What MLive didn’t tell you about the law firm that is defending Catholic counselors that are challenging Michigan’s ban on conversion therapy
Yesterday, MLive posted a story with the following headline, Catholic counselors sue over Michigan’s ban on conversion therapy.
The article states that the Catholic counselors have hired Becket Law (formerly known as Becket Fund for Religious Liberty), which claims, “the law banning conversion therapy – a widely discredited practice of trying to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation or gender identity – violates a right to free speech and free exercise of religion.”
According to Mlive, Becket Law is based in DC is dedicated to “defending the freedom of religion.” The only other information that MLive provides readers on Becket Law is the following:
Becket has successfully argued several religious liberty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court including one over Philadelphia refusing a contract because Catholic Social Services rejected same-sex couples as foster parents. The group also won a case over Hobby Lobby not offering its employees birth control.
Most of the rest of the MLive article focuses on the background of the State of Michigan’s ban on conversation therapy, which happened in 2023.
So what didn’t the MLive article tell us about Becket Law?
- Becket Law has ties to the far right groups known as the State Policy Network.
- Roger Severino, who was chief operations officer and legal counsel for Becket, was appointed by Donald Trump to head the department’s Office of Civil Rights in 2018.
- Becket Law has ties to the Koch Family Foundation.
- Becket Law defends families against school system that providing reading material or curriculum that informs about LGBTQ issues and particularly anything that promotes being trans.
- Becket Law defends Jewish students at the university level because they claim that the Pro-Palestine movement on US campuses is antisemitic.
- Becket Law fights cases where groups are seeking to remove certain statues or memorials that center war. Becket Law believes that many of these memorials are also religious in nature.
- The Southern Poverty Law Center says – “Though it was originally nonpartisan and took on a variety of “religious liberty” cases, under the current leadership of President William Mumma it has become more conservative and is seen as the intellectual leader of right-wing religious liberty campaigns. In 2012, it won the landmark Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. EEOC, a ruling that allows religious organizations to hire and fire clergy without regard to employment discrimination law.”
- Becket Law also works with Catholic and other Right to Life groups defending their religious grounds to NOT support abortion or any kind of reproductive freedom.
I found out all of this information about Becket Law within one hour, but apparently the journalist with MLive didn’t think it was necessary to provide more background of the group that is trying to undermine Michigan’s ban on conversion therapy.
Sources used:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Becket
https://www.splcenter.org/20160211/religious-liberty-and-anti-lgbt-right#becket-fund
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 
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