One of the main rhetorical strategies of gay marriage supporters has been to frame the issue as the next phase in the struggle for civil rights in America. As a consequence, they brand traditional marriage supporters as “bigots” who support “discrimination” equivalent to that of Jim Crow. For the most part, that rhetorical strategy seems to be working. This means that if you are a Christian who believes the Bible, there are many who simply believe you to be a morally retrograde bigot.
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Paul Ryan on Marriage and Abortion
NBC News is reporting that Rep. Paul Ryan will be announced as Mitt Romney’s VP pick tomorrow. I suppose this could be a head-fake, but NBC says that it has confirmed it. For now, I’m going with NBC’s report. Most people who know Paul Ryan for his wonkish mastery of economic policy. He put forth a serious and controversial plan to balance the federal budget and rein-in entitlement spending. It eventually passed in the house but died in the Senate. Although the plan was controversial, many conservatives loved it and admired him for his boldness. He looks like a boy, but he’s the man with the plan when it comes…
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Democratic Platform Draft Language on Gay Marriage
The draft language for the Democratic party platform on gay marriage has just been leaked, the Washington Blade reports. The language will be discussed and possibly amended when the full platform committee meets in Detroit this weekend. Here’s the language: We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference. We oppose discriminatory federal and state constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny…
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Interview with Rachel from Chick-fil-a
Fox News snagged an interview with the Chick-fil-a worker named Rachel who was berated by a drive-thru customer last Wednesday. In the accompanying article, Rachel explains why she responded so magnanimously: “I’m Christian and God tells us to love thy neighbor.” Watch the interview above. (HT: Danny Akin)
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How Obamacare Tramples Religious Liberty
Obamacare’s abortion mandate went into effect yesterday, and there continues to be a great deal of confusion over the law’s trampling of religious liberty. The public by and large still believes that this is a debate over access to contraception. That is incorrect. No doubt the misunderstanding owes in part to the way the mainstream media have covered the issue.
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How the Gay Marriage Agenda Advances
Once again, Ross Douthat has some shrewd observations about the gay marriage debate. This time he talks about the factors that have caused public opinion to change so rapidly over the last ten years. He rightly argues that the law not only reflects society’s values, but it also shapes them. Douthat insists that there is a “link between law and culture” and that “stigma, harassment and legal sanctions” play a crucial role in “changing attitudes and behavior.” He writes:
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Another Persistent Error in Reporting on Chick-fil-a
I suppose when you read a lot of news reports about one story, you begin to notice details. I know I have in the whole Chick-fil-a imbroglio. There is one particular error in reporting that I keep seeing over and over. I have seen it in The New York Times, The Associated Press, and countless others. The error goes something like this:
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Can Christians hide in the basement during the gay marriage debate?
I think Jen Hatmaker probably represents the feelings of a lot of folks who are worn out by the culture wars. In a recent post, she urges Christians to sit out the public debate on gay marriage. Her argument is simply that we have better things to do and that we are alienating gay people from Christianity by participating. So she plans to retreat to the metaphorical “basement” to ride out the storm in seclusion, and she urges other Christians to join her. In her own words: Christians, do you really think posting pithy statements on Facebook about “standing firm in our values” and “resisting the liberal media” is helping?…
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Chick-fil-a, Contraceptives, and Religious Liberty
If you haven’t yet Ross Douthat’s column in today’s New York Times, then you need to. He describes better than anyone else the fundamental constitutional issue at stake in the recent controversy regarding Chick-fil-a. He rightly recognizes that the issue is much bigger than whether or not Chick-fil-a gets to open stores in Boston and Chicago. At bottom, we are talking about the meaning of religious liberty as it is spelled out in the Constitution of the United States. He writes:
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Bigotry should be made of sterner stuff
I am not nearly as concerned with public boycotts of Chick-fil-a as I am with the potential abuse of government power by the mayors of Chicago and Boston. I’m glad to see that the editors of The National Review agree with me on this point in their article on the Chick-fil-a controversy. While defending Chick-fil-a executive Dan Cathy, the editors come down hard on Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago. They write: