Tag: First Amendment

Those Executive Orders

  

President Obama yesterday put forward his executive orders for curbing gun violence. There were twenty-three of them. I read through all twenty-three carefully. While I’m somewhat relieved that he didn’t go beyond the regular misuse of such executive orders—no sweeping new mandates this time—he nevertheless stepped over the constitutional boundary that separates the executive from the legislative. His orders, while not establishing new laws, which would be unconstitutional in itself, still added new spending in the billions. Unless that money… Read more »

Religious Liberty in the Crosshairs

  

Forty-three organizations, mostly Catholic, have sued the federal government over the HHS regulations in Obamacare that would force them to violate their religious beliefs. Some people don’t care because they view this as a birth control issue, they are secular, and they consider the Catholic church to be positively medieval in its strictures against birth control. Others, among them Protestant Christians, are tempted to stay on the sidelines because they don’t agree with the church’s stance on the issue and… Read more »

Taking the Threat to Heart

  

The Obamacare mandate for religious institutions to provide healthcare services that violate their beliefs is more serious than most people realize. The focus has been on Catholics and contraceptives, but that’s only the beginning. Since the country as a whole doesn’t hold to the no-contraception doctrine of the Catholic church, the outrage is somewhat muted. What many don’t understand is that it is merely the opening salvo for a full-scale attack on Christianity. Note I said “Christianity,” not religion, because… Read more »

The Supreme Court Got It Right on Westboro

  

Yesterday’s post was on Libya because I had inquiries about my thoughts on that subject. Today’s post also stems from an inquiry, this time about a recent Supreme Court decision on freedom of speech involving the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. It seems that most of its members are part of one extended family, and that there are fewer than 100 people in the congregation. I’m not really keen on calling this group a church because I don’t believe… Read more »

Supreme Decisions

  

This seems to be Supreme Court week. First, we have the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, then two decisions are handed down by the Court that have significant ramifications, one for good, the other just the opposite. The good: the Second Amendment has survived the scrutiny of the Court—how nice of them to decide it’s really there. By a slim 5-4 decision, the Court declared that the right to keep and bear arms applies to states and cities, too, thereby… Read more »