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Sexual Deviance Destroying Marriage and Religious Freedom

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As you read this, remember how many times leftists assured Americans that homosexuals wanted nothing more than to be left alone to do their thing in the privacy of their bedrooms. And remember how they asserted that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” would affect no one, no way, no how.

Two days ago, the Corruption of Marriage Act (COMA)—known euphemistically by leftists as the Respect for Marriage Act—passed the U.S. Senate and will now go back to the U.S. House where it is expected to slither quickly through a U.S. House vote like a snake in the grass.

Recognizing the unconscionable and unconstitutional threat to religious liberty posed by COMA, U.S. Senators Mike Lee, James Lankford, and Marco Rubio proposed amendments that would strengthen religious protections, all of which were rejected. Adding insult to conservatives to injury to the First Amendment, twelve treasonous Republicans voted for COMA.

Why would anyone on the right or left reject amendments that would strengthen religious liberty protections? The amendments failed because Democrats have no respect for religious free exercise protections, especially if they come into conflict with the cultural and political desires of those with deviant erotic predilections.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz describes the shape of things to come after COMA is signed into law:

The so-called Respect for Marriage Act is going to set the stage for the Biden IRS to target people of faith, and in particular, to deny tax exempt status to churches, charities, universities, and K-12 schools. This bill creates a federal cause of action to sue institutions that believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There are going to be hundreds of lawsuits filed all across this country, forcing underfunded defendants to settle and violate their beliefs or close their doors. That’s what the Democrats want. And 12 Republicans went along with it. 

COMA will overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which preserved in federal law the cross-cultural and historical definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. COMA will force the federal government and all state governments to recognize homoerotic, non-conjugal relationships as marriages. In other words, COMA codifies the unconstitutional U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

Quisling Senator Mitt Romney made a statement both silly and repugnant in support of COMA:

This legislation … signals that Congress — and I — esteem and love all of our fellow Americans equally.

Romney, as a sitting U.S. Senator, has proclaimed that esteem and love for others depend on passing laws that codify that marriage has no connection to sexual differentiation or reproductive potential. In so doing, he has insulted the thousands of people who believe otherwise, including many whose beliefs are central to their identity as Christians. And he has lent Republican weight to the allegations of hatred hurled at conservatives every day from every corner of American life.

Signaling esteem and love for all Americans equally does not require Congress, Mitt Romney, or any other citizen to affirm any particular beliefs about marriage. Presumably, Romney esteems and loves his fellow Americans who would like to marry their four poly partners. Does he seek to legalize plural marriage in order to signal his virtuous love and esteem?

What about adult women who want to marry their fathers or men who want to marry their brothers or young adult nephews? Does Romney want to signal to them how much he and Congress esteem and love them?

Such juvenile foolishness was bipartisan. U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who has a “married” lesbian daughter, emoted,

By passing this bill, the Senate is sending a message that every American needs to hear: No matter who you are or who you love, you, too, deserve dignity and equal treatment under the law.

Schumer claims to believe that dignity and equal treatment under the law require the law to recognize any union constituted by “love.” That will be very good news to Minor-Attracted Persons. All they have to do now is grow their lobby and change the definition of consent.

But the core question regarding marriage has nothing to do equality, dignity, love, or esteem. The core question is, “What is marriage.”

Romney’s foolish ideas about the role of government echo former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell:

The nature of marriage is that … two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation. … There is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry. … [Same-sex couples’] hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

At least Kennedy acknowledged that marriage has a nature. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to know what that nature is or why the government is involved with marriage.

He doesn’t explain why marriage is composed of two people. He doesn’t explain what criteria he used to determine that “there is dignity” in the erotic/romantic bond between two people of the same sex. He doesn’t explain why not being able to marry someone of the same sex dooms homosexual couples to “live in loneliness.” And where oh where does Kennedy find a right to dignity in the U.S. Constitution? If such a right lurks somewhere in the penumbra and emanations of the U.S. Constitution, how is it granted to those whose beliefs about marriage are attacked as hateful by members of Congress?

Here’s yet another remarkable statement from Kennedy on the dignity-dispensing role of government:

I thought [dignity-bestowing] was the whole purpose of marriage. It bestows dignity on both man and woman in a traditional marriage. It’s dignity-bestowing, and these parties say they want to have that, that same ennoblement.

The “whole purpose of marriage” is to bestow dignity on sexually differentiated marital unions? Really? Many Americans thought the inclusion of sexual differentiation in the legal definition of marriage was a recognition of the intrinsic nature of marriage and served to unite mothers and fathers to each other and to any children that may result from their sexual union, which in turn serves to protect the inherent needs and rights of children, which in turn serves the public good. The job of the government is not to affirm love or confer dignity on any type of union—conjugal and reproductive or erotic and sterile.

Always two or two dozen steps ahead of conservatives, leftists are anticipating the day when Obergefell will be overturned, and states will once again be free either to recognize in law what marriage in reality is or redefine marriage to help homoerotically attracted persons pretend their relationships are marital. Leftists want to ensure that states in which citizens vote to recognize true marriage are forced to recognize legal same-sex faux-marriages performed in other states.

COMA’s sponsors also cynically included interracial marriage in the bill, which strikes many as bizarre. Is there a movement afoot that no one has heard of to ban interracial marriage? Of course not. Including a reference to interracial marriage serves two pernicious purposes of leftists.

First, it is an implicit way to reinforce their nonsensical comparison of skin color to homoerotic desires.

Second, it enables leftists to cast aspersions on Republicans who oppose COMA. Unprincipled Democrats can now say in voices trembling with faux-umbrage, “Republican Senator (fill in the blank) voted against a bill to protect interracial marriage” as they wag their crooked fingers.

The GOP needs an overhaul. We need a Republican National Committee chair not named Ronna Romney McDaniel. We need men and women with working moral compasses and spines of steel. And we need to give fools and quislings like the dirty dozen in Congress a big joyous heave ho.



Yes, Abortion and Transgenderism are Two Sides of the Same Coin

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Written by Patience Griswold

Recently a transgender activist claimed, “Abortion rights and trans rights are two sides of the same coin.” Jennifer Finney Boylan, a man who identifies as a woman, argued that

In many ways, the decision to terminate a pregnancy is not unlike the decision to go through transition: It is a fundamentally private choice that can be made only by the individual in question — a person who alone knows the truth of their heart, who alone can understand what the consequences of their choices will be in the years to come.

While Boylan is incorrect in how the two movements are two sides of the same coin, it is true that abortion and transgenderism are rooted in the same set of ideas. Both rest on the assumption that one’s “true self” or personhood can be separated from biological realities and both have a distorted understanding of the purpose of medicine.

Just as the abortion movement insists that an unborn child is not a person even though science has proven that life begins at conception, the transgender movement insists that a person’s “true self” can be separate from his or her physical body. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy infamously stated, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” In that statement, he captures the mindset that is behind both abortion and transgenderism — the idea that each of us has the “right” to define our own concept of existence.

The right to define one’s own concept of existence suggests that existence has not already been clearly defined by the One who created it. If there is such a thing as reality, then we do not get to “define our own concept of existence” and attempts to do so have life-altering and even life-ending consequences. The stakes could not be higher. A baby in the womb exists, is alive, and is a person regardless of how anyone else “defines their own concept of existence.” Similarly, male and female are realities that do not depend on one’s own concept of existence but on biological fact.

This so-called “right to define one’s own concept of existence” distorts medical practice in such a way that it is no longer viewed as a means of healing but as a means of forcing, or attempting to force reality to match one’s own desires. This happens in abortion when the reality of an unborn child’s right to life is dismissed in favor of a woman’s “choice.” Instead of doing no harm, abortionists intentionally kill an unborn child while insisting that the child was not truly a person.

Transgender ideology also rejects the “do no harm” principle and replaces it with the notion that whatever the patient believes will lead to personal fulfillment is right, even if it causes direct harm to his or her body. What is “loving” under this view is not what is in the best interest of the patient or what honors their human dignity by caring for their body, but doing whatever the patient feels will give them the most “autonomy” over his or her body. Boylan writes,

Let’s be clear: It is not love to force a trans child to go through a puberty that will scar them for the rest of their life. It is not love to force a woman to bear a child against her will. It is not love to deny anyone autonomy over their own body.

The heartbreaking and horrifying irony of this argument is that a writer who is claiming that going through puberty will leave a child “scarred” for the rest of his or her life is literally arguing that children should be given hormone-blockers that prevent their natural development and undergo surgeries that will leave them permanently scarred.

Arguments for “bodily autonomy” as a justification for abortion or transgender surgeries have a very low view of the human body, treating it as a “flesh prison” in the words of some transgender activists, or in the case of abortion, something to be disposed of as medical waste. The truth is our bodies matter and should be treated like they matter. Embodiment is a fundamental part of what it is to be human and we cannot separate our humanness from our embodiment. Because of this, “bodily autonomy” does not make it right to remove or mutilate healthy organs in order to make someone’s body resemble that of the opposite sex. Similarly, “bodily autonomy” is not a justification for taking away the life of another human being, whatever their stage of development, as abortion does.

