Christian Artists’ Free Speech: Will SCOTUS Take up Vital Issue?

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Should artists be forced to promote messages against their conscience? The Supreme Court could be taking up the question soon, if a recent lower-court ruling out of Kentucky is any indication.

Late last week, news broke that the Kentucky Court of Appeals sided with Hands On Originals, a print shop in the Bluegrass State, saying that business owner Blaine Adamson did not have to engage in business that conflicts with his religious beliefs. The ruling comes five years after he told a prospective client that he could not make T-shirts for a gay pride festival in 2012.

The Associated Press has more details:

Chief Judge Joy Kramer wrote in her opinion that the city’s ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation does not prohibit the owners of Hands On Originals from “engaging in viewpoint or message censorship.” Kramer said the business objected to the message of gay pride, not anyone’s sexual orientation.

“Thus, although the menu of services HOO provides to the public is accordingly limited, and censors certain points of view, it is the same limited menu HOO offers to every customer and is not, therefore, prohibited by the fairness ordinance,” the ruling states.

The legal question at hand is one of the biggest religious liberty issues facing the country, as religious business owners have faced a number of struggles following the 2015 “Obergefell v. Hodges” gay marriage decision and a slew of state-level LGBT laws that seek to eliminate traditional beliefs on marriage, biology, and sexuality from the marketplace.

Plaintiffs argue that not creating pro-LGBT messages amounts to class-based discrimination prohibited in federal law. Proponents argue that this is inaccurate and that it constitutes abstaining from an action based on belief – a long-respected protection of the First Amendment.

The Kentucky ruling differs from other recent lower-court rulings on similar questions. The Washington Supreme Court ruled that a Christian florist was not within her rights to decline serving a same-sex wedding ceremony.

Now that the lower courts have split in their opinions, the issue is more appealing for the U.S. Supreme Court, Jim Campbell, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, tells Conservative Review. ADF is the pro-religious liberty legal nonprofit representing Blaine Adamson in Kentucky.

The case to watch now is that of owner Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood, Colo. Phillips was recently turned down by the Colorado Supreme Court after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission previously found him guilty of discrimination, but it could very well be on the docket for the next judicial session in D.C.

(As ADF notes, “In contrast to the ruling against Phillips, the commission found last year that three other Denver cake artists were not guilty of creed discrimination when they declined a Christian customer’s request for a cake that reflected his religious opposition to same-sex marriage.”)

“They’re holding [the case] for two months now, which is kind of odd,” Campbell says. “Whenever they’re holding something, it obviously means that it’s caught someone’s attention. Which is a good sign … because the default is to be denied.” He says a decision on the petition could come as soon as Monday.

There are a handful of other cases that all evaluate the intersection of conscience rights, free expression, and non-discrimination that are currently working through the courts. Should the current petition on Masterpiece be denied, these cases will likely continue to work their own ways up in its stead.

But there are still many variables in this equation. Despite the messianic treatment Neil Gorsuch received from many conservatives, and as often as he is used as the go-to counter-example to complaints about Trump’s betrayals on a host of other issues (like immigration and religious liberty), one must remember that there are still eight other justices on the high bench. In replacing Antonin Scalia, the balance of the court was restored to the same makeup that gave the American people decisions like “Obergefell” and “Windsor.”

Hopeful rumors are currently buzzing around the beltway conservative enclaves about the prospect of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement this summer. If true, the vacant seat and nuclear appointment rules would give the Trump administration the ability to tip the balance of the bench in a more originalist direction, which would bode well for any of these cases. But this nothing more than speculation and rumor at this point.

A multitude of factors affect the final outcome. Will the First Amendment be weakened or buttressed in post-Obergefell America? It would appear that the answer will not have to wait very long — at least on judicial time. (For more from the author of “Christian Artists’ Free Speech: Will SCOTUS Take up Vital Issue?” please click HERE)

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Underreported: How This Nonprofit Is Solving Homelessness Without Government Funding

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Growing up, Teena Faison never imagined she’d find herself a single mom and homeless.

“We didn’t wake up one day and go, ‘Hey, I just want to be homeless with my kids,’” she told The Daily Signal “No. There’s many, many contributing factors to that—lack of education, lack of resources, addiction.”

