Planned Parenthood Was Jon Ossoff’s Death Star

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There are many lessons Democrats should learn from Jon Ossoff’s expensive flame-out. (And they probably won’t.) But the most important might be this: Cozying up to Planned Parenthood is a great way to lose.

Let’s start by myth-busting. Whatever the Democrats said, Georgia’s Sixth District was not solidly Republican. Susan B. Anthony List’s political consultant Frank Cannon says: “Let’s not rewrite the narrative now that it’s inconvenient for the Democrats. This was not a deep red district that returned to its roots. The Democrats were attempting to flip a suburban district. One where Trump was far less popular than in most Republican districts. On paper, it should have worked.”

The former incumbent Tom Price used to win it by very large margins. That’s largely because the Democrats never contested it. Hillary Clinton came close to carrying it, losing by only 1.5 percent. It was an open seat. The district is filled with white suburban college graduates. That includes lots of moms. Those are the kind of voters whom the Democrats think they can scare. Remember the phony “War on Women”?

Bottom line: If Democrats are going to take back the House, they must win in districts like this. That’s why the Left threw everything it had at Karen Handel.

The Democrat’s Death Star

Planned Parenthood was one of the Democrats biggest weapons. In fact, it’s their Death Star.

Jon Ossoff leapt into bed with the nation’s biggest abortion business. He held special roundtables with women. The topic? The “scandal” that Handel wanted to cut off Planned Parenthood’s subsidies from the taxpayer. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, “Democrat Jon Ossoff held a roundtable Friday with women’s health advocates and breast cancer survivors as his campaign stepped up the attack on Republican Karen Handel’s stint at a breast-cancer charity.”

Ossoff relentlessly went after Handel in high profile debates. Her crime? Trying to keep anti-cancer money given to the Susan G. Komen Foundation from going to Planned Parenthood’s coffers. “She imposed her own views and cut off funding for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood,” Ossoff charged in their June 6 debate.

His campaign ran an attack ad calling Handel’s stance “unforgiveable.” This wasn’t an outside group mind you. It was the Ossoff campaign itself. This candidate didn’t just call in the Death Star. He practically lived on it. (Which is just as well, since he didn’t live in the district.)

Selling Baby Parts Doesn’t Win Votes

The national media has been slow to note the significance of Ossoff’s loss for how Planned Parenthood’s extreme abortion stance plays out politically in purplish places. But the local media extensively reported on the sharp contrast that emerged between Ossoff and Handel on the abortion issue: “A split on abortion is one of the starkest contrasts between the two candidates in the nationally-watched June 20 runoff to represent suburban Atlanta’s 6th District. And both candidates are banking that their positions will energize their supporters in the final stretch of the race.”

Planned Parenthood bet the farm on Ossoff, pouring more than $800,000 into his election. It was his second-largest financial backer, after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. (Again, not much money came to Ossoff from inside his actual district.)

The result? Georgia voters just elected another pro-life woman to Congress. Whether the corporate media will report it or not, the political class must take heed: If you want to win the votes of ordinary Americans, Planned Parenthood makes a terrible running mate. You can’t win House elections by blasting the districts from orbit. (For more from the author of “Planned Parenthood Was Jon Ossoff’s Death Star” please click HERE)

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Military Heads Want Transgender Enlistment Hold

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Military chiefs will seek a six-month delay before letting transgender people enlist in their services, officials said Friday.

After meetings this week, the service leaders hammered out an agreement that rejected Army and Air Force requests for a two-year wait and reflected broader concerns that a longer delay would trigger criticism on Capitol Hill, officials familiar with the talks told The Associated Press.

The new request for a delay will go to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis for a final decision, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the internal deliberations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. (Read more from “Military Heads Want Transgender Enlistment Hold” HERE)

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A Liberal Democrat Student Explains Why He Advocates Free Speech at Colleges

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Free speech on campuses—and the lack thereof—was the topic of a hearing on Tuesday of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Among the panelists was Zachary Wood, a 21-year-old student at Williams College and president of a group called Uncomfortable Learning, which attempts to expose students to a diversity of opinion by hosting speakers on campus.

