You don’t get to choose which parts of the First Amendment you like. Using the state to put someone out of business because they don’t share your beliefs is not what we do in America. A state powerful enough to tell bakers . . . Continue reading →
Civil Liberties
With Janet Mefferd On What Scripture Says About Private Property
The eighth and tenth commandments, “You shall not steal” (Ex 20:15) and “You shall not covet” (Ex 20:17) are basic to biblical ethics. They are part of the natural law that God revealed to Adam in the garden, known by image bearers . . . Continue reading →
Orwell On The Value Of Good Writing
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original . . . Continue reading →
Confessions Of A Former Online Social Justice Warrior
Within the world created by the various apps I used, I got plenty of shares and retweets. But this masked how ineffective I had become outside, in the real world. The only causes I was actually contributing to were the causes of . . . Continue reading →
Paul: Let Him Not Eat
Paul was a theologian of the twofold kingdom. In what Calvin called the “spiritual” aspect of the kingdom we find a covenant of grace in which sinners are accepted (justified) and saved by God out of his free favor (sola gratia), through . . . Continue reading →
In 1776 It Was Not Just Firecrackers
…Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms . . . Continue reading →
Kennedy: To Compel Citizens To Contradict Their Most Deeply Held Beliefs Is Authoritarian
It does appear that viewpoint discrimination is inherent in the design and structure of this Act. This law is a paradigmatic example of the serious threat presented when government seeks to impose its own message in the place of individual speech, thought, . . . Continue reading →
The State Of Oregon Wants To “Rehabilitate” Your Religious Beliefs And Practices
The Oregon Constitution allows religious exemptions from laws that are generally applicable, but Avakian ruled that out from the very beginning. Can he really be presumed to be fair and neutral when he said our business was unlawfully discriminating before he had . . . Continue reading →
When A Cake Is More Than A Cake
Erik Erickson makes a point this morning that I try to make to my Ancient Church students each year. Words mean things. Some words, spoken in some contexts, mean so much that Christians have been willing to die and have been murdered . . . Continue reading →
“The City Of Phoenix Seeks To Comandeer…Minds And Bodies”
Phoenix does not merely seek to make Joanna and Breanna a passive courier of its message, but seeks to commandeer their very minds and bodies to envision, design, create, and convey its message. It does this via § 18-4(B)(1)-(2), which prohibits places . . . Continue reading →
Eastman: “Masterpiece” Is A Big Win For Religious Liberty
Despite almost 30 years of Supreme Court case law emptying the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause of almost all substantive content (thanks largely to a 1990 decision by Justice Scalia called Employment Division v. Smith), the Supreme Court has now confirmed that . . . Continue reading →
Reno: Consequences Of The Institutionalization Of The Sexual Revolution
It was inevitable that the institutionalization of the sexual revolution would be carried forward by appeals to the postwar anti-discrimination tradition. And that tradition is loaded with explosive moral condemnation of any who dissent. The Colorado commissioner who implied that Jack Phillips . . . Continue reading →
Justice Thomas: “I Warned You”
In Obergefell, I warned that the Court’s decision would “inevitabl[y] . . . come into conflict” with religious liberty, “as individuals . . . are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples.” 576 U. S., at . . . Continue reading →
SCOTUS: Colorado Civil Rights Commission Exhibited Anti-Christian Bias
…To Phillips, his claim that using his artistic skills to make an expressive statement, a wedding endorsement in his own voice and of his own creation, has a significant First Amendment speech component and implicates his deep and sincere religious beliefs. His . . . Continue reading →
May Churches In Oregon Be Sued For Refusing To Host LGBTQ Weddings? It Depends
Christine Lewis, the labor bureau’s legislative director, said she couldn’t give a blanket answer as to whether churches in Oregon can legally refuse to allow gay groups to rent out their spaces. That depends on “the unique facts of each case,” she . . . Continue reading →
No Safe Spaces
Civil Liberties Watch: It Is Yours Until A Big Developer Wants It
Kelo v. City of New London effectively turned an explicit constitutional right into a nullity. Though the language of the Fifth Amendment is clear — “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation” — state and local governments . . . Continue reading →
A Law-Abiding Gun Owner Speaks Up
Supreme Court: You Are On Your Own
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation. . . . Continue reading →
The Wages Of Sin Is Death
God’s holy Law says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all he law and . . . Continue reading →