Far from being about fear or control as Boylan claims, rejecting abortion and the so-called “treatments” offered by the transgender movement is a matter of respecting human life and the human body and living consistently with biological reality. Not only do we not have the right to redefine reality, we do not have the ability to do so. The abortion movement and the transgender movement both deny this and leave destruction in their wake as a result. The two really are two sides of the same coin and in a classic “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario, the “patients” that these movements claim to serve never benefit.

This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.



U.S. Supreme Court Hands Christian Bakers Win in Same-Sex Case, Vacates Lower Court

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Written by Michael Foust

The U.S. Supreme Court handed religious liberty advocates a victory Monday when it vacated a lower court’s opinion that had ordered a Christian baker to design a cake for a same-sex wedding.

At issue was a ruling by the Oregon Court of Appeals that upheld a state decision forcing Aaron and Melissa Klein to pay a $135,000 penalty after they refused to design a cake celebrating a wedding for a lesbian couple. The Kleins eventually closed their business, known as “Sweet Cakes by Melissa.”

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday issued a one-paragraph order vacating the judgment and sending it back down to the Oregon Court of Appeals.

“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals of Oregon for further consideration in light of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n,” the unsigned order read.

Masterpiece was a 2018 ruling in which the Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who refused to design a wedding cake for a gay couple. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled the Colorado Civil Rights Commission demonstrated hostility toward religion when it ordered bakery owner Jack Phillips to design the cake.

The Kleins are represented by First Liberty Institute.

“This is a victory for Aaron and Melissa Klein and for religious liberty for all Americans,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty. “The Constitution protects speech, popular or not, from condemnation by the government. The message from the Court is clear, government hostility toward religious Americans will not be tolerated.”

First Liberty had hoped the Supreme Court would hear oral arguments and expand on its Masterpiece decision. The high court, though, punted on that decision.

First Liberty filed suit after the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) ruled the Kleins had violated a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. The BOLI also handed down a $135,000 penalty. The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled against the Kleins, and the Oregon Supreme Court declined to take the case.

“The State of Oregon drove Melissa and Aaron Klein out of the custom-cake business and hit them with a $135,000 penalty, because the Kleins could not in good conscience employ their artistic talents to express a message celebrating a same-sex wedding ritual,” First Liberty’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court read.

The Kleins “opened and operated” their baker as an expression of their Christian faith,” the petition said. Further, they believe “God instituted marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

They served all customers “regardless of sexual orientation.” They even had sold a cake to one of the lesbian complainants in the case for her mother’s marriage to a man. But they could not, the petition said, create a cake celebrating a same-sex wedding.

“The Kleins created these cakes, in part, because they wanted to celebrate weddings between one man and one woman,” the petition said. “The Kleins do not believe that other types of interpersonal unions are marriages, and they believe it is sinful to celebrate them as such.”

The state’s order violated the First Amendment, the First Liberty petition argued.

“Unless this Court enforces the First Amendment,” the petition said, “similar cases will continue to arise, as creative entrepreneurs are compelled, under the guise of public accommodations statutes, to participate in same-sex marriage rituals that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs, or – as the Kleins did – to sacrifice their livelihood.”

The Thomas More Society, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Cato Institute were among the groups that asked the Supreme Court to side with the Kleins. The attorneys general for 11 states also issued a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Kleins. Those states were Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia.

This article originally posted on ChristianHeadlines.com



If Confirmed, Will Justice Kavanaugh Help the Pro-Life Cause?

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Based on the response from the left, you would think that the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court would virtually guarantee the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Why, then, are some conservative and pro-life groups opposing his confirmation?

On the positive side, many pro-life leaders reacted enthusiastically to the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the highly-respected Susan B. Anthony List.

She said, “President Trump has made another outstanding choice in nominating Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, keeping his promise to nominate only originalist judges to the Court.”

In her opinion, Kavanaugh was “an experienced, principled jurist,” who has a “strong record of protecting life and constitutional rights.”

Many others were enthusiastic as well, including conservative think tanks and long-term pro-life leaders.

On the negative side, Jane Coaston wrote an article for Vox.com explaining, “Why social conservatives are disappointed that Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh.”

She pointed to a number of top leaders in the conservative and pro-life movement who had reservations about Kavanaugh or who called for outright opposition.

Upon hearing of President Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh, the National Review’s David French wrote, “I’ll defend [Kavanaugh] vigorously from unfair critiques tomorrow, but tonight I join many conservatives in a slight sigh of regret. There was a better choice.”

Tim Wildmon, President of the highly influential American Family Association, wrote, “AFA has opposed the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S Supreme Court for some very valid reasons. We are deeply concerned about how he might ultimately rule on issues related to abortion and religious liberty. For these reasons, we consider this nomination to represent a four-star appointment when it could have been five-star.”

Other groups, like Columbia [South Carolina] Christians for Life sent out e-blasts with titles like, “ROE VS. WADE protector Kavanaugh: Another red flag for Jesuit-educated, Jesuit school director, BRETT KAVANAUGH.” (This was sent out August 30.)

Another pro-life activist sent out links to this video, with this warning: “President Trump broke his campaign promise to pro-lifers when he nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Ricardo Davis of Georgia Right to Life calls Kavanaugh’s pro-abortion position ‘morally reprehensible’ and urges pro-lifers and conservatives to demand Kavanaugh’s withdrawal and for Trump to replace him with a real pro-life nominee such as Amy Coney Barrett.”

How can we make sense of this?

On the one hand, there is agreement that someone like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, if appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, would definitely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade should the opportunity present itself. The downside is that many believe that in today’s climate, despite the Republican majority, she would not have been confirmed.

Others have suggested that it’s unlikely that there will be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade as much as an incremental challenge. What if something like the Fetal Heartbeat Bill became law and was challenged up to the U.S. Supreme Court? How would Kavanaugh vote on that?

The real answer is that we simply do not know what a U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh would do.

According to Thomas Jipping, Deputy Director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and a Senior Legal Fellow, Kavanaugh’s “record meets the Schumer standard of a judge who does not predictably rule for a particular side. That is because Kavanaugh is the kind of judge who follows the law rather than his personal views.”

What, then, are we to make of the varied and passionate responses to Justice Kavanaugh? Does the left have reason to fear? Does the right have reason to rue a missed opportunity?

Here are a few things that seem clear.

First, we can be almost certain that Justice Kavanaugh will be a far better friend of the U.S. Constitution and of conservative values than any judge a President Hillary Clinton would have appointed. That is a very big positive.

Second, we who are pro-life do well not to put our ultimate trust in a man (Kavanaugh) or an institution (the U.S. Supreme Court) to change the direction of our nation. (This is not to deny the importance of both the man and the institution. It is simply to bring perspective.)

Third, it is possible that Kavanaugh himself cannot guarantee how he will rule if confirmed. There have been surprises in every direction from various appointees in the past, and even the best vetting process cannot guarantee the future.

Obviously, I hope that the leftist opposition to Kavanaugh is correct and that, should the opportunity arise, he would vote for life and for family and for our essential liberties.

But there may be a reason for the concern of some on the right, in which case we should be praying for Kavanaugh and the rest of the members of the Court that God would direct their hearts.

Scripture teaches that, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will.” Surely He can turn the hearts of U.S. Supreme Court justices as well.

More importantly, He can turn the hearts of a nation. That is the greater goal when it comes to cultivating a culture of life, and it must always remain the foremost goal for all of us who love life. As powerful as the Supreme Court has become, it alone cannot transform hearts.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com



No Surprise, Leftists Want to Fight Dirty

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“Progressives” control academia, government schools, the mainstream press, access to information (e.g., Google), social media (e.g., Facebook), professional medical and mental health organizations, the arts, and are infiltrating even churches. And now they seek absolute control over the judiciary through “court-packing.” They want constitutional revisionists to dominate the U.S. Supreme Court even if that means expanding the number of Justices. And some of them openly share their reasons for this proposal, thus exposing the brazenness of their tyrannical quest to transform America into a totalizing and totalitarian “progressive” dystopia.

Todd N. Tucker, political scientist and fellow at the liberal think tank, the Roosevelt Institute writes that,

With Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump’s Muslim ban, Wednesday’s decision attacking public sector unions, and Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement that he’s retiring, it is time to push a once-marginal idea to the top of the agenda: pack the Supreme Court….  A thoughtful court-packing proposal would ensure that the Court more carefully reflects the mores of the time, rather than shackling democracy to the weight of the past…. [T]he time to begin mainstreaming an enlarged Court is now.