Opposition from administrators and students forced the cancelation of two speeches planned by the group this year. Wood, a self-described liberal Democrat, is a passionate advocate for free speech, and wise beyond his years.

Madison Laton, a member of The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program, interviewed Wood the day after the hearing about the search for civil discourse on campus.

Why did you get involved with Uncomfortable Learning?

I got a sense early on that there were certain subjects on campus that people were less inclined to want to discuss and debate simply because they were controversial. It wasn’t the case that people could debate things and disagree on things and work through their understandings of complicated issues without thinking, “This person is against me, or doesn’t like me.”

I thought that Uncomfortable Learning was important because it addressed the need to bring views to campus that people really weren’t engaging with, and those were largely conservative views.

While I identify as a liberal Democrat, and while I admire President [Barack] Obama and I agree with him on most things, there are times, there are circumstances in which I think what Republicans are saying not only needs to be heard, but has some insight and might even be right. Just because I’m a liberal Democrat, I don’t always agree with liberal Democrats.

How would you describe the political climate on your campus?

A lot of people are solidly to the left, but the most vocal factions on campus are not just left, they tend to be very radical. They don’t really believe in the political system. They don’t just think the right is wrong, they think that the left and right together are wholly inadequate and that what we need is a kind of socialist democracy. They’re Marxists, largely.

So the ones who constantly speak out on everything are far to the left, so it gives the impression that everyone is that far to the left.

Do those who oppose Uncomfortable Learning fairly represent the student body?

We have got a group of about 50 to 70 students who absolutely hate Uncomfortable Learning, and because they are so vocal, and because some are antagonistic—even using intimidation at times—it is difficult for people to come out and say, “I’m not that against this idea of Uncomfortable Learning, I’m at least willing to think about it more and try it out.”

And there is a number of people who are like, “I like UL but don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Why do you think so many of your generation are against free speech?

One thing at work is the echo chamber. You have a bunch of liberals in one place. The second part of it is that people have so much access to information, and so much of the news is opinionated and opinion-based.

Sites like Facebook that have algorithms make it easy for people to create a steady influx of things they want to hear. It makes it very easy for people to just say, “If there is a certain set of views that I don’t want to engage with, then I’m just not going to engage with them.” You can block anything or ignore anything.

I also think there is another element, and this is not discussed much: the trend on the left, in progressivism, to view inclusivity as a necessary component of moral progress. I have no problem with inclusivity, but in many respects this push for inclusivity often means restricting or constraining the rights of others, and that’s what I have a problem with.

College administrators and college educators are not encouraging students to see the world as a place with many layers of complexity, and a place in which you have to work through your differences and solve things and figure things out, not just push everything away and ignore it. So I think that my generation is less resilient than generations in the past.

Are students exposed to a variety of viewpoints in class?

No, with one caveat on that: I can name a few professors at Williams who do their very best to expose us to a variety of viewpoints. But outside of that, I do not think that people are exposed to a variety of viewpoints in class. It is often the case that professors have leftist views and they advance these views and they express these views as if that’s simply the way it is.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, not to assume that because of moral or political differences someone doesn’t have principles as well. Maybe they have insight into something that I could really benefit from.

What do you think are the consequences of barring speakers from campus?

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, touched on this [in the hearing], and I was glad he asked the question: “What happens when a heckler’s veto wins, when people can effectively shut down a speaker or prevent an event from happening?”

It allows them to see that as a victory when it should not be viewed as a victory. That is not what this country was founded on. That’s not what America’s about at our best. We are about empowering dissent. We are about saying, “Listen, you say what you think, you stand by your principles.”

When speakers are barred, what happens is that you have certain preconceptions, certain assumptions about how people see the world that do not get challenged in any way. You lose sight of individual differences. It subsumes individuality, and you don’t appreciate people for the uniqueness of their own perspectives. You lose sight of things like, Cruz and I disagree on a number of things, but when it comes to free speech, it sounds like we are pretty much in line with each other.

If colleges and universities are supposed to foster ideas, why do so many administrations cave to demands that undercut free speech?

It has to do with job security. It has to do with this idea of “no trouble on my watch.”

