor to offer testimony. Lorence noted a case in New Mexico (a state which don’t even allow same-sex marriage), in which an anti-gay vendor had faced legal action after violating state civil rights laws, and suggested that he believes such public accommodations laws are unconstitutional. “It’s the business owners that deal with weddings. It’s licensed professionals having their licenses threatened because they believe the wrong things about marriage,” he told the Senators.

Delaware state Sen. Dave Sokola (D), lead Senate sponsor of the bill, told ThinkProgress that Lorence’s right-to-discriminate arguments actually helped solidify support for the bill:

We had recently added “sexual orientation” to our non-discrimination statute in 2009, and debated and passed Civil Unions just 2 years ago. Even with a large turn-over in both the House and Senate, this issue was very fresh in many of our minds. Equality Delaware did a tremendous outreach to all, with a special emphasis on our newer legislators, so there was sufficient understanding of the matter, and I do think he just firmed up the positions of all on the prevailing side. We also now have a 4-year track record of how Delaware businesses are doing with respect to this, and the predictions of our opponents have not come true since we enacted either of the previous bills. The facts have significantly diminished their credibility.

Lorence also made this argument to the Delaware House of Representatives. Sokola’s House counterpart, Rep. Melanie Smith (D), told ThinkProgress: “I believe he was mistaken in much of what he said and misrepresented the bill significantly.” She added that as far as she knew, “no votes were swayed by his testimony.” The bill passed both chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell (D).

Lorence also offered similar testimony in 2011 before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee, warning that “small businesses that decline to serve or participate in same-sex ceremonies could be sued for discrimination by a public accommodation,” ignoring the fact that Maryland law had prohibited such discrimination since 2001. The committee recommended the bill and voters enacted the law last year. Read more

Former Vice President Walter Mondale and former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis told ThinkProgress this week that they support marriage equality. With their endorsements, every living former Democratic presidential nominee is now on record in support of same-sex marriage.

Every other living Democratic nominee had previously made their support explicit.

The list includes:

• 1. Former President Jimmy Carter (1976 and 1980). Carter said last year “Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things — he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.”
• 2. Former Vice President Walter Mondale (1984). Mondale, who invoked civil rights legend Hubert Humphrey as he campaigned against last year’s proposed Minnesota marriage inequality amendment, said in an e-mail that he not both “opposed the constitutional amendment that would prevent legalizing gay marriage and I supported the legalization of gay marriage adopted this past week in Minnesota.
• 3. Former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (1988). Dukakis confirmed his support to ThinkProgress in a May 12 e-mail.
• 4. Former President Bill Clinton (1992 and 1996). Clinton announced his support for marriage equality in 2009 and has actively campaigned for it since. Clinton had previously signed the anti-gay 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
• 5. Former Vice President Al Gore (2000). Gore delivered a “forceful endorsement” of marriage equality in 2008, saying “gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage.”
• 6. Secretary of State John Kerry (2004). Kerry told the blog Blue Mass Group in 2008 that he “absolutely” supported civil marriage equality. He explained his evolution in a 2011 Boston Globe op-ed entitled “Politicians have the right to evolve on gay marriage.”
• 7. President Barack Obama (2008 and 2012). President Obama made his historic announcement one year ago, telling ABC’s Robin Roberts: “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Former Senator George McGovern (D-SD), the 1972 Democratic nominee, also endorsed marriage equality prior to his death last year. He told the Daily Republic last May: “I’m a ‘conservative’ when it comes to marriage. I think if two people love each other, are living together and having sex, they ought to get married.”

To date, no living Republican nominee or president has endorsed same-sex marriage.

Years from now, when the United States is a shell of its former self and we are ruled by hedonist overlords, schoolchildren will look back on April 29, 2013 as the fateful day when President Obama called Jason Collins after he became the first openly gay NBA player, thus undermining American culture forever.