The far wiser Richard Weaver, author of Ideas Have Consequences, wrote something a tad different about the weight of the past:

Whoever argues for a restoration of values is sooner or later met with the objection that one cannot return, or as the phrase is likely to be, “you can’t turn the clock back.” By thus assuming that we are prisoners of the moment, the objection well reveals the philosophic position of modernism. The believer in truth, on the other hand, is bound to maintain that the things of highest value are not affected by time; otherwise the very concept of truth becomes impossible. In declaring that we wish to recover lost ideals and values, we are looking toward an ontological realm that is timeless.

In an article for the online magazine Slate, Osita Nwanevu summarizes the pro-court-packing argument of David Faris, author of the troubling book It’s Time to Fight Dirty: “The argument you’re making here, in sum, is that the time has come for Democrats to throw out some parts of the rulebook of American politics and embrace radical, structural strategies.”

Faris explains—with no evident sign of irony—that his sense of “urgency definitely comes from just this long ideological march off to the right in the Republican Party. That, to me, is dangerous because the Republicans are no longer committed to the spirit of the constitutional framework as it exists. And they’re committed to policies that are going to wreak incredible havoc on this country.”

Have you ever pulled into a parking spot, looked at the stationary car parked next to you, and wrongly perceived your own car—which you forgot to put in park—as stationary and the other one as backing out? That’s the optical illusion Faris is experiencing. Faris wrongly perceives conservatives, who parked their ideological and political car securely with emergency brake activated, as moving rightward while in reality “Progressives” have careered madly leftward.

Faris ironically frets that “incredible havoc” will be wreaked by conservatives. Yes, a card-carrying member of the party that believes it’s ethical to kill humans in the womb for no reason other than that their mothers don’t want them; that destroyed marriage; that recognizes no intrinsic right of children to be raised by a mother and father; that wants to eradicate all public recognition of sexual differentiation; that wants to limit the exercise of religion to homes, hearts, and pews; that put Christian adoption agencies out of business; that seeks to force citizens to lie by using incorrect pronouns in the service of a science-denying cultic belief worries that conservatives will “wreak incredible havoc on this country” and is “no longer committed to the spirit of the constitutional framework.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe conservatives aren’t committed to the “spirit,” or penumbras, or emanations of the Constitution. Maybe they’re committed to the text of the Constitution.

The fact that “progressives” in their opposition to constitutional textualists/originalists—whom they know approach the U.S. Constitution with more rigorous fidelity than do “progressive” Justices—focus almost exclusively on the possibility that Roe v. Wade may be overturned would seem a tacit admission that there exists no constitutional right of women to have their intrauterine offspring slaughtered.

Well, here’s some food for thought about Roe v. Wade from “progressives” who support the legal right of women to choose to have more vulnerable humans killed—quotes that shrieking feminists may find wholly unpalatable:

  • “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” (Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law School professor).
  • “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose” (Edward Lazarus, former clerk to SCOTUS Justice Harry Blackmun).
  • What, exactly, is the problem with Roe? The problem, I believe, is that it has little connection to the Constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent—at least, it does not if those sources are fairly described and reasonably faithfully followed” (Edward Lazarus).
  • “[A]s a matter of constitutional interpretation, even most liberal jurisprudes — if you administer truth serum—will tell you it is basically indefensible” (Edward Lazarus).
  • “Blackmun’s [Supreme Court] papers vindicate every indictment of Roe: invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference” (William Saletan, Slate magazine writer).
  • Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be…. What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-à-vis the interest that legislatively prevailed over it.… At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking” (John Hart Ely, clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren).
  • Roe “is a lousy opinion that disenfranchised millions of conservatives on an issue about which they care deeply.” (Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution).
  • “[T]he very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision—the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution—strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy…. As a layman, it’s hard for me to raise profound constitutional objections to the decision. But it is not hard to say it confounds our common-sense understanding of what privacy is. If a Supreme Court ruling is going to affect so many people then it ought to rest on perfectly clear logic and up-to-date science. Roe, with its reliance on trimesters and viability, has a musty feel to it, and its argument about privacy raises more questions than it answers…. “[Roe] is a Supreme Court decision whose reasoning has not held up. It seems more fiat than argument…. Still, a bad decision is a bad decision. If the best we can say for it is that the end justifies the means, then we have not only lost the argument—but a bit of our soul as well” (Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist).
  • “Judges have no special competence, qualifications, or mandate to decide between equally compelling moral claims (as in the abortion controversy) …. [C]lear governing constitutional principles… are not present” (Alan Dershowitz, former Harvard Law School professor).
  • “In short, 30 years later, it seems increasingly clear that this pro-choice magazine was correct in 1973 when it criticized Roeon constitutional grounds. Its overturning would be the best thing that could happen to the federal judiciary, the pro-choice movement, and the moderate majority of the American people…. Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun’s famously artless opinion itself. As a result, the pro-choice majority asks nominees to swear allegiance to the decision without being able to identify an intelligible principle to support it” (Jeffrey Rosen, George Washington University Law School professor, former clerk to Judge Abner Mikva).
  • “Liberal judicial activism peaked with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision…. Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching” (Michael Kinsley, attorney, political journalist).
  • “[I]t is time to admit in public that, as an example of the practice of constitutional opinion writing, Roe is a serious disappointment. You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result. This is not surprising. As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether. It supported that right via a lengthy, but purposeless, cross-cultural historical review of abortion restrictions and a tidy but irrelevant refutation of the straw-man argument that a fetus is a constitutional ‘person’ entited [sic] to the protection of the 14th Amendment…. By declaring an inviolable fundamental right to abortion, Roe short-circuited the democratic deliberation that is the most reliable method of deciding questions of competing values” (Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor).
  • “The failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations…. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution” (Archibald Cox, JFK’s Solicitor General, former Harvard Law School professor).

Roe v. Wade, my friends, is the SCOTUS decision that “progressives” argue absolute fidelity to precedent demands Justices uphold. If they think “lousy,” “indefensible,” “barely coherent,” unintelligible, a-constitutional non-reasoning must be honored in slavish service to the political end of allowing feticide, I hate to imagine what they would have thought about revisiting Dred Scott.

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Be of Good Cheer About Brett Kavanaugh

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In an email, conservative Chicago attorney Joseph A. Morris, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, President and General Counsel of The Lincoln Legal Foundation, and frequent guest on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight,” told IFI that he is “thrilled by the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh,” elaborating,

Brett Kavanaugh is smart, learned, and honorable. He is exactly what President Trump promised to nominate and appoint: An originalist in the tradition of the late Antonin Scalia. With his hundreds of finely written, rigorously-reasoned opinions as a judge of the Court of Appeals, Judge Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence is literally an open book. He will make one of the finest Supreme Court justices in history.

While “progressives” work fast and furious to do what they do best—that is, manipulate emotions—Mr. Morris works to quell nerves jangled by the paranoia of people untethered to reality, wisdom,  or the Constitution:

Although the work of judges is not, and should not be, political, the nomination, confirmation, and appointment of Federal judges are necessarily political acts.

Much wailing will be heard, and ink will be spilled, this summer, regarding President Trump’s asserted “politicization” of the judiciary. A few simple numerical facts about the current staffing of the higher levels of the Federal judiciary may help put things in perspective.

Staffing of the United States Supreme Court:

Appointed by Republican:  4

Appointed by Democrat:    4

Vacant:  1

Total:      9

Staffing of the United States Courts of Appeals:

First Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 2

Appointed by Democrat: 4

Vacant: 0

Total: 6

 

 Second Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 4

Appointed by Democrat: 7

Vacant: 2

Total: 13

 

 Third Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 5

Appointed by Democrat: 7

Vacant: 2

Total: 14

 
Fourth Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 4

Appointed by Democrat: 10

Vacant: 1

Total: 15

 

 Fifth Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 10

Appointed by Democrat: 5

Vacant: 2

Total: 17

 

 Sixth Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 11

Appointed by Democrat: 5

Vacant: 0

Total: 16

 
Seventh Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 9

Appointed by Democrat: 2

Vacant: 0

Total: 11

 

 Eighth Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 10

Appointed by Democrat: 1

Vacant: 0

Total: 11

 

 Ninth Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 6

Appointed by Democrat: 16

Vacant: 7

Total: 29

 
Tenth Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 5

Appointed by Democrat: 7

Vacant: 0

Total: 12

 

 Eleventh Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 5

Appointed by Democrat: 6

Vacant: 1

Total: 12

 

 DC Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 4

Appointed by Democrat: 7

Vacant: 0

Total: 11

 
Federal Circuit:

Appointed by Republican: 4

Appointed by Democrat: 8

Vacant: 0

Total: 12

 

Mr. Morris is far from alone in his assessment of Judge Kavanaugh. All across the country, voices of support for Kavanaugh’s nomination are sounding. American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow wrote,

The nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy created with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy is a superb choice who is certain to serve this nation well. Judge Kavanaugh is a brilliant jurist who embraces the philosophy of our Founders—an unwavering commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution.

