From our bishops’ statement on the Supreme Court ruling this week:
We call our people to a season of prayer for marriage and offer the accompanying Litany and Prayer to guide us.
Unanimously adopted by the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America.
June 26, 2015
More Responses to Obergefell vs. Hodges
June 28, 2015
The Anglican Church in North America responds at some length.
Scott Walker made a great statement in response to the Supreme Court decision.
Five unelected judges have taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage, an institution that the author of this decision acknowledges ‘has been with us for millennia.’ . . .
Another Day in the Life of a Tolerant Liberal
June 27, 2015
It was almost too perfect a reflection on the intolerance of the “tolerance” crowd when a blogger yesterday responded to my constitutional arguments by calling me an A’hole, saying that he does not “take kindly” to people disagreeing with him, and erasing the indication that my blog had linked to his so that none of his readers would have to be exposed to any differing views, either. (Surprisingly, if you block out everyone who doesn’t agree with you, you will find yourself surrounded by people who agree with you!)
Liberal News Media Read like an Onion Article
June 27, 2015
With leftists like these, who needs parody?
With Obama only a few lines into his speech, Jennicet Gutiérrez, a undocumented trans woman involved in queer and immigration activism, called on the president to end the confinement and deportation of LGBTQ undocumented immigrants. “President Obama,” she cried out, “release all LGBTQ immigrants from detention and stop all deportations.” Gutiérrez’s protests were quickly met with shushing from the crowd, which, according to multiple reports from the room, consisted largely of white, cisgender, gay men.
See also “‘Bruce Jenner’s Transformation Is a Lose-Lose for Liberal Ideology’”.
At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey has great further discussions of how today’s Supreme Court decision threatens conservatives’ and Christians’ freedom, and what Republicans in Congress are doing about it.
2005: Our marriage won’t affect your rights.
2014: Bake a cake or be destroyed.
2015: We won’t touch your church. Promise. Tee hee.
Re today’s Supreme Court decision, My Friday Blog is at pains to emphasize that the Civil War was about slavery.
The states themselves, in their official secession declarations explicitly said it was about slavery. Look it up.
Sandy Beach Writings (“(Marriage) Equality but at What Cost?”) emphasizes that she is in favor of today’s Supreme Court decision (“Let me be clear, I completely agree with the fact that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry”), but wonders, reasonably, about vertical separation of powers and federalism.
Re today’s Supreme Court decision, the blog Intellectual Prostitution (“Love Rules and So Does SCOTUS”) argues,
And Scalia’s dissent has only proven how asinine the arguments against marriage equality have always been.
…the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law…Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its ‘reasoned judgment,’ thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect.
Quin Hillyer at NRO has the first thought on today’s U. S. Supreme Court decision redefining marriage.
There is absolutely no way for Justice Anthony Kennedy to square today’s decision with his ten pages of paeans to states’ authority over marriage in the 2013 case of U.S. v. Windsor. None. The damage done to the Constitution and the rule of law . . . incalculably high.
For Caution in Seeking to Restrict the Choices of Others
June 24, 2015
Current events provide a reminder that however ugly our disagreements, there’s a lot of value in preserving a pluralistic, (classically) liberal society, where we leave each other free to make our own choices and live our own lives, to the extent possible.
If Germany makes it illegal to buy or sell Mein Kampf, how do they know people weren’t going to buy it in order to study history and make sure it isn’t repeated?
If we pressure Walmart etc. to stop selling Confederate battle flags, how do we know people weren’t going to buy them in order to burn them?
Further Thoughts on the Confederate Flag(s)
June 24, 2015
Interesting notes on the history of the flags of the Confederacy, according to Wikipedia.
One of the first acts of the Provisional Confederate Congress was to create the “Committee on the Flag and Seal”, chaired by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina. The committee asked the public to submit thoughts and ideas on the topic and was, as historian John M. Coski puts it, “overwhelmed by requests not to abandon the ‘old flag’ of the United States.”
Read more. My takeaways (subject to the obligatory caveats about trusting Wikipedia):
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
June 19, 2015
After they lost the Civil War and were forced to free the slaves, Democrats looked for other ways to bully black Americans. A significant part of the history of gun-control laws in America is the history of Democrats trying to keep black people from defending themselves (see, e.g., “The Great Equalizer: Civil rights and the Second Amendment” and “Gun Control and Racism”).
The Big Charter, in Brief
June 15, 2015
Culture > Politics
June 10, 2015
Blogging for the Hugh Hewitt show, John Schroeder reminds us that there are more important things than politics (and that politics is shaped by those things more than the other way around).
What is clear; however, is that if we are going to push government back within its boundaries other culture shaping forces have to step up and push it out. . . . It is not enough to elect a “small government” president unless we support big church, independent education, and other things that can push government out of the purely cultural spaces.
So, while you are asking which of the dozen or more GOP contenders you are going to support, are you donating to your church, school, museum or orchestra? If not, you should think about it just as hard.
Bruce ‘Caitlyn’ Jenner recently came out as “transgendered” and “a woman”. The left wants to celebrate, but Daniel Davis at The Federalist points out that this has exposed a contradiction embedded in modern liberalism:
This is a problem for the broader liberal sexual movement. It wants to celebrate transgenderism, but it cannot do so without referring to—and thus, at least tacitly affirming—gender norms. . . .
Enjoyment and Contemplation 