This is the type of future envisioned by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on the House floor last week. In a freewheeling discussion of everything from immigration to Russian Marxists, the Iowa congressman criticized Obama’s decision to call Collins after his courageous move. “These are the ways that culture gets undermined,” King lamented. “One notch at a time, American civilization, American culture, western civilization, western Judeo-Christiandom are eroded.”

King contrasted Obama’s chat with Collins to the fact that the president hasn’t personally called ex-New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow, “who will kneel and pray to God on the football field.”

KING: I hear the president reducing or lowering American values by his comments that take place in the public and in the press. Think about the things he’s chosen to take sides on. [...] Then we’ve got Tim Tebow who will kneel and pray to God on the football field. Meanwhile we have a professional athlete that decides he’s going to announce his sexuality and he gets a personal call from the United States to highlight the sexuality of a professional ballplayer. These are ways that the culture gets undermined, where it gets divided. The people over on this side take their followership from that kind of leadership. One notch at a time, American civilization, American culture, western civilization, western Judeo-Christiandom are eroded.

Watch it:

King has a storied history as a culture warrior since entering the House in 2003. He has argued that marriage equality is a “purely socialist concept“, belittled marriage equality by saying “you don’t need a license to begin a new friendship,” contended that LGBT people should have to hide their orientation at work, and said that children will be raised in “warehouses” if conservatives don’t “defend marriage”.

Scouts for Equality, the Boy Scout alumni association working to end the Boy Scouts of America’s national policy of mandatory discrimination against LGBT Scouts and leaders, held a national day of action Friday. The dozens of events at Scout councils across the country encouraged the national representatives from each to back a proposed rule change to allow openly gay Scouts and to also push for an end to the exclusion of LGBT adults as volunteers and professionals with the organization.

In Bethesda, Maryland, dozens of Eagle Scouts, current Scouts, parents, and volunteer leaders gathered outside the National Capital Area Council headquarters. Scores of cars passing on the highway next to the building honked in support, while attendees held signs urging and end to the ban.

ThinkProgress talked with several participants. Debbie Heller, mother of an Eagle Scout and wife of a former Scoutmaster, said that “I think Scouting is the greatest organization in the world, but if they continue to discriminate, I could couldn’t support” the BSA.

Eagle Scout David Churchill observed: “Discrimination is wrong.” Noting that the Boy Scout law requires all Scouts to be kind, he said “the organization needs to reflect that as well.

Jody Benjamin, a former Den leader and committee chair, objected to the current requirement that troop leaders kick out youths who identify as gay. “The Scouts are asking me to be a liar or to do a really hurtful thing to a child. I can’t do it, and so I think it’s wrong.”

Justis Tunia, who earned his Eagle Scout award in Layton, Utah in 1995, lamented that events like this were necessary. “It’s a shame that we as former members and families associated with Scouting have to push the organization in this direction, as these were values that were taught to us throughout our period in Scouting.”

Andrew Kragie, who was Senior Patrol Leader of his Washington, DC troop and achieved the Eagle rank in 2010, noted that he worked to teach younger Scouts not to bully and to respect all others. “Just being accepting about different people, it was the basic tenets of living together and being at a camp site together.”

Eagle Scout Harris Walker, a North Carolina native, noted that he has LGBT family members. “I want to see my nephews be able to participate in a Scouting organization where their mothers can be their Den mothers.”

And Jerald Lentini, who earned his Eagle Scout award in Georgia, explained that “Scouting is a trail, and we’re being told that we should be leaving some of our fellow hikers on that trail, along the wayside, because they are different than us.”

Watch the video:

Roughly 1,400 representatives will vote on May 24 whether to end the ban on gay Scouts. It is unclear whether they will also be allowed to vote on proposals to also eliminate allow LGBT adults into the program.

The Minnesota House of Representatives approved marriage equality (HF 1054) by a vote of 75 to 59. It now proceeds to the Senate, where it has already been endorsed by both the Judiciary and Finance Committees.