The Thomas More Society released a statement, saying in part,

The Thomas More Society applauds President Donald J. Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States…. “We are excited to see the President nominate a great human being who is one of the finest legal minds of our time. Judge Brett Kavanaugh has a proven track record of judging fairly, always applying the Constitution and our laws as they are written. We look forward to his confirmation and anticipate that he will distinguish himself in his time on the high court.”

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote,

“By any measure, Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected federal judges in the country and I look forward to supporting his nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. For over a decade, Judge Kavanaugh has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, often referred to as the second highest court in the land. He has over 300 published opinions, with a strong record of defending the Second Amendment, safeguarding the separation of powers, reining in the unchecked power of federal agencies, and preserving our precious religious liberties.

Even National Review’s David French, who was an impassioned proponent of Amy Coney Barrett, said, “Kavanaugh will be an excellent judge.”

Be of good, cheer, friends. This is most definitely not a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Thanks to President Donald J. Trump and his crack team of experts, it’s quite the opposite.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Be-of-Good-Cheer-About-Brett-Kavanaugh.mp3

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U.S. Supreme Court Recap for First Amendment Cases

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It has been an eventful term for the U.S. Supreme Court, which has provided many closely decided cases and ended with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. For those interested in free speech and religious liberty, there have been plenty of decisions to keep track of and digest. Here is what you need to know.

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

The story is well-known. Jack Phillips, a Christian cake shop owner from Colorado, refused to create a cake for the same-sex “wedding” of two men. They filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which held that Mr. Phillips violated the state’s public accommodation laws. Much of the litigation centered around whether creating a wedding cake fell under the free expression protections of the First Amendment, but the Court punted on this argument, leaving it for a future case. Instead, the Court ruled for Mr. Phillips on two separate grounds.

First, the Commission did not employ religiously neutral standards when deciding Mr. Phillips case, and instead showed unwarranted hostility towards his Christian faith. One official on the Commission even referred to Mr. Phillips’ faith as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use.”

Second, the Court found that the Commission had used different standards for different bakery owners. An individual named Bill Jack (no relation to Jack Phillips) went to several bakeries asking them to create a cake with a message critical of homosexuality derived from the Bible and was—unsurprisingly—refused service. When complaints were filed, the Commission found that bakeries can refuse to make a cake with a message they deem to be derogatory.

The popular narrative is that this case was decided on narrow grounds and sets little precedent for future cases. However, Masterpiece has already proven to be more influential than that narrative suggests. Anti-religious animus by government officials is common in religious liberty cases, and there’s no better example than Arlene’s Flowers.

Arlene’s Flowers Inc. v. Washington

Similar to Jack Phillips, Barronelle Stutzman, a Washington florist, refused to offer her services for a same-sex wedding. However, in this case, when she refused to create a floral arrangement for a same-sex couple, it was not the couple who took action. Rather, the state’s attorney general, on his own initiative, filed a complaint against Ms. Stutzman, showing unusual hostility towards her religious beliefs. This led to the Washington Supreme Court holding that Ms. Stutzman engaged in unlawful discrimination. However, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the decision and remanded it back to the state supreme court to consider the decision in light of Masterpiece.

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra

This case had less headline appeal than Masterpiece but will likely end up being the more influential in First Amendment jurisprudence. The Court found that California’s Reproductive FACT Act, which forced pro-life pregnancy centers to post disclosures about the state’s abortion services, to be a violation of the pregnancy centers’ free speech rights. The decision was important on several fronts. Most notably, the Court refused to create a lesser standard of First Amendment protection for “professional speech.” The argument was that the state should be given greater power to prevent and compel the speech of professionals (like doctors, lawyers, and mental health counselors) than the usual First Amendment protections would allow. But Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, criticized such “professional speech” doctrine as being a tool to suppress unpopular ideas or information. The decision may open possible litigation on the issue of so-called reparative therapy bans, which ban professional counselors from talking with minors about their unwanted same-sex sexual attraction.

In his concurrence, Justice Kennedy came down particularly hard on California for its intolerance of the pro-life viewpoint:

The California Legislature included in its official history the congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of “forward thinking.” But it is not forward thinking to force individuals to “be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view [they] fin[d] unacceptable.” It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791; to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it; to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech; and to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come.

Trump v. Hawaii

This case stems from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s promise of a “Muslim ban” during the 2016 presidential campaign. Initially, President Trump signed an order that banned entry in the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries regardless of visa status. However, after getting blocked by the lower courts because of its disproportionate effect on Muslims and because of several anti-Muslim statements from the Trump administration, the president issued a moderated version of the order. This time, the order did not outright ban travel from the seven countries but it did add extra scrutiny before people were allowed to enter the U.S. The final order was also backed by evidence that the nations with restricted access posed legitimate national security risks and were not just chosen based on anti-Muslim animus.

Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that although five of the seven countries with restricted access were predominantly Muslim, the countries made up only 8% of the world’s Muslim population and were previously designated as posing national security risks. The decision continues the longstanding judicial deference to the Executive Branch on decisions affecting national security. The High Court also renounced the infamous Korematsu v. United States decision, which allowed the executive branch to establish internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.

Janus v. AFSCME

This case is not just of interest for its First Amendment jurisprudence but also its close connection to Illinois politics. Illinois was one of the 22 states that allowed unions to charge nonmembers fees for the costs of collective bargaining with employers. Mark Janus, a government social worker from Springfield, filed suit against Illinois arguing that the government requiring him to pay a private organization like a union violated his First Amendment right to free speech and association. By subsidizing the union’s administrative costs, Janus argued that he was being forced by the government to support the union’s political activism. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in a 5-4 decision. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the law “violates the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern” like tax increases or collective bargaining rights. One important distinction is that this ruling only applies to public sector unions, not to any in the private sector.

Rowan County v. Lund

One notable case that did not get the U.S. Supreme Court review comes from Rowan County, North Carolina, where the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal barred the opening prayer at county board meetings. The prayer was led by the elected commissioners, who took turns leading at each meeting. Three residents were offended by the prayers and sued the county. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the prayer policy as violating the Establishment Clause despite clear precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court allowing public prayers in Town of Greece v. Galloway. Unfortunately, the High Court denied cert (i.e., declined to review the lower court decision) on the county’s appeal, and the Fourth Circuit’s decision stands.

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SCOTUS Allows Lower Court to Ban prayer from Public Square

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Written by Daniel Horowitz

In case you thought that the potential to flip Justice Kennedy’s seat alone will bring us back to the constitutional promised land, think again. So long as the lower courts are not restrained, we will never return to the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

There is nothing more radical than a lower court granting standing to random plaintiffs to sue against non-coerced public prayer in county government meetings, prayers that have been going on since our founding. Yet a district judge in 2015 and the en banc decision of the radical Fourth Circuit in 2017 barred Rowan County, North Carolina, from opening council sessions with a prayer, similar to what our federal Congress does every day. [Last week], the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari to the appeal from Rowan County, despite three years of being under a tyranny that the judges know is unconstitutional.

We shouldn’t even need to get into court precedent to understand our heritage and the true meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. But just four years ago, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority that as long as the prayer “comports with our tradition and does not coerce participation by nonadherents,” there is no room for judicial intervention. “To hold that invocations must be non-sectarian would force the legislatures sponsoring prayers and the courts deciding these cases to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech,” Kennedy wrote in the 2014 case.

The Fourth Circuit rejected precedent because this prayer, in the court’s estimation, was tantamount to coercion because it makes non-religious attendees feel like “outsiders” and “the overall atmosphere was coercive, requiring them to participate so they ‘would not stand out.’” (More on that case and how contrary it is to our founding here.)

For the U.S. Supreme Court not to take the appeal is egregious, especially given that the Sixth Circuit recently ruled the other way, triggering a circuit split. Justice Thomas, as has become his tradition recently, dissented from the decision to deny cert. Thomas noted, “The Fourth Circuit’s decision is both unfaithful to our precedents and ahistorical” and observed, “For as long as this country has had legislative prayer, legislators have led it.” Gorsuch joined the dissent.