But my view is very different. I think that every issue that matters in this country is, in and of itself, controversial because people disagree. We shouldn’t be running from that on college campuses. We should be embracing that precisely because by embracing that we are deepening and advancing our own ability to construct stronger arguments.

That’s what college is really about. It’s about preparing us to be, whatever we’re going to be in the world, to make a positive difference in the world and to address any number of these issues that we really care about.

A lot of times, college administrators are trying to make students feel safe. But who is going to try to make you feel safe after you graduate? Is your employer going to say, “I want to make sure you feel safe today at work, so in this meeting, no one is to say anything”? That’s not how the world works.

At the hearing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said that the threat of violence should carry more weight than free speech in deciding whether to allow a speaker on campus. Do you think there is a point when security concerns should outweigh free speech?

I would agree with what Floyd Abrams and Frederick Lawrence said: We should always make the presumption in favor of free speech. That is to say, we should trust students, have faith in our students.

Let’s trust that if college administrators are doing our jobs correctly, students can handle this. If you really believe in the fact that your institution of higher education is a great institution, then you’ve got to have faith in your students.

Everyone needs to understand that part of liberty is the fact that I can’t force you to go to a talk you don’t want to go to. If it bothers you that much, don’t go. When I invite Suzanne Venker or John Derbyshire, you’re not mandated to attend. You’re not mandated to read their books. I think it would be great if you did, and I would encourage you to do so.

Administrators need to think about ways in which they can ensure that events are conducive environments for learning. If that requires more security, if that requires police, if that requires planning ahead, they need to take those steps. What they shouldn’t be doing is discouraging students from bringing controversial speakers.

You mentioned yesterday that you have tried to encourage your conservative classmates to speak up in class. What do you think it would take to convince them to do so?

The one thing that I’ve tried to do is when we’ve had panels, and everyone on the panel is liberal, if I have a friend who is a conservative, I’ll say: “This is an opportunity. They’re not grading you, they’re not someone from whom you may end up having to ask for a letter of recommendation. Try it here.”

The real fix would be for professors to encourage students to say what they think, to encourage them to speak up, to challenge them. I’d say that fewer than 20 percent of my professors, maybe 15 percent, say that.

How did you feel after the hearing? What do you think it accomplished, if anything?

I was encouraged by the fact that there was a general consensus that free speech is not just critical as this abstract value, but that people understand the concrete ways in which free speech is essential to our democracy, the concrete ways in which intellectual freedom on a college campus is indispensable to the kind of intellectual growth and development that is essential to becoming a more capable citizen in a very complex and competitive world.

I was emboldened by the fact that everyone on the panel, for the most part, seemed to agree that we’re oftentimes compromising speech and we need to push back against that.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I’ve received a lot of criticism and backlash, and I think it’s very easy sometimes for people to say that the problem is students—they are too sensitive or too intolerant.

I want to be clear about this: There is intolerance on college campuses, and the idea that you’re too weak or too frail or too sensitive is real. But it is on educators and administrators to think about the ways in which they can do more.

I think students mean well and administrators mean well, but I want to encourage people to not just blame student activists. Ultimately, we need to see this in terms of “What are the ways educators and administrators can do more to protect these values and promote political tolerance on campus?” (For more from the author of “A Liberal Democrat Student Explains Why He Advocates Free Speech at Colleges” please click HERE)

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This School Board Leader Tried to Rig a Public Forum in Favor of Transgender Advocates. That’s Unconstitutional.

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Stacking the deck at the casino makes for bad feelings among friends.

Things get more serious when you’re a government official stacking the deck at public forums with speakers in favor of your personal political views. That not only makes for bad public policy—it violates the First Amendment.

The Prince William County Virginia School Board convened last Wednesday to vote on a proposed rule that would undermine the principle of student privacy between the sexes. It would have laid the groundwork for opening up sex-specific locker rooms, showers, and other private facilities to members of the opposite sex.

Many parents have legitimate convictions that maleness and femaleness are essential biological, anatomical attributes, and they would like to openly defend the policy of maintaining privacy between the sexes, despite the claims of gender identity advocates.

Nonetheless, before the meeting, Ryan Sawyers, school board chairman, sent a text to the clerk telling her to frontload a list of favored speakers to comment before those who had already signed up.