At 34 years old, Faison decided to change her ways and go to Solutions for Change, a family homeless nonprofit located in Vista, California, 45 minutes outside San Diego. Instead of simply providing residents a place to sleep, Solutions for Change takes a holistic approach to solving homelessness, requiring residents to go through counseling, take courses in financial literacy, parenting, leadership, and anger management, and eventually, get a job.

Over the past 17 years, Solutions for Change has gotten 1,200 families off government assistance and back on their feet. But because its program requires residents to be drug-free, Solutions for Change is ineligible to receive government funding.

Watch the video to learn more about why, despite its high success rates at solving family homelessness, Solutions for Change chose to maintain its drug-free policy instead of accepting government funding. (For more from the author of “Underreported: How This Nonprofit Is Solving Homelessness Without Government Funding” please click HERE)

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Rage at Rubio’s Bible Tweets: More Evidence of Troubling Bias Against Christians

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Imagine if some Muslim member of Congress went on Twitter to share some harmless verses from the Quran — from the “happy parts” composed early on in Muhammad’s life, where he calls for peace and mercy.

Or if a Jewish member of Congress plucked some uplifting phrases out of the Talmud.

Or if a Californian member of Congress had offered something from the Dalai Lama.

Would it cause a controversy? I certainly hope not. I’d be especially troubled if Christian journalists raised a ruckus. If they pretended that a legislator doing this on his own Twitter account was a threat to American Christians, I’d consider those journalists idiots or bigots. They’d recall the classic character Gob Bluth on Arrested Development, who heckled a harmless student from India, with “Go home, you terrorist!”

But Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post, and a number of other journalists, have apparently taken Gob Bluth as a role model. They’ve responded with shock and outrage to the following: Yesterday morning Catholic U.S. Senator Marco Rubio posted some phrases from the Bible on Twitter. (In fact, they were from the readings at the day’s daily Mass.) Here’s one:

Pretty ominous, huh? As if that weren’t enough, Sen. Rubio next went full-on Old Testament, posting these blood and thunder lines from Proverbs:

Isn’t your skin just crawling? What kind of moral monster would use his prestige as a U.S. legislator to share sentiments like that? Surely, this is the camel’s nose poking under the tent, making way for a full-on Christian theocracy, just like we saw on Netflix in The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Palm Beach Post helpfully compiled reactions which were almost that hysterical. Here’s The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin:

Esquire politics blogger Charles P. Pierce’s response was even more … fragile:

Leah McElrath writes for leftwing website Shareblue — and pledges in her Twitter profile to “#RESIST Trump, GOP, & global rise of white nationalist authoritarianism.” McElrath found Rubio’s Bible Tweets a positively creepy:

Normally I’d just shrug this off as part of the ordinary friction that comes in a free society when people of different views and beliefs rub up against each other. Sen. Rubio himself, apparently bemused, took to retweeting these crackpot reactions himself, without comment. A canny reaction.

Christians Need Not Apply

But put this in context. For centuries, American Christians were a vast and highly tolerant majority. Now the tenor of culture and laws has changed so drastically, that we are becoming an unpopular minority. Perhaps one not to be tolerated.

We got that message from the campaign of destruction launched against President Trump’s appointee for Army Secretary Mark Green. Green was forced to withdraw after Democrats denounced him as a hatemonger. What had Green said that outraged them?

He took the 6,000-year-old Jewish and Christian position on marriage: that it’s between a man and a woman.

Green stated the simple fact that gender dysphoria (transgenderism) is a mental disorder.

He characterized the Muslim horde that invaded, raped, and pillaged Constantinople in 1453 as a “Muslim horde.” (Maybe he should have been more tactful, and called them a “flow of immigrants.”)

Those positions made him unfit for public office in 2017 America. It’s the same America where the Governor of New Jersey just refused to ban child marriages out of respect for Islam, but Christian bakers and florists are force to service same-sex weddings. The same America where worried conservative Christians gave Donald Trump almost 80 percent of their votes … and couldn’t even get him to overturn Obama’s executive orders targeting them. Where Christian schools have to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to get public funds for playground safety. But public universities like U.C. Berkeley spend millions building “genderless” locker rooms to cater to the tragic pathologies of “transgender” students.