There are a number of important observations to be made here in light of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy, calling into question our ability to change the direction of the judiciary absent broader reforms:

  • Aside from the contorted construction of the First Amendment inherent in this ruling, the courts are continuing to grant standing to random plaintiffs (as straw men for the ACLU) who have no justiciable injury-in-fact other than that their sensibilities are offended. The notion that you can even take such a policy to court is absurd and has grown the power of the courts to that of a legislature rather than an individualized adjudicative body. So long as the Left can lodge hundreds of frivolous lawsuits on important abstract policies every day and have the most liberal districts and circuits uphold them, the shift on the U.S. Supreme Court will not bring much relief. The ACLU and its offshoot organizations essentially have unlimited power so long as the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t change its policies and more aggressively police the lower courts.
  • The fact that Roberts knows there will be a more conservative fifth justice added to this wing of the court in the fall and still refused to take up the case is all the more disturbing and demonstrates that we cannot rely on him to overturn these insane lower court rulings expeditiously.
  • There is no such thing as a conservative win at the U.S. Supreme Court. Lower court justices will always find hairs to split in any case that is not 100 percent identical and completely ignore precedent, something conservative lower court judges will never do in defiance of liberal U.S. Supreme Court opinions. This is why just hours after the high court affirmed the president’s full power to place conditions on entry, a California judge said that the president must find every single family entering illegally and unite them within 30 days. In another ludicrous ruling on immigration, a New York federal judge said yesterday that the Trump administration cannot promulgate a rule requiring the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to personally sign off on the release of illegal immigrant child detainees. Yes, we have no sovereignty, and the president has no powers to even establish some oversight before swamping the country with foreign nationals, who flood into our schools and communities and who often join MS-13. Chief Justice Roberts said that there are no limits to the president’s power to regulate entry into the country, but that will not stop lower courts from granting standing to illegal aliens to sue against every minute piece of policy.

This is all to say that unless the lower courts are dealt with, we will continue to suffer increasingly at the hands of the lower courts even as the membership on the U.S. Supreme Court officially gets better. The bottom line is: We don’t have five Clarence Thomases and will not get them any time soon.

It is incumbent upon conservatives in Congress to create a movement to reorient the power of the lower courts. Rather than the default being that any random court can shut down our heritage and system of governance for years until the U.S. Supreme Court grants relief – if ever – the injunction should automatically be placed on hold until and unless the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case and affirms the ruling. Granting a congressional-created court supremacy power over the other branches of government is a case of the inmates running the asylum. If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to act supreme to its own underlings, then why should we respect its supposed “supremacism” over the rest of us?

This article was originally published at ConservativeReview.com



The Overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Possibility of Cultural Change

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Within hours of Justice Kennedy announcing his imminent retirement, voices on the left began announcing the imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

David Cole, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “If Donald Trump, who has promised to overturn Roe v. Wade, picks someone who is anti-choice, the future of Roe v. Wade is very much in question.”

More emphatically, Slate magazine ran a story with the headline, “The End of Roe,” declaring, “Anthony Kennedy’s retirement ensures the Supreme Court will allow states to outlaw abortion.”

And CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted, “Anthony Kennedy is retiring. Abortion will be illegal in twenty states in 18 months. #SCOTUS.”

During his appearance on CNN, he added that there was “just no doubt” that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, stating, “Roe v. Wade is doomed. It is gone because Donald Trump won the election and because he’s going to have the chance to appoint two Supreme Court justices.”

As stated succinctly in a tweet from Planned Parenthood Action, “With Kennedy retiring, the right to access abortion in this country is on the line. #SaveSCOTUS.”

May all these fears and warnings prove true! May we see Roe v. Wade overturned speedily, in our time. And may the many women who struggle with their pregnancies find new hope and learn that there are better alternatives than abortion.

Of course, it is too early to proclaim the end of Roe v. Wade. And for more than 55 million babies who have already lost their lives, this is too little, too late.

But, based on his performance to date, it is highly likely, if not almost certain, that President Trump will nominate a solid, pro-life justice. And it is then very likely that Roe v. Wade would be overturned in the years ahead.

This would be beyond historic. It would be unprecedented. It would mark the first time that the court made a radical, anti-life turn only to reverse course decades later. And it would mark a major turning point in the cultural life of our nation, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade seemed like an impossible dream for years.

Although I was almost entirely unaware of the battle for life in 1973 (I was 18 at the time and I don’t remember hearing a word about abortion in my church), older colleagues have told me how bleak things appeared at that time. They have even related that pro-lifers were more despised back than those who hold to traditional family values are today. That’s saying something!

Back in 1973, after the Roe v. Wade ruling, pro-life forces were in disarray. Yet, Nina Martin reported in the New Republic in 2014, they quickly mounted “a push for a constitutional amendment affirming that life begins at conception.”  But, she explains, “that first effort fizzled, and it’s only in recent years that a new wave of pro-life activists—many of them born after Roe and educated in fundamentalist Christian settings—have once again seized on personhood as a way not just of weakening Roe, but of overturning it. In state after state, they have been pushing to have their beliefs enshrined in policy.”

So, according to Martin, a lot of the recent success in opposing Roe v. Wade is due to the efforts of conservative Christians born after 1973. In other words, they were born after abortion on demand was considered a settled issue in America. After the battle for the unborn was apparently lost. After our side was told to throw in the towel.

But that was not the end of the story. As Austin Ruse noted, “Social conservatives point out that the number of young people opposed to abortion used to be equally bleak among the young but is now trending their way.”

What makes Ruse’s point especially poignant is that he made this comment in a short article documenting the rising acceptance of same-sex relationships among young Republicans. In light of that, he suggested that, “All this leaves open the possibility that Republican opposition to same-sex marriage may fade with time.”

That’s exactly what was expected with regard to the battle for life in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade. The die has been cast. The verdict has been rendered. The older, conservative opposition will soon die out. As for the generations that follow, abortion on demand will be the law of the land, unopposed and largely, if not universally, embraced.

And this, of course, is what we are told unceasingly with regard to same-sex “marriage,” almost word for word. Why couldn’t we see a cultural reversal there as well?

Today, we stand on the precipice of undoing the monstrous injustice of Roe v. Wade. Who’s to say we won’t live to see the reversal of Obgergefell vs. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court’s overreaching decision to redefine marriage?

It is for good reason that CNN is already writing about, “What Anthony Kennedy’s retirement means for abortion, same-sex marriage, affirmative action and the future of the Supreme Court.”

And Vox opines that “a Court without Kennedy is substantially more likely to: Overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states (and maybe the federal government too) to ban most or all abortions. . . . Rule in favor of religious challenges to anti-discrimination law, and perhaps, in an extreme case, reverse some past Supreme Court rulings on gay rights.”

All this sounds totally within reach today. And it could hinge on the next appointee to the Court. Let’s pray for God’s mercy on our nation, for the continuing turning of hearts towards life, and for righteous justices to adjudicate in our courts.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com



Might NIFLA Help Overturn Bans on Same-Sex Attraction Counseling

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So much good news from the U.S. Supreme Court this week, including the announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s impending retirement and the 5-4 decision in the NIFLA v. Becerra case, which asserts that the speech of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers is, indeed, protected speech.

Justice Kennedy surprised the nation by announcing his retirement at the end of July, giving President Donald Trump another opportunity to continue to restore respect for constitutional principles and historical American values. Perhaps we will see that proverbial long arc of justice bending more often toward justice.

Justice Kennedy surprised again, this time in NIFLA v. Becerra. Fascistic California lawmakers eager to impose their beliefs by any unethical means at their disposal passed “The California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act” (FACT Act) which requires the following:

Clinics that are licensed must notify women that California provides free or low-cost services, including abortions, and give them a phone number to call. Its stated purpose is to make sure that state residents know their rights and what health care services are available to them. Unlicensed clinics must notify women that California has not licensed the clinics to provide medical services.

Several crisis pregnancy centers sued, claiming that the law abridged their First Amendment speech protections. A district court voted against them, they appealed the decision, and then the nightmarish 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voted against them as well. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, and in a 5-4 decision with Kennedy joining the majority, the Court decided in favor of the crisis pregnancy centers.

In his concurrence in NIFLA v. Becerra, Kennedy ridiculed and scolded the California legislature:

The California Legislature included in its official history the congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of ‘forward thinking.’ But it is not forward thinking to force individuals to ‘be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view [they] fin[d] unacceptable.’ It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791; to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it; to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech; and to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come. Governments must not be allowed to force persons to express a message contrary to their deepest convictions. Freedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief. This law imperils those liberties.

This decision means, among other things, that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers cannot be forced to communicate information that violates their beliefs.

Kennedy used this teachable moment to educate lawmakers on the constitutional limits on their pernicious efforts to abuse the law to advance their ideological views. It’s a lesson children should be taught repeatedly in government schools but aren’t.

Buried within the NIFLA decision is something even more remarkable. According to Curtis Schube, Legal Counsel for the Pennsylvania Family Policy Institute, “NIFLA also overturned speech restrictions on therapists who assist people with unwanted same sex attraction.” Schube continues:

Laws which ban sexual orientation change efforts (“SOCE” for short) have increasingly entered the national conversation, most recently in California. Before California’s recent attempts to ban all forms of SOCE at any age, California already had such a law in place for minors. The law considered it “unprofessional conduct” to “seek to change sexual orientation” for a minor. Any counselor who violated the law faced professional discipline.  

California’s more recent SOCE laws take an even more extreme position. These laws ban all therapy that aims to change, or even reduce, sexual attraction to the same sex. Therefore, a patient who wants SOCE therapy cannot receive that service without risk to the professional counselor.