This violated local school board rules, which say the public is to speak in the order that each citizen contacts the clerk.

This is particularly significant because at Prince William County Public School board meetings, only 10 to 15 people get to speak before the vote, since initial public comment is limited to 30 minutes. Everybody else has to wait until after the vote to make their views known.

But dishing out political leftovers to one’s opponents and frontloading the initial discussion with allies goes beyond violating local school board policy. It’s flatly unconstitutional.

School board meetings must protect viewpoint neutrality to satisfy First Amendment principles of free speech. If a school board chooses to open a forum for public comment, the process of determining who speaks cannot be determined by the viewpoint of the speaker.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agrees.

In Child Evangelism Fellowship of MD, Inc. v. Montgomery County Public Schools, the majority opinion notes that “‘the state may be justified in reserving [its forum] for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics,’ subject only to the limitation that its actions must be viewpoint-neutral and reasonable.”

And just last week, the Supreme Court reiterated in Matal v. Tam that government officials cannot “regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others.”

The traditional method of letting people speak in the order they sign up with the clerk is an orderly way to achieve these objectives. But giving the chairman the power to decide who speaks before the vote does not satisfy these criteria.

If the chairman is not bound by a limiting principle, then he has unbridled discretion to determine who can use the coveted 30 minutes of speech. It will be difficult, over time, for him not to hand-pick allies, particularly since he is a Democratic candidate for Congress.

Indeed, the first speaker on the chairman’s list, Danica Roem, is also a political player, a local Democrat recently nominated to run against incumbent Republican Bob Marshall in a Virginia House of Delegates race.

To be clear, after the chairman’s text messages were made public and Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to Prince William County Public Schools, the chairman did not stick to his original plan on Wednesday night.

But it remains unclear whether the final speaking order came from a new alternative list he created, or whether he reverted back to school board policy and used the original list of speakers, based on the order that local citizens signed up to speak.

That is precisely the problem. In the American system of ordered liberty, government officials don’t have the power to make that choice. They cannot dish out fast passes for the view they like while relegating opposing views to second-class status.

Rather, if officials choose to set up times for public comment, they must set up an orderly process that respects the free speech of all participants.

All voices should equally receive free speech protection, because our Constitution recognizes that when the government plays favorites, everyone’s freedom flounders. (For more from the author of “This School Board Leader Tried to Rig a Public Forum in Favor of Transgender Advocates. That’s Unconstitutional.” please click HERE)

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SICK: Bill Cosby Announces Townhalls to Educate Young Girls on Sex Abuse

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Bill Cosby will hold a series of town halls to educate young people on sexual assault, his publicists said.

Andrew Wyatt and Ebonee Benson were on “Good Morning Alabama” Wednesday and said Cosby “wants to get back to work” and is planning town halls that could start as early as next month.

“This issue can affect any young person, especially young athletes of today,” Wyatt said. “And they need to know what they’re facing — when they’re hanging out and partying, when they’re doing certain things they shouldn’t be doing.”

The announcement comes less than a week after Cosby’s high-profile trial on charges of aggravated indecent assault ended in a mistrial. The jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision. . .

Cosby, 79, has been accused of sexual assault or misconduct by at least 50 women [and has settled many civil suits alleging his sexual abuse]. (Read more from “SICK: Bill Cosby Announces Townhalls to Educate Young Girls on Sex Abuse” HERE)

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Suppressing Puberty to ‘Treat’ Gender Dysphoria. Really?

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Who’s for pumping confused kids full of hormones to suppress the onset of their puberty? It’s a common “therapy” given to boys who think they are girls and vice versa.

According to the must-read new paper “Growing Pains: Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria” by Paul W. Hruz, Lawrence S. Mayer, and Paul R. McHugh in The New Atlantis, puberty suppression “advocates argue that it represents a prudent and ‘fully reversible’ way to give young people with gender dysphoria and their families time to sort out the difficult issues surrounding gender identity.”

Gender dysphoria is the learned name for the mental malady of men thinking they’re women and vice versa.