That’s how weak and vulnerable we have become. We don’t have the clout of the transgender lobby.

Scapegoating the Once Powerful

There’s no group that’s easier to get away with hating than one that was once quite powerful, which loses its grip. Think of the fate of noblemen in France after 1789, priests in Russia after 1917, or once-elite Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

In cases like those, people in the newly powerful group can indulge in open hatred for members of the now-dethroned minority. They can hide it behind past “abuses” (real or imagined). They can target innocent people, whip up resentment, encourage discrimination, even get the government to persecute helpless people — whose crime is that they belong to the group that fell from power.

This scapegoating has nothing to do with justice. Instead it’s a naked exercise in bullying. (For more from the author of “Rage at Rubio’s Bible Tweets: More Evidence of Troubling Bias Against Christians” please click HERE)

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Ann Coulter Ready to Jump Ship on Trump Over Obama Amnesty, the Wall, Other Broken Promises

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Conservative author Ann Coulter was one of the most vocal supporters of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign.

She wrote “In Trump We Trust” and proclaimed that she worships him like the “people of North Korea worship their Dear Leader – blind loyalty.”

Coulter described herself as a single-issue voter during the election and was drawn to Trump due to his “Mexican rapist speech” and him calling for a border wall to be built.

In an interview Sunday with The Daily Caller, Coulter let it be known she still has hope in the Trump presidency, but is ready to jump ship.

[Question:] So there’s no wall, and Obama’s amnesties look like they are here to stay. Do you still trust Trump?

[Answer:] Uhhhh. I’m not very happy with what has happened so far. I guess we have to try to push him to keep his promises. But this isn’t North Korea, and if he doesn’t keep his promises I’m out. This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues. (Read more from “Ann Coulter Ready to Jump Ship on Trump Over Obama Amnesty, the Wall, Other Broken Promises” HERE)

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McMaster on WaPo Claim Trump Gave Russians Highly Classified Info: ‘I Was in the Room, It Didn’t Happen’

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The Washington Post ran a story late this afternoon claiming Donald Trump, in his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador, disclosed highly classified information, including information that could reveal sources and methods.

Despite the length of the story, the allegations of substance are all in this single paragraph:

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

From that, WaPo argues:

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia’s presence in Syria. Moscow would be keenly interested in identifying that source and perhaps disrupting it.

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support President Bashar al-Assad.

(Read more from “McMaster on WaPo Claim Trump Gave Russians Highly Classified Info: ‘I Was in the Room, It Didn’t Happen'” HERE)

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New Marine Corps Ad on Women in Combat Sparks Heated PC Debate

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The Marine Corps’ first-ever recruitment video showing a woman in combat quickly devolved into a spat about political correctness after it was posted to Facebook.

The recruitment commercial, called “Battle Up,” shows a young girl confronting bullies, playing rugby and then evolving into a Marine later in life, at which point she leads other Marines and engages in a firefight through an ambush. The final scene shows her helping the homeless. Marine Capt. Erin Demochko, who served in Afghanistan, played the woman.

The video has already racked up almost half a million views after being posted to the Marine Corps’ official Facebook page Friday.

Almost as soon as the commercial appeared on Facebook, conversation devolved into a spat about political correctness. The first comment by Facebook user Chris Clark reads: “had to be a chick…tired of all this political correct bull****…. now let all the man haters come out of the woodwork…”

Immediately, the Marine Corps page responded and said: “That’s not a “chick”, Chris. You’re watching a Marine.” (Read more from “New Marine Corps Ad on Women in Combat Sparks Heated PC Debate” HERE)

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Liberals Boo God and Natural Rights at GOP Town Hall

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At a rambunctious town hall in his district, Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., ran into something he probably never expected to see in his district: voters booing the concept of fundamental, God-given rights.

“As a seminary graduate, do you believe in the separation of church and state?” the questioner began. “Would it be acceptable for you for churches to support specific candidates?”

The question was in reference to the Johnson Amendment, which President Trump recently gutted somewhat with his lackluster order on religious liberty.

“Absolutely,” Brat initially answered, cautioning that he was asked “a loaded question.”