In Pickup v. Brown, same sex attracted minors and their parents, as well as counselors who wished to provide their services, claimed that this law violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and free expression. The Ninth Circuit, in 2013, determined that counseling is not speech, but rather professional “conduct.” The “First Amendment does not prevent a state from regulating treatment,” the Ninth Circuit concluded.

The Third Circuit upheld a similar law in New Jersey using the same logic in the 2014 case, King v. Governors of New Jersey. In relying partly upon Pickup, the Third Circuit concluded that counseling is speech (rather than conduct) but classifies that speech as professional speech. The Third Circuit states that a “professional’s services stems largely from her ability to apply… specialized knowledge to a client’s individual circumstances… Thus, we conclude that a licensed professional does not enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment.”

In the NIFLA case, the Ninth Circuit had justified the requirement for pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion as “professional speech,” just like the Ninth and Third Circuits had done for SOCE laws. The Supreme Court opinion overturning the Ninth Circuit’s NIFLA opinion, specifically identified Pickup and King as examples of “professional speech” protected by the First Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas… stated: “Some Courts of Appeals have recognized ‘professional speech’ as a separate category of speech that is subject to different rules.” However, “speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals.’”

This is a paradigm shift in the existing precedents for SOCE bans.

Thomas seized the opportunity to provide protections to many other professions as well. “Professionals might have a host of good-faith disagreements, both with each other and with the government, on many topics in their respective fields.” He identifies doctors and nurses who disagree on the prevailing opinions on assisted suicide or medical marijuana as examples of good faith disagreements. So too are lawyers and marriage counselors who disagree on prenuptial agreements and divorces, and bankers and accountants who disagree on how to commit money to savings or tax reform. One would have to conclude that Justice Thomas’ intent is to protect all professionals from being regulated on matters of good faith disagreement.

There is no settled judgment within the mental health community regarding the efficacy and value of counseling for minors or adults who experience unwanted same-sex attraction. There is no settled judgment about the cause or causes of such attraction. Even the liberal American Psychological Association acknowledges that causation is unknown and is likely—in its view—a result of both nature and nurture. There is, however, fairly broad consensus within academia—including among homosexual scholars that “sexual orientation” is fluid. Kudos to Justice Thomas for providing a constitutional pathway to overturning bans that restrict the First Amendment speech rights of mental health professionals.

And kudos to Justice Anthony Kennedy for his week of surprises.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Might-NIFLA-Help-Overturn-Bans-on-Same-Sex-Attraction-Counseling.mp3

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Smashmouth Incrementalism

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A recent development within the pro-life movement has both a heartening and disheartening aspect. I am talking about the rise of the “abolish human abortion now” sentiment. This in one sense is the whole point of being pro-life, and so a clear reaffirmation of the entire raison d’être is always welcome. The other side of it, the disheartening part, is the tendency among some of these “abolitionists” to denounce any pro-life incrementalists as being, by definition, temporizers, vacillators, or compromisers.

So let me begin by granting part of the point, and then offering for your consideration a scenario that is going to upon us relatively soon—a scenario that will identify the plain difference between principled incrementalists and those who are simply using pro-life language as a shield to hide behind. I should say from the outset that I don’t like the name abolitionist because it is too closely associated in my mind with characters like John Brown, a murderous thug. Paul Hill, the man who shot an abortion doctor in Florida years ago, wanted to become the John Brown of the pro-life movement, and I am afraid there are others who might share that desire now. That is not the way to go.

Also, in the abstract, incrementalism is not necessarily ineffective in cultural battles. It has been the central tactic used against us by the Gramscians, and with devastating effect. They have managed their “long march through the institutions.” So incrementalism does not necessarily mean “lose slowly.”

So there are politicians who campaign on a pro-life platform, and who buckle in the face of fierce resistance when a real opportunity arises to turn the tide. Yes. There is such a thing as cowardice, and there is such a thing as hidden sympathies with the other side. That is a problem. And there might be pro-life groups who would be dismayed at the prospect of actual victory—victory might damage the fund-raising prospects. Yes, it is a fallen world, and that kind of thing might well happen. A manufacturer of fighter planes might look forward to peace with no little dismay.

And there might be abolitionists who denounce all previous pro-life efforts as worthless because they did not succeed in attaining the object, which is the abolition of human abortion now. But there is an active pro-life movement in America, numbering in the millions. This is not the case elsewhere in the Western world, and it should not be taken for granted. The movement here has been robust enough and big enough to develop a hardline right wing.

A conscientious abolitionist might grant the distinction I am making, but still be impatient. How can we tell the difference between genuine incrementalism and slow surrender? Glad you asked, and it is almost upon us.

When Neil Gorsuch was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, there was a fight, naturally, but it was not the blood bath that the next one will be. Because it was a fight over maintaining the status quo, replacing a conservative with a conservative, it was possible for the Republican leadership to hold U.S. Senate Republicans together. This was possible because everything remained the same afterward. On the pro-life issue, nothing changed. The balance on the Supreme Court stayed the same.

But the next U.S. Supreme Court battle will probably be an appointment that will replace a liberal with a conservative. If a vacancy occurs because a liberal dies or steps down, and the president appoints someone like Gorsuch, then that battle will be over whether or not Roe will be overturned. It would alter the balance.

Now the overturning of Roe, were it to happen, would be a genuine incrementalist victory. Abortion would not become illegal in all fifty states. It would likely be greatly restricted in about 35 states. This would leave 15 states still willing to traffic in human misery. Because it would not be a complete victory, it would be an incrementalist victory. Pro-lifers could then turn their attention to those 15 states—because the final goal of abolishing human abortion has not changed.

So it would be a genuine, pro-life victory, but it would not be complete victory. It would be a genuine incrementalist advance. And that is why the U.S. Senate Republicans would not be able to hold together in numbers sufficient to confirm the man appointed to replace, say, Anthony Kennedy.

This is because compromised Republicans would bail. For the purposes of this scenario, let us say that 5 of them abandoned the pretense of being pro-life, and voted not to confirm the one who would join the Court and bring down Roe. Those 5 would be the legitimate targets of abolitionist ire. The Republicans who voted to confirm a justice who would in fact overthrow Roe would be illegitimate targets of abolitionist ire. But the rhetoric after such a debacle would probably be directed against feckless “Republicans” generally, and not against the 5 who proved themselves feckless.

Now I want everyone to know that this is guaranteed to happen. If a conservative justice comes before the U.S. Senate, one who would enable us to repent of Roe, then you can rest assured that there will not be enough votes to confirm him. The desertions will be declared with fanfare and high-flying rhetoric, and the corrupt media will lionize the traitors for their courage. All that, right?

While I share the goal of abolishing human abortion, I do not like calling myself an abolitionist. I like to call it something more like smashmouth incrementalism. This is what that would look like. Overturning Roe is the way to go, I am convinced. But how?

The president nominates Kennedy’s replacement, say. Kennedy retired in the confidence that what I am saying is true—knowing that the machinery of our corrupt generation would destroy anyone who would seriously attempt to undo Roe. So the outcry begins immediately. The media discovers that “Smith” pushed somebody on the playground in junior high. He is temperamentally unsuited to this high office. The drumbeat of character assassination begins. The confirmation hearings are conducted. His overdue books from the library are produced. His wife’s dating habits in high school are minutely examined. And then, at the moment when maximum damage would be inflicted, the Republican “gang of five” announce that it is with the greatest reluctance that they cannot support the nominee. You could almost see the tears glistening in their eyes.

I believe that the president should not withdraw the nomination. Nor should he allow the vote to go forward. He should announce that he is “pausing” the nomination of Smith, which will be brought forward again in six months’ time. In the meantime, he invites the good people of Arizona, Alaska, Maine, etc. to investigate and act upon all their legal options when it comes to impeachment and/or recall elections. Some of the 5 might see the light right away.

And those who do not should prepare to face the wrath of worked-up incrementalists.

This article was originally posted at Blog & Mablog



Culture War Victory Still Possible for Conservatives

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Written by Pastor Scott Lively

What we call the pro-family movement is a component of the larger conservative movement and deals with matters of sexuality and the natural family. Its American roots are in the cultural backlash to the Marxist revolution of the 1960s that turned family-centered society on its head and swapped the Judeo-Christian morality of our founding for Soviet-style “political correctness.”

Before the 1960s there wasn’t any need for a “pro-family” movement because family values had been the overwhelming consensus of the western world for centuries. Indeed, so surprised were Americans about the cultural revolution that it took nearly twenty years for the conservatives to mount a truly effective response to it. That came under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

The 60’s revolution was not grounded in the Marxist orthodoxy of Lenin and Stalin, but the Cultural Marxism of Herbert Marcuse’s Frankfort School, which envisioned sexual anarchy, not a “workers revolt,” as the key to dismantling Judeo-Christian civilization. The natural core constituency for this ideology was the underground “gay” movement whose dream of social acceptance was not possible without a complete transformation of American sexual morality. Thus, beginning in the late 1940s, Marxist organizer Harry Hay, so-called “father of the American gay movement” was also “father” of the (then hidden) army of “gay” activists most responsible for the “culture war” that exploded in the 60’s and continues today.

America’s Marxist revolution was therefore a “sexual revolution” whose overwhelming success vindicated Marcuse’s destructive vision and became the primary tool of the one-world government elites for softening resistance to their domination by breaking the family-centered society which is every nation’s greatest source of strength, stability and self-sufficiency.

Importantly, though primarily driven behind the scenes by “gays,” the first goal was not legitimization of homosexual sodomy but the normalization of heterosexual promiscuity. This was the motive and strategy that drove “closeted” 1940s and 50s homosexual activist Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent “science” attacking the marriage-based sexual ethic as “repressive” and socially harmful. It also drove the launch of the modern porn industry, beginning with Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Magazine (Hefner called himself “Kinsey’s pamphleteer”). It drove and defined the battles in the courts where sexual morality was systematically “reformed” by Cultural Marxist elites on the U.S. Supreme Court: contraception on demand to facilitate “fornication without consequences” (Griswold v Connecticut 1966), abortion on demand as the backup system to failed contraception (Roe v Wade 1973), and finally legalization of homosexual sodomy (Lawrence v Texas 2003).

Note the thirty year gap between Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas. That major delay in the Marxist agenda was achieved by the election of Ronald Reagan, under whom the pro-family movement became a major political force. That gap also highlights a critical fact: that “street activism” may be essential to any political cause but the real key to the culture war is the U.S. Supreme Court. By 1981 when Ronald Reagan took power the Marxists had nearly succeeded in collapsing the nation’s family and economic infrastructure and the LGBT juggernaut had come completely out of the shadows and taken its place at the head of the cultural blitzkrieg it had been steering from the beginning. Reagan stopped that juggernaut by putting Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, the lion of constitutional originalism who wrote the majority opinion in Bowers v Hardwick (1986) which affirmed (not created) the constitutional right of states to criminalize homosexual sodomy and other harmful sexual conduct in the public interest.

Reagan and Scalia stopped the sexual revolution in its tracks and made it possible for the pro-family movement to begin restoring family values in society, which we strove diligently to do. I got my start in Christian social activism in those heady days and served as State Communications Director for the No Special Rights Act in Oregon in 1992 which forbade the granting of civil rights minority status based on sexual conduct. We fell short in Oregon but a Colorado version of our bill passed the same year. We had in essence won the culture war with that victory given that the Supreme Court had previously ruled that minority status designation required three things: a history of discrimination, political powerlessness, and immutable (unchangeable) status (such as skin color). We had a slam-dunk win on at least two of the three criteria and it would have been just a matter of time before we passed the No Special Rights law from coast to coast.

However, Reagan had been prevented by the elites from putting a second Scalia on the court in the person of Robert Bork, and was forced by the unprecedented political “borking” of Mr. Bork to accept their man Anthony Kennedy to fill the seat instead. Just ten years later, Kennedy served his function by writing the majority opinion killing the Colorado law in Romer v Evans (1996), audaciously declaring that the court didn’t need to apply its three-part constitution test to the No Special Rights Act because it was motivated by “animus” (hate) and thus did not represent a legitimate exercise of the state’s regulatory authority. The ruling was all the more outrageous given that it was only possibly through a blatant abuse of the court’s own judicial authority. Kennedy’s “disapproval = hate” lie set the tone for the political left from that point forward.

In Lawrence v Texas, Kennedy delivered the coup-de-grace to Justice Scalia by striking down Bowers v Hardwick and brazenly ruling that “public morality” cannot be the basis for law. Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority in all five SCOTUS opinions that have, in essence, established homosexual cultural supremacy in America, including the infamous and utterly unconstitutional Obergefell v Hodges (2015) “gay marriage” decision. He is, in my opinion, the worst and most culturally destructive jurist in the history of the court: the culprit (among many villainous candidates) most responsible for the current dysfunctional state of the family in America.

So where’s the “bright future” amidst this lamentation? It’s in the promise made and so-far kept by President Donald Trump to appoint only constitutional originalists to the supreme court. It is in the pleasantly surprising discovery that his first pick, Neil Gorsuch, seems from his first comments as a “supreme” to be a perfect choice to fill the “Scalia seat” on the court. It is in the hopeful rumors that Anthony Kennedy is about to retire, and the simple fact that ultra-hard leftist Ruth Bader Ginsberg and leftist Steven Broyer are of an age that their seats could at any time be vacated by voluntary or involuntary retirement.

In short, the bright future of the pro-family movement is in the hands of the man we hired to drain the swamp in Washington DC, and who hasn’t yet backed down in that fight despite the remarkable scorched-earth campaign of destruction and discreditation being waged against him by the establishment elites of both parties, Hollywood and the media.

I must admit that after Obergefell I began to think that the pro-family movement had lost the culture war, but I now believe there is real hope, not just for reclaiming some lost ground, but possibly of reversing all of the “gains” of the hard left over the past half century. A solid majority of true constitutional originalists could actually restore the legal primacy of the natural family in America fairly quickly, and our cultural healing could quickly follow.

As the leftist elites and street activists continue their all-hands-on-deck attempted “borking” of President Trump, let’s not forget why they’re doing it. His political survival means the end of theirs. I can’t think of a brighter future than that for our nation.

This article was originally posted at ScottLively.net



Truth Wins at Arkansas Supreme Court Regarding Parentage on Birth Certificates

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In June of 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples could not be denied marriage licenses by states. However, on December 8, 2016, the Arkansas Supreme Court correctly ruled that the Obergefell decision should not be used to re-write all state laws relating to family, parenthood, and vital records, when they are unrelated to the issuance of marriage licenses.

The decision, in the case of Smith v. Pavan, overturned a lower court decision that had declared the Arkansas law governing birth registration unconstitutional. The statute in question says that in the absence of a court order or agreement by all parents and spouses involved,

“If the mother was married at the time of either conception or birth or between conception and birth the name of the husband shall be entered on the certificate as the father of the child.”

The law had been challenged by three lesbian couples. In all three cases, one of the women had borne a child who was conceived through artificial insemination involving an anonymous sperm donor as the father. When the children were born, the couples sought to have the names of both women listed on the birth certificate as the child’s parents. The Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) refused.

The legal principle involved has long been known as the “presumption of paternity.” If a married woman gives birth to a child, her husband is presumed to be the father of that child. Something which is factually true in the vast majority of cases is simply presumed to be true under the law.

Advocates of same-sex marriage and homosexual parenting, however, seek to convert the “presumption of paternity” into a gender-neutral “presumption of parentage.” Under this view, the legal spouse—regardless of sex—of a woman who gives birth is presumed to be the child’s other parent.

In other words, they would have the law go from presuming something that is almost always factually true to presuming something that cannot possibly be factually true—namely, that two women are both the biological mother of a newborn child.

Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected the absurd outcome of presuming the impossible.

In a model of judicial restraint, they interpreted the words of the statute by “giving the words their ordinary and usually accepted meaning in common language.” Noting that the dictionary definition of “husband” is “a married man,” and of “father” is “a man who has begotten a child,” they concluded that “the statute centers on the relationship of the biological mother and the biological father to the child, not on the marital relationship of husband and wife.”

The court’s opinion cited an affidavit by the ADH’s Vital Records State Registrar elaborating on the rationale for this approach:

The overarching purpose of the vital records system is to ensure that vital records, including birth certificates as well as death certificates and marriage certificates, are accurate regarding the vital events that they reflect…

Identification of biological parents through birth records is critical to ADH’s identification of public health trends, and it can be critical to an individual’s identification of personal health issues and genetic conditions.

To emphasize the significance of—and differences between—biological motherhood and biological fatherhood, the Arkansas Supreme Court also cited language from a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a question of citizenship for children born out of wedlock and outside the United States to one American parent. Ruling (in Nguyen v. INS) that Congress could treat children of American fathers differently from children of American mothers, the Court said,

[t]o fail to acknowledge even our most basic biological differences—such as the fact that a mother must be present at birth but the father need not be—risks making the guarantee of equal protection superficial, and so disserving it. Mechanistic classification of all our differences as stereotypes would operate to obscure those misconceptions and prejudices that are real… The difference between men and women in relation to the birth process is a real one, and the principle of equal protection does not forbid [legislative recognition of that fact].

Ironically, the author of the decision in Nguyen was Justice Anthony Kennedy—who also wrote the Obergefell decision on marriage.