The Problems With Suppressing Puberty

The problem, as Hruz and the others outline, it is that drugging kids up is a “radical and experimental” procedure “based more on subjective judgments and speculation than on rigorous empirical studies.” The so-called treatment is “being applied in an uncontrolled and unsystematic manner” and is endangering kids.

Worse is that “the claim that puberty-blocking treatments are ‘fully reversible’ is not supported by scientific evidence, and possible side effects include abnormal bone and muscle development, neurological problems, and infertility.”

And worst, “These treatments may make it more likely that patients whose cross-gender identification would not have persisted past childhood will continue to identify as the opposite sex into adulthood.”

Given the faddish and hip nature of transgenderism, where experimentation is increasing, this is no small worry.

As the authors rightly point out, “Children are not fully capable of understanding what it means to be a man or a woman. Most children with gender identity problems eventually come to accept the gender associated with their sex and stop identifying as the opposite sex.” Drugging confused kids or guiding them with “gender-affirming” words transforms what is often a temporary infatuation into a lifelong affliction.

What LGBT Advocates Say

Now some medical groups, such as the Endocrine Society and World Professional Association for Transgender Health, advocate giving kids who are confused about their biology chemicals to slow the onset of puberty. They do this because, they claim, “gender dysphoria ‘rarely desists after the onset of pubertal development’” and because, they claim, “suppression causes no irreversible or harmful changes in physical development and puberty resumes readily if hormonal suppression is stopped.”

Slowing puberty “gives adolescents more time to explore their gender nonconformity” and — and this a big and — the treatment “may facilitate transition [to living as the opposite sex] by preventing the development of sex characteristics that are difficult or impossible to reverse if adolescents continue on to pursue sex reassignment” (brackets original).

In other words, if a boy imagines he is a girl, stopping his testes (and so on) from developing makes it easier for him to pretend he is a girl. That he will ever become a girl (or woman) is, of course, impossible. Stopping a girl who thinks she’s a boy from developing her breasts makes it easier for her to pretend to be a boy, but that she will ever become a boy (or man) is also impossible.

This new “treatment” is also advocated by the “LGBT advocacy group” the Human Rights Campaign, who have partnered with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians. They have put out a guide which says “to prevent the consequences of going through a puberty that doesn’t match a transgender child’s identity, healthcare providers may use fully reversible medications that put puberty on hold.”

When “Treatment” Can Actually Cause the Malady

But, say Hruz and the others,

Whether puberty suppression is safe and effective when used for gender dysphoria remains unclear and unsupported by rigorous scientific evidence. … In the case of gender dysphoria, however, we simply do not know what causes a child to identify as the opposite sex, so medical interventions, like puberty suppression, cannot directly address it.

According to the industry standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, anywhere from 70% to 97.8% of boys and 50% to 88% of girls snap out of their gender dysphoria. So there seems little justification for chemical intervention.

Even worse, as Hruz et al. say, “The interventions could, in some cases, be harmful, if they lead children whose gender dysphoria may have resolved in adolescence to instead persist in a dysphoric condition.”

In other words, the treatment can cause the very malady it’s said to be curing.

Hormonal Treatments are Not the Answer

The claim that suppressing puberty in patients with gender dysphoria is “fully reversible” is also thin on evidence. “Given how little we understand about gender identity and how it is formed and consolidated, we should be cautious about interfering with the normal process of sexual maturation.”

And there “have been no controlled clinical trials comparing the outcomes of puberty suppression to the outcomes of alternative therapeutic approaches.” Plus, there is evidence from trials in animals that puberty suppression causes direct harm in neurological development.

We frequently hear from neuroscientists that the adolescent brain is too immature to make reliably rational decisions, but we are supposed to expect emotionally troubled adolescents to make decisions about their gender identities and about serious medical treatments at the age of 12 or younger. And we are supposed to expect parents and physicians to evaluate the risks and benefits of puberty suppression, despite the state of ignorance in the scientific community about the nature of gender identity.

It is obvious some kind of treatment is necessary for children suffering from gender dysphoria. “But as scientists struggle to better understand what gender dysphoria is and what causes it,” the authors argue, “it would not seem prudent to embrace hormonal treatments and sex reassignment as the foremost therapeutic tools for treating this condition.” (For more from the author of “Suppressing Puberty to ‘Treat’ Gender Dysphoria. Really?” please click HERE)

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Circuit Court Win for Religious Freedom on Gay Marriage

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The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously on Thursday that a Mississippi law that protects religious liberty and the rights of conscience in light of the redefinition of marriage may go into effect.

