The Nuking of the American Nuclear Family

I should also be blogging Michelle Malkin more often, but, as noted, my blogging's been light of late, due to big family and work responsibilities. 

That said, I should have more "hotties" posted over the weekend.

Anyway, at the Unz Review:

“Gay poly throuple makes history, lists 3 dads on a birth certificate.”

That’s an actual headline from The New York Post, which last week featured an unsettling trio of men who recruited two female friends to help them conceive and deliver a baby girl named Piper.

Piper is now 3 years old and has a 1-year-old brother named Parker. According to the “gay poly throuple,” Piper told her preschool classmates how proud she was of her plentiful progenitors by bragging: “You have two parents. I have three parents.”

Actually, the “throuple” is really a quintet. If you count Piper’s egg donor and birth surrogate, we’ve now traveled from “Heather Has Two Mommies” (the infamous children’s book normalizing same-sex adoptions published in 1989) to “Piper Has Five Parents.” And in 2021, if you have any discomfort or reservations at all about the nuking of the nuclear family by throuples or quadrouples or dozenouples, then woke society tells us there’s something wrong with us, not them.

Dr. Ian Jenkins, one of Piper’s polyamorous pops, wrote in a newly released book about their “adventures in modern parenting” that the arrangement is “just not a big deal.” Nothing to see here, move along. Two, three, whatever. “Some people seem to think it’s about a ton of sex or something,” Jenkins complained, “or we’re unstable and must do crazy things. (But) it’s really remarkably ordinary and domestic in our house and definitely not ‘Tiger King’ (the creepy Netflix hit series about convicted murder-for-hire zookeeper Joe Exotic, who headed up a three-way “marriage to two men).

Weirdly, one of Piper’s other dads, Jeremy, is also a zookeeper like Joe Exotic whom the other two met through an online dating service. All very “remarkably ordinary and domestic.” Ho-hum.

Neighborhoods, cities and nations are safer, healthier and more prosperous where nuclear families are the norm. But for the sake of social justice and modern progressivism, we are all just supposed to shake our heads politely and keep our alarm about the sexual slippery slope to ourselves. As University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox summarized in a 2020 article reviewing the benefits of two-parent married households for The Atlantic magazine, “sadly, adults who are unrelated to children are much more likely to abuse or neglect them than their own parents are.”

Never mind all the scientific studies showing an elevated risk of child sexual abuse in households where children live with unrelated adults. Never mind the CDC data showing that introducing men unrelated to the children in a family elevates the risk of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of those children by about nine times higher than the rate experienced by children raised in normal, stable nuclear family of married biological parents and their children...

Still more.

 

Gay People Are 'F–king Terrified' to Criticize #TransCult Ideology

Arielle Scarcella's a cool chick, and actually kinda hot, even though she's lesbian.

She's something of a career sexologist, or at least she's monetized her "hobby" of sexual identity and identity politics. Robert Stacy McCain calls folks like this "occupation activists" --- that is, the make a job out of their politicized sexual identity.

Anyway, the Other McCain has a post up on Ms. Scarcella. See, "Arielle Scarcella: Gay People Are ‘F–king Terrified’ to Criticize Trans Ideology":

.@PatriarchTree "Arielle Scarcella: Gay People Are ‘F–king Terrified’ to Criticize #Trans Ideology." 😨 https://t.co/cQBxuMn6hO #TransCult pic.twitter.com/Js2gM7efDK

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 13, 2018

Arielle Scarcella has 550,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, which makes her one of the most popular lesbian YouTubers. Some of her videos have more viewers than the average program at CNN (but let’s be honest, CNN is barely more popular than the Hallmark Channel). Her popularity is the only reason Ms. Scarcella has been able to survive telling the truth about transgender activists, who have harassed her viciously for months because of her criticism of their bizarre ideology.

