GAY TRUTH

It's almost become a part of the weekly news cycle: American citizens publicly tarred and feathered for professing their sincerely held religious beliefs. Just this month, we watched a family-owned pizzeria close its doors after its owners received hate mail and death threats from around the country. Their offense? Giving the wrong answer to a question about whether they'd cater a gay wedding. Keep in mind that the restaurant had never actually turned down a gay customer. They were hammered for holding the wrong beliefs about a hypothetical scenario! Major corporations are getting into the bullying act, as well. At least two state governments have now backed down or modified religious freedom legislation in response to pressure from companies like Walmart and Salesforce. Keep that in mind next time you think about shopping at Walmart. And this culture-wide search-and-destroy mission is only accelerating. As Princeton's Robby George  writes in First Things , acti...

Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could do for same-sex marriage what  Roe v. Wade  did for abortion-on-demand. What concerns me, besides the obvious prospect of having marriage permanently redefined in American law , is the impact of such a ruling on religious freedom . As you know from listening to BreakPoint, there is ample reason for concern on that score. Recent events have demonstrated that the clash between gay rights and religious freedom is a zero-sum game . That’s why a recent column by Frank Bruni of the New York Times concerned me so profoundly. From the start, Bruni, who is himself gay, demonstrates that he does not, or perhaps cannot, understand this issue. He begins by telling readers that he “chafes” at being called “a threat to your religious liberty.” He then goes on to dispute the idea that allowing “men who have romantic relationships with other men and maybe want to marry them” will somehow run roughshod over someone’s cr...

“Somewhere along the way, standing up for gay marriage went from nervy to trendy.” This was the assessment offered by Frank Bruni , an influential openly-gay columnist for The New York Times . Bruni’s column, published just as the Supreme Court was poised to hear oral arguments in the two same-sex marriage cases now before it, is a celebration of the fact that, as he sees it, same-sex marriage is soon to be the law of the land, whatever the Court may decide. “The trajectory is undeniable. The trend line is clear. And the choice before the justices is whether to be handmaidens of history, or whether to sit it out.” Bruni may well be right, given the trajectory and the trend-line he has described. Of course, Bruni, along with his fellow columnists, editors, and reporters for The New York Times will, along with their friends in the larger world of elite media, bear much of the responsibility for this. They are certain that their work is the mission of human liberation from irrational pr...