In the decision, the circuit court overruled a previous judgment from a district court judge who had declared the Mississippi law unconstitutional for violating the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.

But as the circuit court pointed out, the challengers to Mississippi’s law lack standing because they “have not clearly shown injury-in-fact.” In other words, they did not show how the Mississippi law protecting liberty for people who hold to the pre-Obergefell v. Hodges definition of marriage harmed them.

The court explained that the “failure” of the “plaintiffs to assert anything more than a general stigmatic injury dooms their claim.”

While the ruling focused on the lack of standing of the plaintiffs, there are plenty of reasons to rule in favor of the constitutionality of laws like Mississippi’s on the merits.

As Sherif Girgis and I explain in our new book, “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination,” there is nothing scandalous about protections for particular views that are at odds with those on which the government acts.

When the government takes Americans to war, exceptions cover pacifists. When the government guarantees abortion, exceptions cover pro-lifers. These exemptions don’t amount to establishments of any religion, and neither do laws protecting dissenters after Obergefell.

Indeed, as law professor Richard Epstein explains, the Establishment Clause—meant to “knock down state coercion for religion”—can’t be used to invalidate “a statute whose whole purpose was to insulate private parties from any form of coercion.”

So, what does the Mississippi law do? As previously explained at The Daily Signal:

Religious organizations, like churches, cannot be forced to use their facilities to celebrate or solemnize weddings that violate their beliefs.

Religious convents, universities, and social service organizations can continue to maintain personnel and housing policies that reflect their beliefs.

Religious adoption agencies can continue to operate by their conviction that every child they serve deserves to be placed with a married mom and dad.

Bakers, photographers, florists, and similar wedding-specific vendors cannot be forced to use their talents to celebrate same-sex weddings if they cannot do so in good conscience.

State employees cannot be fired for expressing their beliefs about marriage outside the office, and individual state clerks can opt out of issuing marriage licenses so long as no valid marriage license is delayed or impeded.

Counselors and surgeons cannot be required to participate in gender identity transitioning or sex-reassignment surgeries against their faith and convictions, while guaranteeing that no one is denied emergency care or visitation rights.

Private businesses and schools, not bureaucrats, get to set their own bathroom, shower, and locker room policies.

This is a reasonable bill. It protects the consciences of people who hold to the historic definition of marriage in the aftermath of the Supreme Court redefining marriage, and it does so while avoiding the awful outcomes that critics fear. The bill provides that the government cannot punish, fine, or coerce specific people and organizations, in specific contexts. It doesn’t harm anyone.

Other states should follow Mississippi’s lead in protecting religious liberty and the rights of conscience after the redefinition of marriage. So, too, should Congress pass protections at the federal level.

Longstanding Precedent on Abortion

There is great precedent for such protections on the abortion issue, as Girgis and I explain in “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination.”

In 1973, just months after Roe v. Wade was handed down, Congress passed the Church Amendment, named for Sen. Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho.

While Roe shielded the choice to have an abortion, the Church Amendment protected doctors’ and nurses’ choices not to perform one. It provided that health care organizations receiving federal funds could not force their doctors or nurses to perform or assist abortions.

Some 20 years later, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Coats–Snowe Amendment. It prohibits the government from discriminating against medical students who refuse to perform abortions and medical residency programs that leave out abortion training.

And in 2004, Congress passed the Hyde-Weldon Amendment, which keeps the government from discriminating against health care institutions that don’t offer abortions.

Since 1973, then, U.S. policy has protected a right to choose an abortion right alongside an individual and institutional right to choose against facilitating one.

Our law should now do the same on marriage. It needn’t and shouldn’t penalize private associations for their beliefs on this issue. Doing so would make no appreciable difference to the ability of same-sex couples to receive the goods and services they seek, but it would undermine conscience rights for some.

So lawmakers can and should grant a categorical accommodation.

