After an embarrassing rant about Christianity somehow disqualifying an individual from public office and impying that a religious test should be implemented for those seeking to hold public office, California Democratic U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein is doubling down on her remarks.

On Wednesday, September 6, 2017, Feinstein attacked U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearing. Barrett, a mom of seven children, and a former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was basically told her Catholic religion should keep her from being qualified for the judgeship.

“When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” said Feinstein. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for, for years in this country.”

WATCH: Sen. Feinstein to appeals court nominee Amy Barrett, @NotreDame law prof/#Catholic mother of 7: "The dogma lives loudly within you." pic.twitter.com/mpDgNZGRsa

— Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) September 6, 2017

There was justifiably a huge backlash against Feinstein’s comments, but rather than retract them and issue an apology, Feinstein instead is doubling down on her statement, while unsuccessfully trying to explain away her obvious prejudice for people of faith.

On an appearance this weekend with CNN’s State of the Union, Feinstein said:

“This is a woman who has no real trial or court experience,” she argued. “And, therefore, there is no record. She’s a professor, which is fine, but all we have to look at are her writings, and in her writings, she makes some statements which are questionable, which deserve questions.”

Barrett was nominated by President Trump to fill a vacancy on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Perhaps Feinstein is concerned with the idea of having a judge who clerked for Scalia, a “lion of the law” on the Circuit Court of Appeals. However, Feinstein’s comments are representative of a larger feeling within the Democratic party. This is illustrated by the fact that during the same hearing in which Feinstein told Barrett, “the dogma lives loudly within you,” another prominent Democrat, Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, asked her, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”

Questions and statements like these are entirely inappropriate and have no bearing whatsoever in determining Barrett’s qualifications and abilities.

Family Research Council President, Tony Perkins says:

The reality is, liberals have as many deep convictions as conservatives — they’re just not as often rooted in the Christian religion. So to suggest that they can be impartial and believers can’t is not only untrue, it’s unfair. Telling Barrett that the “dogma lives loudly within [her]” is to ignore the dogma that lives even louder within Senate Democrats.

C.C. Peckhold, writing for the Wall Street Journal says:

Sens. Feinstein and Durbin were troubled not by Ms. Barrett’s Catholicism, but by her failure to prove her religion could conform to a more dogmatic progressivism. The “religious test” Democrats want to impose isn’t about religion per se; it’s about ensuring that every religious claim can be bent to more comprehensive political aims. It’s about defining anyone who dissents from the mores of the sexual revolution as disqualified from public office. That’s what makes Ms. Feinstein’s questioning so chilling.

Yet Feinstein stressed during the CNN interview that she has no animosity towards people of faith. “I think Catholicism is a great religion. I have great respect for it,” Feinstein said. “I’ve known many of the archbishops who have been in our community, we’ve had dinner together, we’ve spoken together over many, many decades, and I’ve tried to be helpful to the church whenever I could.”

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Written by Josh Hetzler

I hear a lot of faulty rhetoric these days repeated ardently in the public square – rhetoric that is often self-contradictory and so intellectually weak that it hardly merits retort. Among the clearest examples of this sort of rhetoric can be heard all around us in the following phrase, or similar versions thereof: “Discrimination is discrimination, period, and discrimination of any kind is wrong.” Without exception, this statement is followed up with: “Therefore, the government should prevent and/or penalize all forms of discrimination.”

No doubt you’ve heard this line before. It has quickly become one of the favorite talking points of those who seek to impose every radical perversion of sex and gender ideology onto all those remaining who have not yet gotten on board with their “progressive” thinking. Elevating the concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to specially protected classes is just the most recent crusade of these immoralists.

At surface level, the rhetoric sounds great, right? It appeals to our better side, which tells us (correctly) that we should treat all people with equal dignity and respect. At an emotional level, we would personally feel bad to treat a person differently than others for fear that it might be unfair or even hurtful to that person. And understandably, most of us don’t want that. But once past the surface, the rhetorical value ends.

As with all things, we must take the next step and actually think about what is being said and ask ourselves: Is it true? Is it sound? Is it consistent with objective reality? Does it foster and promote a better and freer society for all?

On all counts, the answer must be “no.” In fact, nothing could be more absurd to the habits of a free people.