“It’s in the Constituiton. They got it pretty good,” Brat said amidst the crows of hecklers.

“The politics shouldn’t establish any religion, right?” Brat added, to a response of claps and cheers. “But you should all, under the First Amendment, have the free expression thereof.”

But he took the argument deeper, asking an enthusiastic audience if they wanted a “total separation of state,” and cautioning that he did not think such an arrangement would be a good thing.

“Some of you have said that health care is a right,” the congressman explained. “And in the Western tradition, rights come from God. The role of government is to protect those rights.”

The hecklers responded with a chorus of sustained boos.

The question and its response came during a Tuesday night event – his first since the House’s most-recent health care vote – and was attended by hundreds, and fraught with jeers.

In an op-ed published the day after, the Richmond-Times Dispatch’s editorial board lauded the congressman for attempting to engage in civil discourse while excoriating the crowd’s “astonishing rudeness.”

“People have every right to rage at their congressmen, their president, or anybody else they care to,” the board stated. “After a while, though, the emotional vomiting gets old … when did banging on a high chair with a spoon ever lead to a solution?

(The below clip shows most of the townhall with Rep. Brat:)

Brat’s answer about rights was not wrong, of course. This republic was founded by men of different faiths who had a common understanding that their rights came from a transcendent, pre-political source, and established a system of government to ensure that these inalienable rights would be protected, rather than metered out by kings and demagogues.

Our denominationally neutral Declaration of Independence reflects this, appealing to the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as the font from which our fundamental liberties and inherent equality spring.

Apparently, the concept of rights coming from God – or civil discourse in general – just wasn’t what Rep. Brat’s constituents showed up to hear that night. (For more from the author of “Liberals Boo God and Natural Rights at GOP Town Hall” please click HERE)

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New Vaccine Study Shows Unvaccinated Children Have Significantly Less Health Problems

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In this video, Vin Armani explains the trade-off with vaccines. Like any pharmaceutical they have side effects. A brand new study on homeschoolers shows unvaccinated children have significantly less health problems as vaccinated children. Is the small chance that your child gets measles or mumps worth a lifetime of hay fever or asthma?

(For more from the author of “New Vaccine Study Shows Unvaccinated Children Have Significantly Less Health Problems” please click HERE)

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Yates, Clapper Refuse to Reveal Details on Trump Surveillance

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Former NSA Director James Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee this week about the unmasking of surveillance on Trump and his associates. It was part of a congressional investigation into whether Russia interfered in the election. Democrats claim the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the election.

The questioning focused heavily on Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Advisor. Flynn was forced to resign after the unmasking revealed he had lied to the vice president about a conversation with the Russian ambassador.

Media coverage of the testimony is focusing on the fact that Trump did not act right away to remove Flynn. But that is only a small part of what was revealed. More importantly, Clapper and Yates did not provide any evidence of collusion with Russia. They also revealed more evidence of the surveillance of Trump’s team.

Unmasking

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked several piercing questions. He asked the two if they reviewed classified documents where Trump or his associates had been “unmasked.” The identities of Americans taped talking to a foreign official are “masked,” unless a request to unmask them is approved.

Clapper and Yates both responded yes, but refused to provide details.

Grassley asked them if they had any evidence that Trump or his associates colluded with the Russians to interfere in the election. Clapper responded no. Yates refused to answer. She added, perhaps tellingly, “Just because I say I can’t answer it, you should not draw from that an assumption that that means that the answer is yes.”

Next, Grassley asked, “Did you request the unmasking of Trump, his associates or any members of Congress?” Clapper said yes, but would not disclose any details. Yates said no.

Grassley asked the pair if they know how details of Yates’ conversations were leaked to The Washington Post. They both denied being the source.

Should Michael Flynn Have Been Fired Earlier?

Yates testified that she warned Trump’s White House counsel Donald McGahn about Flynn almost three weeks before Flynn was forced to resign. He was “compromised by the Russians” and “could be blackmailed,” she said.

Surveillance recorded a conversation Flynn had with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak on December 29 about recent U.S. sanctions against Russia. When Vice President Mike Pence asked Flynn about it, Flynn denied discussing the sanctions.