Current Legislation

A proposed federal law would do that. Much like the Church, Coats-Snowe, and Hyde-Weldon amendments, the First Amendment Defense Act would protect the freedoms of citizens and organizations who hold a belief at odds with one enshrined by courts.

Protecting pro-life consciences did not violate the Constitution—by establishing a religion or engaging in viewpoint discrimination or otherwise. Nor do laws protecting pacifists. Their only aim is peaceful coexistence in the face of disagreement.

The same goes for the First Amendment Defense Act. It would enact a bright-line rule to keep government from penalizing someone just for acting on her belief that marriage is the union of husband and wife. It would protect people who hold that belief for religious or secular reasons, and it would shield organizations from losing nonprofit tax status, licensing, or accreditation for operating by these beliefs.

But even the First Amendment Defense Act’s categorical protections reflect a careful balance. They protect individuals, nonprofit charities, and privately held businesses, but not publicly traded corporations, or federal employees or contractors in the course of their work.

The First Amendment Defense Act makes clear that it does not relieve the federal government of its duty to provide services, medical care, or benefits to all who qualify. It must simply respect conscience in the course of doing so.

Mississippi has shown the way forward on this issue at the state level. And on Thursday, the 5th Circuit allowed that law to go into effect.

Other states should offer similar protections at the state level, and Congress should do the same at the federal level.

Protecting a New Minority

America is in a time of transition. The Supreme Court has redefined marriage, and beliefs about human sexuality are changing.

During this time, it is critical to protect the right to dissent and the civil liberties of those who speak and act in accord with what Americans had always previously believed about marriage—that it is the union of husband and wife.

Good public policy is needed at the local, state, and federal levels to protect cherished American values. Good policy would help achieve civil peace amid disagreement and protect pluralism and the rights of all Americans, regardless of what faith they may practice. (For more from the author of “Circuit Court Win for Religious Freedom on Gay Marriage” please click HERE)

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Mega Actor Makes ‘Joke’ Towards Trump That Sounds More Like a Threat

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By Patrick Smith. In a year that he would like to forget, which included his acrimonious divorce to Amber Heard, Johnny Depp appeared at a Q&A at the new Cinemageddon stage at Glastonbury.

Introducing his 2004 film The Libertine, about a 17th-century poet who notoriously drank himself to an early death, the 54-year-old chose to discuss American politics.

“I think [Donald] Trump needs help,” he said. “There are a lot of dark places he could go.”

He added: “I’m not insinuating anything – by the way this will be in the press and it will be horrible – but when was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”

Responding to loud cheers, Depp said: “Don’t worry, I’m not an actor, I lie for a living.” (Read more from “Mega Actor Makes ‘Joke’ Towards Trump That Sounds More Like a Threat” HERE)

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Elise Jordan Says Defending Trump ‘Like Hugging a Suicide Bomber’

By Aidan McLaughlin. Elise Jordan warned Republicans against defending a fact-challenged President Donald Trump, comparing doing so to “hugging a suicide bomber” on MSNBC Thursday.

The comments were in response to Trump’s latest tweets undermining his previous statement hinting that he may have recorded tapes of his conversations with former FBI director James Comey . . .

MSNBC’s Craig Melvin asked Jordan about the president’s tweets, noting “it would seem as if the president may have been lying all along about the existence of these tapes.”

“No, he’s just wasting — he wasted the country’s collective time speculating over whether these tapes existed or not,” Jordan said. “It’s a sad day when you cannot depend on the president’s word.”

Jordan — a Bush White House aide turned MSNBC analyst and TIME contributor — then doled out some advice for Republican lawmakers: “My advice would just be to Republicans who do cozy up to him — it’s like hugging a suicide bomber.” (Read more from “Elise Jordan Says Defending Trump ‘Like Hugging a Suicide Bomber'” HERE)

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Open Marriages Happier? Not So Fast, Family Research Expert Says

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Anecdotal praise of open relationships can be found all over the internet. The New York Times’ May feature is the most prominent example. The headline wonders, “Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?”

Meanwhile, LGBT advocates are celebrating the first polyamorous “family” to be legally recognized in Colombia this month.

But are these kinds of relationships really as healthy as recent reports suggest?

Just as Happy?