After all, freedom itself requires discrimination because it necessitates an endless series of choices, and a choice is nothing if not the exercise of discrimination – for any number of a million different reasons – in favor of some things to the exclusion of others. I choose pizza over salad. You choose women to be your close friends over men. I choose to buy a house in a particular neighborhood instead of others. You choose to practice this religion over that one. And regardless of whether or not we agree with everyone’s choices, we should all agree that each person should be free to make those choices. Not only do those choices enable us to live freely, but they also highlight our uniqueness as individuals.

In reality, every single conscious decision each of us makes in life is an act of discrimination. We weigh our values, convictions, preferences, and interests with every scenario we encounter, and then we apply them in making decisions about how we will live our lives, with whom we will interact, and what things (or people) we will avoid. We are always discriminating. There is no freedom without it. And we all love freedom, don’t we?

Simply put, freedom IS discrimination.

It can be of no value then to simply say that “discrimination is discrimination,” since you are not really saying anything at all except what is already obvious. (e.g. 2 = 2) A reasonable person might then suspect that what the declarant is really doing is injecting some unknown definition of “discrimination” into his statement, without ever bothering to define it. Thus, what he puts forward as obvious is actually anything but obvious, and knowing this, he hides behind the purposeful confusion he has created since the truth simply will not support his agenda.

Moreover, he cannot really mean that all discrimination is wrong and should therefore be unlawful. To say this is to say that we ought to have a totalitarian state that makes all the decisions rather than a free one in which individuals make their own decisions according to their own values.  Yet as I consider the actual direction this rhetoric is taking us, I’m beginning to think that a totalitarian state in which the declarant makes the decisions for all people is precisely what he’s after. Getting his way means that you lose your freedom. He knows this, but he isn’t about to state it openly – preferring instead to declare that he is against all “discrimination.” Ironically, this “anti-discrimination” for which he advocates is exactly the kind of discrimination that free societies cannot tolerate without ceasing to be free.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that individuals sometimes abuse their freedom in ways that are hurtful to others. As neighbors and fellow citizens, we ought to find constructive ways to address and correct those abuses. Freedom, rightly understood, comes not only with rights, but duties also – both to God and our fellow man.

In light of this understanding, as a matter of public policy then, the relevant questions when it comes to discrimination are these:

1) Which, if any, bases for discrimination should be prohibited by the government (and by which government)? And if any,

2) In what contexts and to what degree should those bases for discrimination be prohibited?, and

3) Since freedom is itself the ability to discriminate based on various self-determined criteria, does the claimed need for the prohibition of a particular basis of discrimination in a particular context outweigh the corresponding loss of freedom?, and

4) To what extent do our federal or state Constitutions guarantee the protection of certain freedoms so as to make the answers definitive?

But these questions are virtually never even acknowledged since they require a thoughtful and reasoned analysis, along with a recognition that these issues are not always so cut and dry as some would like you to believe. It’s high time for “progressives” to be honest about the issue of discrimination because only then can we begin to reach any common ground on how best to deal with it. Their faulty rhetoric thus far has served only to distort the real issues while resulting in a mass deception. Despite how pathetically shallow the rhetoric is, it has nevertheless continued to captivate the simple-minded. But in a free society, although freedom cannot be said to exist where not all ideas are permitted, the same freedom can only be sustained where the faulty ideas are being constantly challenged, scrutinized, and demolished.

Let’s hope more sensible minds prevail in demolishing this particular rhetorical nonsense, since the freedom of us all depends upon it.

This article was originally posted at The Family Foundation blog.

The kind of draconian restrictions of speech and religious rights that corrupt Canadian governance are  arriving bit by corroded bit on America’s church steps sooner than many expected and in, of all places,  Iowa. Make no mistake though, this is coming to every state.

Iowa, like many other states, has a law banning discrimination based on, among other conditions, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” in places of public accommodation. To be clear, the rhetorical contrivance “sexual orientation” really means “subjective homoerotic attraction and volitional homoerotic acts,”* and the rhetorical contrivance “gender identity” really means “the subjective desire to be the opposite sex or no sex,” both of which are ontological impossibilities.