Openly lesbian Rep. Karen Clark (DFL), author of the bill, told her colleagues that “Freedom means freedom for everyone.” With her support, the House unanimously adopted an amendment by Rep. David FitzSimmons (R) changing all references to “marriage” in the state law to “civil marriage.” An amendment by Rep. Tim Kelly (R) to replace all Minnesota marriages with civil unions was rejected, 22 to 111.

The Senate will take up the bill Monday and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk (DFL) has said he believes he has the votes to pass it.

Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) has promised to sign the bill and has said enactment would represent “a society-changing, breakthrough moment” for the North Star state.

Minnesota voters rejected a 2012 marriage inequality constitutional amendment (with just 47 percent voting in favor) and a recent poll found 51 percent of Minnesotans now support marriage equality.

The three major Republican-leaning outside groups running ads in support of a comprehensive immigration reform bill are all backed by strong supporters of legal equality for same-sex couples. Despite conservative warnings that including protections for bi-national same-sex couples would torpedo the bill, there appears to be wider bipartisan support for equal rights for gay and lesbian couples.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), one of four Republican co-sponsors of the proposed Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, said last week that adoption of an amendment to allow gay and lesbian Americans equal rights to sponsor their non-citizen partners for green cards would “virtually guarantee” that the broader bill would not pass the Senate. He warned that “if that issue is injected into this bill, the bill will fail and the coalition that helped put it together will fall apart.”

The conservative groups running ads in support of immigration reform include FWD.US‘s Americans for a Conservative Direction, the American Action Network, and the National Immigration Forum Action Fund. A ThinkProgress review of top supporters of those groups finds several vocal supporters of LGBT rights.

• Americans for a Conservative Direction: Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.US, which funds Americans for a Conservative Direction, lists several co-founders and major donors from the tech community who have publicly or privately supporter marriage equality. They include Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Napster co-founder Sean Parker, Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, and several others. Zuckberg’s own Facebook has been among industry leaders in supporting equal treatment for same-sex couples.
• American Action Network: The founder of the organization is marriage equality supporter Fred Malek. The president of its affiliated American Action Forum, Douglas Holtz-Eakin signed a Supreme Court brief in support of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. Even board member and conservative bulwark C. Boyden Gray recently penned an op-ed in support of civil unions.
• The National Immigration Forum Action Fund. The group received a recent “six-figure donation” from hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer. Singer, whose son and son-in-law married in Massachusetts in 2009, has reportedly given more than $10 million to marriage equality efforts nationally and helped launch a super PAC to encourage other Republicans to support same-sex marriage.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, disputes Rubio’s assessment that LGBT protections would imperil immigration reform. “It’s not going to kill the bill,” he told Politico. Others noted to the publication that many made same threats about LGBT protections included in the Violence Against Women Act re-authorization, which garnered 78 votes in the U.S. Senate. Those provisions, like the bi-national couples protections, were opposed by Catholic bishops and some Evangelical groups.

As of today, 54 Senators have publicly endorsed marriage equality (including Republicans Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rob Portman of Ohio). Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a co-sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act, a stand alone version of the amendment, and has endorsed the idea of inclusion of the provisions in a comprehensive reform package. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has endorsed equal legal rights for same-sex couples, through civil unions, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has said she is “evolving” toward supporting marriage equality. And the three Senate Democrats who have not yet endorsed marriage equality have each been supportive of other LGBT rights.

If Rubio and fellow Gang of Eight members Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and John McCain (R-AZ) joined with these Senators, the bill could easily obtain the 60 votes needed to prevent any filibuster.

But Rubio partnered with the National Organization for Marriage last year to make robocalls against same-sex marriage and boasted of the endorsement of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBT hate group. While he attempts to spin his opposition to inclusion of LGBT protections as concern for the bill, the fate of the bill really appears to rest in Rubio’s own hands.

