Friday, Jan 11, 2013 9:25 PM UTC

Anti-gay activist lawyer guilty of child pornography after videotaping daughter

Lisa Biron faces 25 years in prison for filming her 14-year-old having sex with two men on multiple occasions

By Evelyn Schlatter

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Topics: Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Gay Activism, Pornography, Child Pornography, FBI, News

The Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

This article was originally published by The Southern Poverty Law Center. 

A New Hampshire lawyer who works with a virulently anti-gay Christian-right organization has been found guilty of child pornography charges after videotaping her own daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions.

Lisa Biron, 43, of Manchester faces a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison after a jury convicted her yesterday. The jury deliberated for less than an hour.

Biron, arrested by the FBI last November, was accused of eight felony counts involving the videotaping of men having sex with a 14-year-old girl who was identified by the Associated Press as her daughter. She also allegedly made a cellphone video of herself having sex with her daughter.

Biron, who claimed on her Facebook page (which was taken down, according to the Concord Monitor) that the Bible was her favorite book, had worked with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), formerly the Alliance Defense Fund, in defending a Pentecostal church in Concord in a tax fight against the city.

The Arizona-based ADF calls itself a “servant ministry” that seeks to transform the legal system and advocate “for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” The group issues dire warnings about “the homosexual agenda” and offers a book (available for a donation of $35) by its president, Alan Sears, and senior director Craig Osten, with that title. In the book, the authors claim that “the homosexual agenda” will destroy religious liberty and free speech. In one chapter, they claim that homosexuality on college campuses leads to pedophilia, and that homosexuality and pedophilia “are intrinsically linked,” a falsehood long perpetuated by the anti-gay right to demonize LGBT people.

In the wake of Biron’s arrest, the ADF removed all mentions of her from its website and Facebook page, and in a November “CBS News” report the ADF said that Biron was never an employee. The group has released no further statements on Biron. According to the LGBT blog Joe.My.God., the group continued to remove mentions of her from its Facebook page yesterday and banned anyone who posted anything about her.

Biron may not have been a formal employee of the ADF, but John Aravosis at Americablog found that she had been a member of the ADF “Honor Corps,” the group created to recognize allied attorneys who complete 450 hours of pro bono service for the group and to award and recognize “significant milestones” in service. Honor Corps attorneys also receive perks from the ADF like pro bono referrals and opportunities, job and résumé postings, invitations to their regional legal academies, and access to online resources and confidential updates and presentations. In March 2011, Biron was mentioned by the ADF as an “Allied Attorney Success Story.” The ADF website doesn’t list that anymore.

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