Neil Gorsuch’s philosophical mentor cites “natural law” to reject homosexual marriage
President Donald Trump ’s Supreme Court nominee is a gift to conservatives: Neil Gorsuch has a history of defending religious liberties and has written extensively on the value of human life with regards to euthanasia . But, while Gorsuch’s judicial history has been extensively discussed, it’s also worth examining his intellectual influences. A Harvard Law School graduate, Gorsuch was later mentored as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University by the moral and legal philosopher John Finnis , one of the great contemporary natural law theorists. First, a brief explanation of natural law. (For a more detailed and nuanced summary, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great place to start.) There is a millennia-old debate, with many different tweaks and interpretations, about whether law is “natural” or “positive.” Legal positivism argues that the law is socially constructed: Legislators create a law, apply it to a particular society, and lo, a law is formed. Those who beli...