Iowa also has a Civil Rights Commission that has issued “guidance” on how the state law and corresponding city codes affect churches. It states that the anti-discrimination law—including its provisions regarding homoerotic feelings and sex-rejection—does, in fact, apply to churches. Fortunately, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ to prevent the civil rights commission and Iowa attorney general “from forcing Fort Des Moines to use its facility in a way that violates its religious beliefs about human sexuality.”

Here are some of the tricksy ways the Iowa Civil Rights Commission seeks to violate the civil rights of Christians.

Place of public accommodation

The Iowa law banning discrimination based on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” applies to  places of public accommodation, from which historically churches have been exempt. But inventive (or cunning) Iowa public servants have found a way around that pesky obstacle to their absolutist cultural ambitions. The commissioners write that if any place that is “distinctly private by its nature….offers some services, facilities, or goods to the general public, it will be treated as a public accommodation for those services,” and, of course, church services are open and offered to the general public. By that very act of opening church services to all, churches—in the opinion of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission—become subject to Iowa’s anti-discrimination law and vulnerable to lawsuits for non-compliance.

Churches and their “bona fide religious purposes”

The commission explains that “Iowa law provides that these protections do not apply to religious institutions with respect to any religion-based qualifications when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose. Where qualifications are not related to a bona fide religious purpose, churches are still subject to the law’s provisions.”

Many Christians will be scratching their heads at those statements in that virtually everything that takes place within churches has a bona fide religious purpose or, more precisely, is informed by religious belief. Since neither the law nor the commission’s interpretation of the law defines a “bona fide religious purpose,” I will take a stab at the definition: To the commission, a “bona fide religious purpose” is a religious purpose so narrow in its scope and application that no secularist can hear or see it.

For those still baffled by the commission’s gaseous emanations, the commission provides two specific examples of church activities that because of their public nature are unrelated to a “bona fide religious purpose” and, therefore, “subject to the law’s provisions”: “a child care facility operated at a church or a church service open to the public.”

Bodily sex and physical privacy

The commission warns that churches that offer services open to the public must allow sex-rejecting men and women to use opposite-sex restrooms or risk lawsuits. According to the commission, the law and city codes require that “ndividuals [be] permitted to access… [restrooms, locker rooms, and living facilities] in accordance with their gender identity, rather than their assigned sex at birth, without being… questioned.”

ADF charges that the commission is  engaging in viewpoint discrimination: “The Act and City Code permit churches and others to distribute and disseminate religious statements that support or condone policies permitting access to restrooms and showers based on one’s gender identity, but punish religious statements that support or condone access to restrooms and showers based solely on one’s biological sex.”

Big Brother is stomping across the Iowa cornfields belching that church restrooms should no longer correspond to objective, immutable biological sex, but henceforth should correspond to the strange, subjective feelings of those who believe sex per se has no intrinsic meaning. Such a moral claim, however, is based on prior assumptions about the meaning of sex, modesty, and privacy—assumptions that contradict Scripture.

Harassment

According to the commission, “illegal harassment” could include “repeated remarks of a demeaning nature…demeaning…stories…and intentional use of names and pronouns inconsistent with a person’s presented gender.” Would the story of Sodom and Gomorrah be a demeaning story? Could a pastor’s exposition of Leviticus 18:22 or 20: 13, or Romans 1: 26-27, or 1 Corinthians 6:9 be construed as “remarks of a demeaning nature”? If a pastor uses the man formerly known as Bruce Jenner as an illustration in a sermon and refers to him by the grammatically correct male pronoun because Jenner remains to this day male, could the pastor be fined or jailed?

Let that sink in for a moment: The government is intruding into sacred space to force Christians to lie in violation of their religious convictions. Astonishing. The government has passed a law that bans “demeaning remarks” and compels lying thus violating First Amendment speech and religious protections. The left has long sought to scrub the public square of religion, but now the poisonous tentacles of “progressivism” are slinking into even our sanctuaries.

