Most readers already know how historic today is in our national life. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments concerning gay marriage. The Justices will render a decision on the matter by the end of June. Given the high court’s precedents in the 2003 Lawrence decision and in the 2013 Windsor decision, most observers agree that the current case is a forgone conclusion. The Supreme Court is poised to declare gay marriage a constitutional right. Seventy percent of Americans already live in states where gay marriage is legal. But by the end of June, one hundred percent of Americans will live in a state where gay marriage is legal. That…

The Atlantic tweeted a link to an article this morning with this statement: “Why did Christian conservatives turn against gay conversion therapy?” It turns out that the article is by Jonathan Merritt, and it describes the shrinking fortunes of reparative therapy. As I mentioned last week, President Obama recently came out publicly against reparative therapy, and now Merritt is explaining how its influence has waned even among evangelicals. It’s a fascinating article, and you can read it here.

Kudos to Sarah Pulliam Bailey for pulling together a short summary of the faith of Marco Rubio—who by the way announced that he is running for president today. In short, the story goes like this. He went from Mormon to Catholic to Evangelicalish and back to Catholic. In Bailey’s report, he says… “I immersed myself in LDS theology,” Rubio wrote. “I studied church literature and other sources of information to learn all I could about the church’s teachings.” By the time he was in sixth grade, his family had left the Mormon Church for Catholicism, and he had his First Communion on Christmas Day 1984. In 2007, Rubio told me…

Last night, President Obama released a statement calling for an end to what is sometimes called “conversion” or “reparative” therapy for LGBT youth. Written by Valerie Jarrett on behalf of the President, the statement is a response to a petition that appeared on the WhiteHouse.gov site after the suicide of the transgender teen Josh “Leelah” Alcorn late last year. Among other things, it says that “this Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.” The statement comes out in support of state legislation to outlaw the practice, and it invites the U. S. Congress to send similar legislation to the President for him to sign. The…

Our news cycle moves so fast that to bring up the Indiana RFRA law might already seem like yesterday’s news. Some readers already feel like saying, “C’mon, man. That is so last week.” Nevertheless, before the country moves on to its next diversion, I think it would be good for us to think about the meaning of last week’s dust-up over religious liberty. For starters, last week was more than a “dust-up” to those of us who belong to the religious minority known as evangelicalism. It wasn’t the apocalypse. Nor was it even worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as what happened to our brothers and sisters in…

I watched Gov. Mike Pence’s press conference this morning with great interest. He is trying to face down an enormous backlash against Indiana’s recent Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which has been mischaracterized nationally as a license to discriminate against gay people. Nevertheless, he called a press conference and announced his intention to consider a legislative “fix” or “clarification” of the RFRA law. He did not explain what that legislative “fix” might consist of, but he said that something is coming. I like Gov. Pence, and I think that he has been trying to fight the good fight. But he has gotten himself into a dilemma that has no good…