A group opposed to allowing gay Boy Scouts — “On My Honor” — has issued an open letter from its only apparent member, John Stemberger, urging opposition to the proposed change, which would allow gay Scouts but not gay Scout leaders. Among the ten arguments are offensive lies and stereotypes about gay people, as well as arguments that aren’t even substantively relevant:

1. Allowing Gay Scouts But Not Leaders Is Inconsistent

This argument is actually valid, making it one of the weakest presented in the letter, because it supports an inclusive policy for all Scouts and leaders, not a continuation of the ban. The only inconsistency in the membership policy is that it excludes people who are gay (and atheist). On My Honor may even be correct that the inconsistency “will surely draw an equal protection lawsuit,” but that is the fault of the Boy Scouts of America for trying to cling to some form of discrimination.

2. Boy-On-Boy Sexual Contact Will Increase

This argument conflates sexual orientation with sexual behavior, while promulgating the myth that people who are gay are predatory. The implication is that gay teenagers should never even be allowed to go camping because they’re a threat to their straight friends. Such fear-mongering serves only to further demonize the gay community.

3. All Troops Will Have to ‘Facilitate Open Homosexuality’

This isn’t a new argument; it’s merely a complaint derived from a desire to discriminate.

4. So Many Will Leave In Protest That The Scouts Will Collapse

If “tens- and possibly hundreds of thousands of parents and Scouts” leave the BSA, as On My Honor suggests they will, it’s an insult to the very integrity of the program to begin with. Rather than supporting the many values and lessons the Scouts stand for, these individuals will prove their only reason for participation in the Scouts was because the organization is anti-gay.

5. Parents Will Lose Their Right To Shield Their Kids From Learning About Gay People

Like argument #2, this claim relies on the false assumption that being gay automatically makes an individual somehow more “sexual.” Having gay Scouts will not increase the level of discussion about sex anymore than having straight Scouts does. Even a “17-year-old gay activist openly flaunting his sexuality and promoting a leftist political agenda” would honor the Scouts’ commitment to improving society by being helpful, friendly, courteous — and particularly brave.

6. The Scouts Are Caving To Pressure From Society

On My Honor is disappointed that it was just last year that the Scouts decided that banning gay Scouts was “the absolute best policy,” but now “BSA’s top leadership is more concerned about what is popular in the polls taken outside the Scouting family.” When that decision was made, the Scouts refused to explain it, likely because there is no sensible justification for it. Since then, the organization has lost the corporate sponsorship of Intel, UPS, and Merck, so it’s not surprising  its leaders became less attached to a policy they couldn’t even defend.

7. Units Who Don’t Comply Will Be Legally Vulnerable

Like argument #1, this concern simply reveals the inconsistency of allowing gay Scouts but not leaders. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of BSA’s policy in 2000, Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that the BSA engages in “expressive association.” If that expression is applied inconsistently, it would no longer define — or protect — the organization. This argument is simply a redundant concern that units will no longer be able to get away with discrimination.

8. The Policy Will Allow ‘Transgendered Girls’ In the BSA

First of all, transgender girls would probably be more interested in the Girl Scouts, which they’re actually welcome to join. Contrary to On My Honor’s fears, gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality whatsoever. Transgender boys should be allowed to join the Boy Scouts, but that form of inclusion is not addressed by this policy. The language “sexual preference” in the proposed change is disappointing, but only because it’s inaccurate nomenclature for sexual orientation.

9. Language In The Resolution Is Merely Symbolic

On My Honor seems to think it’s consequential that the “whereas” statements that justify the resolution will not be part of the policy once it’s approved. It apparently has no qualms about putting forth its own symbolic arguments.

10. Many In the Scouting Family Support Discrimination

On My Honor conveniently ignores the most recent survey that specifically addressed the policy on gay Scouts to cite an older survey with less supportive results. Still, trying to argue a “moral” point from a claim of popularity compromises what moral integrity the position even has.

It’s unclear if On My Honor represents anybody other than its founder, John Stemberger. Nevertheless, other anti-gay organizations like the Family Research Council are supporting his efforts. Through this open letter, he has shown not only a lack of understanding but a significant antipathy for the gay community. Scouts For Equality called the letter, “a new low,” but arguably this is the same low the Scouts’ policy has perpetuated for years.