Churches may be exempt from Iowa’s anti-discrimination law when it comes to hiring a pastor—which means churches may discriminate based on a candidate’s embrace of a homosexual or “trans” identity—but if, in a church service open to the public, pastors preach sermons based on theologically orthodox beliefs about homosexuality or if churches require that restroom-usage corresponds to objective sex, churches risk lawsuits. Leftists will no longer allow religious purposes to remain unmolested by anti-biblical, Caesarist policies even within church buildings unless those buildings are hermetically sealed off from the public.

It appears that states are careening down the greased up slope at the bottom of which they’ll find Dystopia watched over by the gimlet eyes of debauched Big Brother.

*No one is discriminated against based on their heterosexuality because objectively all humans are heterosexual. Their bodies are designed for hetero-sex and they reproduce heterosexually. The term “sexual orientation” in law actually refers only to subjective homoerotic feelings and volitional homoerotic acts, which means the legal door is open to add other conditions constituted by subjective feelings and volitional acts to anti-discrimination laws and policies.

Written by Joseph Backholm

You may not know what dhimmitude is and hopefully you never experience it.

But you’ve probably heard of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and you’re almost surely aware of what Christians are.

Dhimmitude is an Islamic system that governs non-Muslims who have been conquered through Jihad by folks like ISIS.

If you surrender to Muslim control – though not Muslim – you are referred to as dhimmi.

Sounds fun, right?

If ISIS took over the town you live in, they might move door to door and give you three options: “convert to Islam, pay the jizya, or die.”

The jizya is a tax for not being Muslim.

It doesn’t apply to everyone, but paying it is seen as proof of your subjection to the Jihadist state and its laws. In return, non-Muslim subjects are permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to the Muslim state’s protection from outside aggression.

Acknowledging the difference, there are parallels between the way Jihadists treat those who are in dhimmitude and the way the new sexual revolution in America seeks to treat those who disagree with their (religious?) beliefs about sexuality and marriage.

Once they have political power, they are giving businesses three options “convert, pay a fine, or die” (economically, not physically).

After Arlene’s Flowers was sued for declining to decorate for a same-sex wedding, Attorney General Bob Ferguson offered to settle (demanded the jizya) for $2,000 on the condition that she would “convert,” or agree to make business decisions according to the state’s new values.

Only a few days ago, a judge in Oregon fined a bakery $135,000 because they attempted to run their business according to their Christian beliefs about sexuality rather than the government’s. When they rejected the government’s demands that they convert or pay the jizya, the government opted for what amounts to the economic death penalty.

“Nonsense,” you argue. “They broke the law. Having penalties for breaking the law isn’t exactly innovative. Nor is it jihadist.”

Fair enough.

But the left’s new found impulse to be sticklers for the letter of the law misses the larger point.

The left is proposing a regime change that fundamentally alters freedoms that have been taken for granted for in America for centuries.

Christians, Jews, Muslims and others have been not participating in same-sex “weddings” for millennia.

But under the new regime, doing what has always been done is illegal.

Your choice. Convert, pay a fine if you refuse to convert and then convert, or experience economic death.

Like the jizya, the non-discrimination law discriminates.  It protects one person’s right to decline to participate in an activity they disagree with, but denies that right to others. 

The good news is that if you accept the terms of the new regime, you will still be allowed a measure of communal autonomy, and be entitled to other benefits from the state.

Imagine a new law compelling church attendance or pork consumption on the grounds that refusing to participate is discriminatory. (Which, of course, it is. But that’s the kind of discrimination lefties still like.)

Being indignant with the atheist who objects to compulsory church attendance would be stupid since he’s simply doing what atheists have always done.

“But it’s the law,” you say, self-righteously.

“But it shouldn’t be the law, and you should know better,” he says in response.

And of course he’s right.

The way non-discrimination laws are being interpreted right now is not a modification to the building code that frustrates some builders or a change in the speed law that catches unsuspecting drivers.

It is a regime change that seeks to fundamentally alter the way Americans have always lived. It seeks to create the kind of conformity that America was created in opposition to.

America doesn’t and shouldn’t have conquered peoples. We make room for the atheists, Christians, Muslims, or Jew to be who they are, not just in their preferred place of worship, but in the rest of their life as well. We respect the right for people to be who they are, even if we think they’re silly and ignorant. We understand that we’re different and we make room for that.

Dhimmitude is for jihadists, not for Americans.

This article was originally posted on the blog of the Family Policy Institute of Washington.