The lie, not the conversation, reportedly led to his resignation. Members of a presidential transition team frequently speak with foreign officials. Yates refused to name what of Flynn’s behavior she thought illegal.

Flynn didn’t resign until 18 days after Yates warned Trump. However, Reince Priebus, Trump’s Chief of Staff, explained on CBS’s Face the Nation in February that the White House legal department “said they didn’t see anything wrong with what was actually said.” When Yates told McGahn about Flynn, he told her that the White House was concerned that taking action might interfere with the FBI probe.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Flynn was forced to resign due to a “trust issue,” not a legal issue. The White House became aware of the lie on Friday, February 10. Flynn was asked to resign the next business day, on Monday, February 13.

Former President Barack Obama told Trump two days after the election not to hire Flynn. In 2014, Obama fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn worked on Trump’s presidential campaign and had been considered as a running mate. Spicer dismissed the warning as “sour grapes” from a “sore loser.”

Was Surveillance Really Just Part of ‘Incidental Collection?’

When Yates was asked whether Flynn was unmasked due to “incidental collection,” she declined to answer. Nor would she reveal whether anyone had asked to unmask Flynn. She said answering the question would reveal classified information.

Members of Trump’s transition team were reportedly caught in surveillance of foreign officials. Trump maintains that he was subject to surveillance. The Obama administration insists it was routine surveillance of Russians, who happened to be speaking with Trump and his associates.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has asked the House Intelligence Committee to disclose whether the Obama administration conducted surveillance on him or other members of Congress. He said an anonymous source told him it occurred. Susan Rice, Obama’s national security advisor, was caught in a lie about unmasking Trump or his associates. At first she denied having any role in unmasking. After evidence emerged showing otherwise, she admitted she requested unmasking. She has refused to testify before Congress.

Republicans also questioned Yates about her refusal to enforce Trump’s travel ban. Yates was fired after refusing to enforce the ban. Judicial Watch is suing for Yates’ emails. (For more from the author of “Yates, Clapper Refuse to Reveal Details on Trump Surveillance” please click HERE)

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Salon’s Fake News: Trump Supposedly Said the Constitution Is ‘Really a Bad Thing for the Country’

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The left-wing media site Salon posted an article with the headline blaring: “Donald Trump doesn’t like the ‘archaic’ Constitution: ‘It’s really a bad thing for the country.’” Other liberal sites said the same thing. It was the classic gotcha article: The man who says he’s a conservative wants to trash the Constitution! Haha, say the liberals.

The only problem: he didn’t say that.

What Trump Didn’t Say, and What He Did

Salon did the easiest thing possible — took phrases out of Trump’s Fox News interview. In fact, the interview posted with the article contradicts it.

One hint that the liberal press misquoted the president? The word “constitution” doesn’t even appear in the interview. Not even once.

So what was Trump talking about? Fox News’s Martha MacCallum asks him about his political philosophy. Trump responds that he’s “not really an ideologue.” He’s “a person of common sense.” He gets things done, he says. “I understand what has to be done, I get things done I’ve always been a closer. We don’t have a lot of closers in politics and I understand why.”

Then comes the quote that the mainstream media jumped on. “It’s a very rough system, it’s an archaic system,” he says. The Constitution? No. He continues:

You look at the rules of the Senate, even the rules of the House. The rules of the Senate, some of the things you have to go through. It’s really a bad thing for the country. In my opinion, they are archaic rules. Maybe, at some point, we’re going to have to take those rules on. For the good of the nation, things are going to have to be different. You can’t go through a process like this. It’s not fair, it forces you to make bad decisions.

What’s He Upset About?

Does Trump reject the Constitution in the interview? No, he never even mentions it. What’s he upset about? The rules of Congress, especially the Senate. He thinks those rules are “archaic.”

Trump may be flustered working with Congress, but he hasn’t deserted our system of checks and balances to become a dictator.

The fake news piece had 17,500 Facebook shares at the time this article went to publication. There has been no retraction or correction. Will Google push it down in search results? Will Facebook flag it as fake news? Probably not. (For more from the author of “Salon’s Fake News: Trump Supposedly Said the Constitution Is ‘Really a Bad Thing for the Country'” please click HERE)

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