Studies traditionally report that people in open marriages and other forms of polyamory are less happy than monogamous couples. A March study suggests that’s because society is biased against them. Researchers at SAGE Journals found that “CNM [consensual non-monogamous] relationships generally have equally positive relational outcomes as monogamous relationships.”

But Dr. Brad Wilcox said there is a lack of good evidence on the actual appeal of open marriages. For instance, the Times piece on open marriages was “data free.” That was “striking,” he told The Stream. Wilcox is the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

Studies favoring polyamory “are based on non-representative samples,” he said. “It’s not really good science.” Even the SAGE study’s authors admit their survey respondents were not chosen randomly. They may have been biased toward positive reporting.

“My guess is that these marriages are really unstable,” Wilcox said. The complexity that comes along with an open marriage might be harder in practice than in theory, he added.

Wilcox noted that most Americans still favor the idea of fidelity. And people who have had just one partner in the last year and not several tend to be happier, he said. He called those pushing for polyamory and open marriages “a small minority.”

Redefining Morality

Why is that minority so vocal? Perhaps it has to do with Americans’ shifting view of morality.

LifeWay Research released a telling study last month. It revealed that 81 percent of Americans worry about “declining moral behavior.” But people disagree about the meaning of “moral.” Nearly 50 percent said that right and wrong are absolutes. But 20 percent said something is “wrong” only if it hurts someone.

According to the study, “More than 6 in 10 of those older than 45 say right and wrong do not change. For those 35 and younger, fewer than 4 in 10 make that claim.” The age gap between the two is not surprising. Another recent study revealed that only 4 percent of millennials hold a “biblical worldview.”

Since many people don’t view moral truths as absolute, the growing acceptance of polyamory makes sense. If it doesn’t hurt anybody, why not? “How is love bad?” asks one husband who lives with his wife, daughter, and his wife’s boyfriend.

True Happiness Requires Holiness

The Times portrays its “Open Marriage” interview subjects with sophistication. The author is impressed by the “boldness” of their unconventional ways. But really, there’s nothing new or bold about seeking sensual pleasure.

In Galatians, Paul refers to sinful desires as “the flesh.” He warns Christians to “not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” (Galatians 5:13) A few verses later, he writes:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Galatians 5:16-17)

Christians are taught to reject fleshly desires in favor of something greater. We believe true joy is found in holiness. And we become holy by accepting God’s salvation through Jesus Chirst. In that salvation, there is freedom from the sin that enslaves all of us.

Anything in marriage beyond fidelity between one man and one woman is sin. And so participating in anything else is to resubmit to sin’s bondage. As D.C. McAllister wrote for The Federalist in 2015, critiquing a polyamorist columnist:

Burrows was so quick to throw off the chains of religion and social norms that she fails to see that she has entered a new kind of bondage: she is bound by the chains of her sexual desires. Little does she know that those butterflies that make her feel so alive will soon become dragons that burn off her soul and reduce her to an empty shell of animalistic appetites. Burrows fails to see that liberty — real liberty — is found in self-government and self-control.

The idea of open marriage and poly-romance isn’t new. Neither is defining happiness and freedom by the unbridled pursuit of sensual pleasure. But there is a recent wave of exploration when it comes to the idea of polyamory as a legitimate, ethical relationship (and parenting) style — even if led by a “small minority.” Founded on empty desires, false morality and little research, it’s a wave that deserves push-back. (For more from the author of “Open Marriages Happier? Not So Fast, Family Research Expert Says” please click HERE)

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Man Accused of Moving Cocaine Through Children’s Day Care

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Children played and slept surrounded by pounds of cocaine at a Los Angeles day care center that a man used as a drug trafficking hub, authorities said . . .

Felipe Talamante is accused of trafficking dozens of pounds of cocaine out of the house that also functioned as an unlicensed day care center for children of all ages.

Police had previously arrested Talamante at the same home two years ago — also for allegedly possessing 20 kilograms of cocaine, according to the city attorney’s office. But that case was not prosecuted, Feuer said. Drug enforcement agents did not return messages asking why. (Read more from “Man Accused of Moving Cocaine Through Children’s Day Care” please click HERE)

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