Religion
September 2, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Last year, my wife and I visited Italy for the first time. In Rome, we arranged for a guide to take us through the Vatican. I envisioned an elderly gentleman, but our guide turned out to be an attractive young woman who, I soon decided, was a practicing Catholic. At one point, she asked me guardedly what I thought of Pope Francis. I’m not a Catholic, I said, so it’s
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August 26, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The news for the Roman Catholic Church keeps getting worse and worse. But let’s stop right there for just a moment. “News” is exactly that—it is what we know from the news media, whose accuracy and depth Power Line readers, among others, know to distrust. There are some first-hand documents (more on this in a moment) to go on, but do we really want to place complete credulity in the
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August 17, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Alex Acosta’s Department of Labor has issued a Directive regarding the exercise of religious liberty by employees of federal contractors. The document, promulgated by DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance, is here. It instructs staff to be mindful of recent developments in Supreme Court jurisprudence regarding religious freedom. Specifically: Pursuant to Masterpiece Cakeshop, agency staff “cannot act in a manner that passes judgment upon or presupposes the illegitimacy of religious
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August 15, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Jack Phillips is the Christian cake baker from Colorado who had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid being punished after declining to bake a wedding cake for a couple celebrating their gay marriage. To have baked the cake would have violated his strongly held religious beliefs. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission didn’t care. It found him in violation of the law. The Supreme Court overturned
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August 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this month, Chai Feldblum, whose renomination as EEOC commissioner is stalled due to her positions on what should happen when considerations of gay dignity collide with considerations of religious liberty, tweeted: “After months of having my views misrepresented, I am finally speaking for myself.” She speaks for herself in this article called “What I Really Believe About Religious Liberty and LGBT Rights.” In her article, Feldblum tries to position
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May 5, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
When Speaker Paul Ryan fired Rev. Patrick Conway from his job as Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, critics of the decision argued that Ryan made the decision because Conway is Catholic. Conway himself reportedly took that position in a complaint against the Speaker’s office. The claim is absurd. Ryan himself is Catholic. A more plausible charge is that Ryan fired Conway because of his theology. Conway is a
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April 29, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Who runs Pope Francis’s Twitter feed? Because this is beyond embarrassing—it’s so stupid it isn’t even idiotic: I’m on the road again today and tomorrow, but when I get home, remind me to dust off my copy of Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address and explain why it was the best and most important Papal speech of our still-young century. And thus why Francis is such an immense disappointment by any comparison.
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April 28, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
JK Scott is the punter for last season’s national champion University of Alabama football team who, during a recent team visit to the White House, initiated a prayer for President Trump. He described it this way: I said ‘Hey, Mr. Trump, would you let me pray over you.” “He said ‘Yeah, come on.” From there, Scott put one hand on Trump’s shoulder and the other on his chest. “And I
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April 23, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Last night, I reported that, from what I’m hearing, Senate leadership is pushing to confirm Chai Feldblum as EEOC Commissioner this week. Feldblum, as we have discussed, is a left-wing radical who, among other things, formulated President Obama’s LBGT agenda. She thinks it’s fine if that agenda tramples religious freedom, as it often does. Sen. Mike Lee placed a hold on Feldblum’s nomination. However, the plan is to get Lee’s
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April 22, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Mike Lee has been fighting against the renomination of Chai Feldblum as EEOC Commissioner. Feldblum is the architect of President Obama’s radical LBGT agenda. She believes, among other things, that when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict, sexual liberty should prevail in virtually all cases. The confirmation of Feldblum looked like a done deal in December. However, key social conservative groups sounded the alarm, and Sen. Lee placed a
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April 16, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
We have seen that, from a conservative perspective, the Alex Acosta Department of Labor is bad on immigration, bad on equal pay, and weak on at least one important wage and hour law issue. Now we learn that it is also bad on religious liberty. We learn this from the case of Acosta v. Cathedral Buffet, Inc.; Ernest Angley. In this action, the Department of Labor sued a restaurant operated
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April 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
On Tuesday, the University of Alabama football team visited President Trump at the White House. Trump honored the team for winning another national championship. The visit featured an impromptu prayer: Shortly after President Trump delivered his remarks, a group of players approached him and, after exchanging a few words, began to pray. The huddle showed the president bowing his head while a player placed his hand on Trump’s shoulder as
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April 4, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
There’s a new privilege for malcontents to obsess over: Christian privilege. The phenomenon must be real because George Washington University is holding a program about it: How do Christians in the USA experience life in an easier way than non-Christians? Even with the separation of Church and State, are there places where Christians have built-in advantages over non-Christians? How do we celebrate Christian identities and acknowledge that Christians receive unmerited
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March 25, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Trayon White is the D.C. Council member who explained that Jewish financiers control the climate and create natural disasters to gain political control. As I noted here, local Jewish leaders quickly forgave White and expressed their desire to work with him. Now, with Passover approaching, White is receiving invitations to multiple Seders. White accepted one of them. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to have White attend a Seder,
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March 10, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has agreed with the EEOC that a funeral home engaged in unlawful discrimination when it fired a male funeral director who was “transitioning” to female and dressing as a woman at work. The case is EEOC v. Harris Funeral Homes. The opinion is by Karen Nelson Moore, a Clinton appointee and one of the most left-wing federal appeals court judges in
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December 22, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) is, I believe, the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America. It articulates and advocates for public policy positions based upon traditional Jewish thought. Today the CJV sharply criticized the Trump Administration for re-nominating Chai Feldblum to the EEOC. Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Eastern Regional. Vice President of the CJV, explained: Feldblum has been truly unfriendly to accommodation of religious views. The decision to renew
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December 10, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Listening to the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the wedding cake case, it struck me how artificial the discussion was. Much of it centered on whether and under what circumstances cakes are speech. Bizarre. I don’t blame the advocates or the current Justices for the content of the argument. They must be mindful of Supreme Court precedents whether or not, as a practical matter, they fit this case
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