LGBT activists, of course, will deplore the Arkansas decision. Perhaps, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, they and other liberals will even be tempted to lump it together with what they stereotype as other acts of “bigotry” committed by “angry white males.” Yet the Arkansas Supreme Court has a female majority—four women and three men. Three of the four women joined the majority opinion in the birth certificate case, while two of the three men dissented. And the opinion of the court was written by Associate Justice Josephine Linker Hart—a female pioneer in the legal profession in Arkansas, an Army veteran, and a woman with Cherokee ancestry.

The truth is that every child has both a mother and a father—even if the latter is only an anonymous sperm donor. The truth is that two women (or two men) alone can never conceive a new human life. The truth is that a birth certificate or registration is supposed to record the factual circumstances of a biological event—the birth of a child.

When the Obergefell decision was handed down, those celebrating it used a simple slogan: “Love Wins.” (The fallacy in that was the assumption that any and every relationship characterized by “love” is constitutionally entitled to be designated a “marriage.”)

Pro-family Americans can be grateful that, at least in the Arkansas Supreme Court, “Truth Wins.”

This article was originally posted at the FRC blog.



Another Bakery Faces Attack as Sweet Cakes Story Gains National Attention

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From First Liberty

Last week, First Liberty Institute attorneys announced their legal representation of Aaron and Melissa Klein—owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa who were forced to pay a $135,000 penalty to the Oregon government for declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.

In addition to widespread media attention from news outlets across the country, Aaron and Melissa shared their story with America last Friday night on FOX’s The Kelly File.

“[I]t’s not something I ever thought I’d have to fight with the government over,” Aaron said of his faith-based stance on the issue of marriage. “This was something I believed should never be happening in this country.”

But it is happening—and not only in Oregon to Aaron and Melissa Klein.

A TEXAS COUPLE UNDER ATTACK FOR THEIR FAITH

In mid-February, a family-owned bakery in Longview, Texas declined to make a same-sex wedding cake—and they are now reaping the same hate-filled repercussions as the Kleins did in 2013 (and still feel today).

David and Edie Delorme own Kern’s Bake Shop, which has been in business in Longview, Texas since 1918. As devout Christians, David and Edie are committed to operating their bakery in a manner that honors God. In the past they have consistently refused to bake alcohol, tobacco, gambling, or risqué-themed cakes.

When two men requested a cake for their same-sex wedding, Edie politely informed them that Kern’s Bake Shop did not make same-sex wedding cakes, and offered to provide a list of other bakeries in Longview that could fulfill the couple’s request.

Nevertheless, the incident soon appeared in a local newspaper, igniting a firestorm of hostility and even death threats toward the Delormes, their family, and their business from places as far away as New York and California.

“Americans value and protect our freedoms – especially freedom of expression and religious liberty,” said Mike Berry, Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute. “In order for America to remain free and prosperous, we must secure the rights of small business owners to operate their businesses according to their beliefs.”

Though no lawsuits have been filed against Kern’s Bake Shop yet, David and Edie heard about First Liberty’s defense of Aaron and Melissa Klein, and preemptively retained First Liberty Institute as legal counsel.

HOPE—FOR THE KLEINS, THE DELORMES, AND ALL AMERICANS

Attacks are spreading against Americans who embrace religious tenets teaching that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman, as evidenced by the Delormes’ experience just a few weeks ago.

But there is hope for religious freedom, even surrounding this hotly contested issue. For example:

  • The same majority opinion that legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell last June reaffirmed religious liberty for those who maintain that marriage is between one man and one woman. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote,

The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons…In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate.

  • First Liberty’s social media pages prove that the “open and searching” debate Justice Kennedy talked about is increasing, while hate speech and threats are decreasing. The response on social media to First Liberty’s announced representation of the Kleins last week was overwhelmingly positive and consisted of constructive debate—a stark contrast to the barrage of hostile, lewd, or extreme comments that often flood social media in response to controversial issues. According to First Liberty’s social media team, the response was more positive than anticipated—and could mark a change of heart regarding the religious liberty rights of Americans who simply want to run their business according to their faith.
  • The best constitutional lawyers in the country are working with First Liberty to win these cases. First Liberty’s unique volunteer attorney model harnesses the legal firepower of constitutional attorneys from many of the nation’s top law firms. Passionate about defending religious freedom, these lawyers give their time to First Liberty Clients pro bono.

Working on the Aaron and Melissa Klein’s case is The Honorable Boyden Gray, former White House Counsel for President George H. W. Bush, former Ambassador to the European Union, and founding partner of Boyden Gray and Associates.

“America is a great nation because we celebrate diversity of thought,” stated Ambassador Gray. He emphasized:

“Our rights to free expression and religious liberty are some of our most cherished American freedoms. We must safeguard these rights for every American – including Aaron and Melissa Klein.”

Thanks to God’s grace and volunteer attorneys like Ambassador Gray, First Liberty wins over 90 percent of its cases.

IN THE BALANCE—PROTECTIONS FOR PEOPLE OF FAITH

But while the hope is undeniable, so is the threat. And despite progress in the conversation surrounding religious freedom and marriage, threats and hate-filled messages continue to bombard the Kleins and the Delormes personally.

“If these small business owners can come under attack for their faith, what does that say about our perspective on liberty?” asks Berry. “We need to respect the rights of all Americans to live together peaceably, even if they have a difference of opinion. That’s what freedom means.”

First Liberty’s attorneys are committed to ensuring Americans like Aaron and Melissa Klein and David and Edie Delorme are free to live out their faith, and are preparing for the Kleins’ case to possibly go before the United States Supreme Court.

If the case does go to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will be one of the first cases to answer two new questions America is now facing, said Ken Klukowski, First Liberty Senior Counsel and Director of Strategic Affairs on The Kelly File last Friday:

[I[f someone has sincerely held religious beliefs that are mainstream beliefs on an issue like marriage, can the government punish them for speaking those beliefs, and can the government order them, as [the Kleins have] been ordered to, that they can’t discuss aspects of their beliefs?”

Click here to receive updates from First Liberty Institute as these cases progress

Click here to read more information about Aaron and Melissa Klein’s case

News and Commentary is brought to you by First Liberty’s team of writers and legal experts.



SCOTUS to Hear Major Abortion Case on Women’s Health

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The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is poised to render a decision next year that will be its most significant ruling on the abortion issue in more than twenty years.  The SCOTUS has agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that establishes health and safety regulations for abortion clinics.

The Texas Legislature enacted the abortion regulation statute in 2013.  It required that all abortion clinics in the state meet the same medical operating standards as other outpatient surgery centers.  It also required that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic.

The Texas law gained national attention when a pro-abortion state senator named ngaged in a much-publicized filibuster in a failed attempt to block the law.  The ultraliberal media showcased Davis as a “courageous” advocate for women’s rights, despite the fact that she was opposing a law to protect women from the malpractice of shoddy abortionists.

The most significant provision of the Texas law mandates that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital.  This helps guarantee that an abortionist can continue to provide proper obstetric care to a woman who has suffered “complications” from her abortion when she is transferred to an acute care setting.

The central purpose of these types of laws is to ensure that facilities providing surgical abortions are adequately equipped to deal with medical emergencies in the same fashion as other ambulatory surgical centers.  Very few hospital emergency rooms are staffed with specialists in obstetrics.

The passage of the new surgicenter health and safety law in Texas resulted in the closure of a majority of the abortion clinics in that state.  The reason for that is simple.  Numerous abortion facilities in Texas and throughout the nation are “served” by out-of-town abortionists who fly or drive into town to perform abortions in assembly-line fashion during concentrated periods of time.  They then quickly leave town to their next killing field in another community.

These drive-by, fly-by abortionists have absolutely no physician-patient relationship with the women whose children they are aborting, and are unavailable to provide any kind of followup care to women after the procedure.  Women who experience botched abortions are dumped by abortion clinic managers at the nearest emergency room with no physician of record to provide information about their “surgical outcomes.”

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the key provisions of the law in June, stating that the regulations served the legitimate purpose of “protecting the health and welfare of women seeking abortions.”  Within weeks, the SCOTUS issued a stay of the ruling until they could decide whether to hear the case themselves.

The Court has now decided to do just that.  Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberal justices on the SCOTUS in agreeing to take up the case.  The other four more conservative justices on the Court voted to allow the law to stand.

The last time the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on abortion was in 1992 in a Pennsylvania case known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.  In that decision, the SCOTUS reaffirmed the central holding of Roe v. Wade that a woman has a “liberty interest” to obtain an abortion without interference from the state prior to viability.

The Court upheld Pennsylvania regulations providing for informed consent by a woman seeking an abortion.  The justices established this legal principle: State regulations providing for the health, safety, and informed decision-making of the pregnant woman are constitutional so long as they do not create an “undue burden” on the woman’s choice, or erect “absolute obstacles” to her access to abortion.   The modern-day Court will now decide whether the Texas law satisfies that legal standard, or whether to establish new standards governing abortion clinic regulation.

Pray that the Justices on this Court understand their duty before God and man.

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