Written By Billy Hallowell

Atlanta’s former fire chief who was terminated after he self-published a book that included his faith-based opposition to homosexuality has filed a lawsuit against the city in federal court. This act follows a complaint that his attorneys filed last month with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, citing unlawful discrimination.

Kelvin Cochran, who is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal firm, believes that he was fired because of his Christian faith, arguing in the complaint that his freedom of religion was violated in the dismissal process.

“To actually lose my childhood-dream-come-true profession – where all of my expectations have been greatly exceeded – because of my faith is staggering,” Cochran said in a statement following the filing on Wednesday. “The very faith that led me to pursue my career has been used to take it from me. All Americans are guaranteed the freedom to hold to their beliefs without the consequences that I have experienced.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom is working with Jonathan Crumly and Garland Hunt, two allied local attorneys in the case, which was filed U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, according to a press release.

“This civil rights lawsuit is not only about restoring Kelvin Cochran’s constitutional freedoms, but the freedom of all Americans to live without fear of being fired because of their beliefs and thoughts,” David Cortman, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, told TheBlaze. “It’s ironic that some claim Chief Cochran was fired in the name of ‘diversity’ for having different beliefs than the city. That sounds more like compelled conformity and thought policing.”

As reported last month, the legal firm filed an official complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Cochran in January, alleging that he was discriminated against when Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed fired him. The newly filed lawsuit ups the ante on the situation, though, solidifying a formal legal complaint about the firing.

Cochran’s dismissal in early January followed controversy over “Who Told You That You Are Naked?” a book that he self-published in which he called homosexuality “sexual perversion” and compared it to “bestiality,” among other critiques. Activists reacted swiftly to the text, sparking involvement from the mayor’s office.

While Cochran has repeatedly said that he was terminated for his religious views, Reed has offered up a very different story, claiming at a press conference last month that Cochran’s judgement was at the center of his firing, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Full video: Fire chief sues city of Atlanta over unjust termination from ADF Media Relations on Vimeo.

“I, too, am a person of very deep religious faith … 1 Corinthians 14:40 says, ‘Let all things be done decently and in order’ and I want to make very clear in my judgement that was not done here,” Reed proclaimed. “Chief Cochran’s book … was published in violation of the city’s standards of conduct, which require prior approval of the ethics officer and the board of ethics.”

While Reed claims that he wasn’t consulted before the book was written and that Cochran, who spoke out about his battle with the city to religious groups when he was reportedly told not to, isn’t being persecuted because of his faith, the former fire chief disagrees.

Cochran claims Atlanta ethics officer Nina Hickson gave him verbal permission to write the book and that he had given a copy to Reed’s office last January, the Journal-Constitution reported.

Reed launched an investigation in November after it was revealed that the book discussed homosexuality in a negative light, though Cochran was found to not have discriminated against any employees during his tenure, but his termination followed.

Read more about the initial controversy here.

Originally posted at TheBlaze.com.

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Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

He was right.

In the aftermath of the Arizona religious freedom skirmish, I have a few questions for those who would presume to compel religious business owners, under penalty of law, to “provide goods and services” to homosexuals in a way that violates that business owner’s conscience.

To wit:

• Should a homosexual baker be forced to make a “God Hates Fags” cake for Westboro Baptist Church, simply because its members claim to be Christian?
• Should a black printer be forced to develop and print thousands of “White Power!” flyers for a skinhead rally just because the potential customer is white?
• Should a Christian florist be compelled to create and provide black floral arrangements to a hell-bound customer for her upcoming Satanist ritual?
• Should a “progressive,” environmentalist sign-maker be required to design and manufacture “Global Warming Is a Farce” signs for a tea party rally?
• Should a Muslim photographer, commissioned by San Francisco’s “Folsom Street Fair,” be forced to document that vile event – rife with nudity and public sex – simply because the customers identify as “gay”?
• Should a “gay married” lesbian hotel owner – a card-carrying member of GLAAD – be required, under threat of incarceration, to host and cater a fundraiser for the “National Organization for Marriage,” a group that opposes so-called “marriage equality”?

If you said no to any of the above, and you opposed Arizona’s cowardly vetoed SB1062, then you’re logically inconsistent and need to re-evaluate your position.

To clarify – liberals, I know you have a difficult time understanding the “Constitution” with its outdated “Bill of Rights” and all – I’m not talking about refusing business to someone just because he appears effeminate or she appears butch, or even when that someone is an “out and proud” homosexual.

I’ve never even heard of a case where a Christian baker randomly refused to provide baked goods – such as a birthday cake – to any homosexual, absent a scenario in which those goods endorsed a message the baker finds repugnant (rainbow “pride” cupcakes, “gay wedding” cakes and the like). I’ve never heard of a single instance in which a Christian business owner arbitrarily said to a homosexual: “We don’t serve your kind here.”

And neither can the left provide such an instance. Because it doesn’t happen. If it did happen, it would be front-page news for a month.

No, I’m specifically referring to scenarios that have occurred – and continue to occur – with alarming frequency. Situations in which Christian business owners are being sued, fined or even threatened with jail time for politely declining to apply their God-given time and talent to create goods or services that require they violate deeply held – and constitutionally protected – religious beliefs.

It really is that black and white. This was never about the person. It was always about the message. It was never about “discrimination.” It was always about liberty.

Freedom, man.

Because ‘Merica.

While from a constitutional standpoint it’s not even necessary, that’s all the drafters of SB1062 and similar such bills have endeavored to do. Because government has begun alienating unalienable rights at a level unparalleled since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, legislators have attempted to merely re-affirm the already existing right for religious business owners to live out their faith without fear of persecution or government reprisal.

Seriously, unless you’re fascist, who could disagree? Nobody should ever be forced to spend their time and talent to endorse – whether directly or indirectly – a message or event that he or she finds repugnant. I don’t care if you’re Christian, pagan, black, white, “gay” or straight. That’s your God-given right as an American.

As a constitutionalist, I’ll remain consistent – will you? If you’re a homosexual photographer, for instance, and, for whatever reason, you oppose natural man-woman marriage, and you choose to exercise your right to only photograph “gay weddings,” then knock yourself out. If I come knocking and want you to photograph my wedding, and you tell me to pound sand, I’ll suck it up and take my business down the street.

And I won’t even demand you be thrown in jail for it.

See how easy that was? I mean, you’re a liberal. You’re “pro-choice,” right?

Starting to get it?

Well, let me be clear so there’s no misunderstanding. If I’m a business owner and someone comes in requesting goods or services that would require me to violate my conscience – especially my biblically-based, sincerely held religious beliefs – I will not, under any circumstances, provide those goods or services. This is my absolute, non-negotiable, constitutionally guaranteed right.

No debate. No question. No compromise.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

Those are wise words from a wise man. For purposes of today’s debate, however, those words require a slight contextual modification. No “anti-discrimination” law that presumes to remove the constitutional right of business owners to operate their business according to conscience is worth the paper it’s written on.

Poo paper for puppy.

So, liberals, knock off the Alinskyite obfuscation and conflation. Quit throwing around all this “Jim Crow” crap. It belittles the legitimate civil rights struggle and makes you look stupid. You’ve created an ugly and offensive straw man and beat the stuffing out of him.

I rarely agree with “gay” activist Andrew Sullivan, but on the subject at hand, he at least has a remedial understanding. Gloss over all the obligatory “homophobe” and “bigot” nonsense, and he recently made a few good points on “The Dish”:

I favor maximal liberty in these cases. The idea that you should respond to a hurtful refusal to bake a wedding cake by suing the bakers is a real stretch to me. … There are plenty of non-homophobic bakers in Arizona. We run the risk of becoming just as intolerant as the anti-gay bigots [read: Christians], if we seek to coerce people into tolerance. If we value our freedom as gay people in living our lives the way we wish, we should defend that same freedom to sincere religious believers and also, yes, to bigots and haters. You do not conquer intolerance with intolerance. … I’m particularly horrified by the attempt to force anyone to do anything they really feel violates their conscience, sense of self, or even just comfort.

And besides, as constitutional law expert Jan LaRue recently observed in an email: “If they believe their own rhetoric, that we’re hateful bigots, why would they even risk eating our cakes?”

Why indeed?

Yuck.