In a video this week, Ms. Scarcella explained that most gay and lesbian YouTubers are “f–king terrified to even touch on an trans topics — about the blatant misogyny that the SJW trans activists promote, about how the Left is so far left at this point that they are suggesting conversion therapy and hiding it behind the agenda of ‘queer’ progressiveness, about how some bisexual YouTubers have made videos and public statements saying that our ‘genital preference’ is a whole bias, when in reality it’s not a bias, it’s not a preference, it’s our sexual orientation and it’s not something we can help, about how little gay men are actually policed for their sexual orientation in comparison to lesbians — not very much at all.”

Fear of being labelled a “TERF” (trans-exclusive radical feminist) causes many lesbian YouTubers to avoid the topic of transgenderism entirely, Ms. Scarcella explains, because SJWs (social justice warriors) like Riley Dennis have specifically targeted the lesbian community as “bigots” for rejecting relationships with men who think they’re women...

Keep reading.

Justice for Jack Phillips, Owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado (VIDEO)

Vodkapundit linked me at Instapundit the other day, "VIDEO: CNN Reacts to the Supreme Court’s Ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop."

And here's more video, from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the group representing Jack Phillips:

CNN Reacts to the Supreme Court's Ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop (VIDEO)

Poppy Harlow does a good job at maintaining objectivity, but it's not until 8:30 minutes into this video where she brings up the issue of the Colorado commission authorities' extreme hostility to religion. I mean, from the case we see intense animus to Christianity:

As the record shows, some of the commissioners at the Commission’s formal, public hearings endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, disparaged Phillips’ faith as despicable and characterized it as merely rhetorical, and compared his invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defenses of slavery and the Holocaust. No commissioners objected to the comments. Nor were they mentioned in the later state-court ruling or disavowed in the briefs filed here. The comments thus cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission’s adjudication of Phillips’ case.

I tweeted:

Leftists like Nina Totenberg are downplaying the Court's ruling, claiming it was decided on the most "narrow grounds," but reading it we see a major statement denouncing the radical left's monstrous religious bigotry and anti-Christian animus. #MasterpieceCakeshop #SCOTUS 🙏 https://t.co/YmJo3xUskj

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 4, 2018

#MasterpieceCakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission: #SCOTUS https://t.co/N53SQ3Mif4

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 4, 2018

But watch, at CNN:

Ryan T. Anderson, Truth Overruled

In light of today's decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, here's Ryan T. Anderson's book, at Amazon, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom.

Big Win for Religious Freedom in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Actually, it's apparently a very narrow ruling touching on the nature of religious bias in Colorado's anti-discrimination legislation, but either way, conservative proponents of freedom of expression and religious belief are going to be jumping for the moon today.

At the Washington Post, "Supreme Court rules in favor of baker who would not make wedding cake for gay couple":

Supreme Court narrowly rules for a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple https://t.co/ovz7BwsqGG

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 4, 2018

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple.

In an opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy that leaves many questions unanswered, the court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had not adequately taken into account the religious beliefs of baker Jack Phillips.

In fact, Kennedy said, the commission had been hostile to Baker’s faith, denying him the neutral consideration he deserved. While the justices split in their reasoning, only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

Kennedy wrote that the question of when religious beliefs must give way to anti-discrimination laws might be different in future cases. But in this case, he said, Phillips did not get the proper consideration.

“The Court’s precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws,” he wrote. “Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach. That requirement, however, was not met here.”

Phillips contended that dual guarantees in the First Amendment — for free speech and for the free exercise of religion — protect him against Colorado’s public accommodations law, which requires businesses to serve customers equally regardless of “disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry.”

Scattered across the country, florists, bakers, photographers and others have claimed that being forced to offer their wedding services to same-sex couples violates their rights. Courts have routinely turned down the business owners, as the Colorado Court of Appeals did in the Phillips case, saying that state anti-discrimination laws require businesses that are open to the public to treat all potential customers equally.

There’s no dispute about what triggered the court case in 2012, when same-sex marriage was prohibited in Colorado. Charlie Craig and David Mullins decided to get married in Massachusetts, where it was legal. They would return to Denver for a reception, and those helping with the plans suggested they get a cake from Masterpiece bakery...

Also at Memeorandum.

Satanic LGBT Drag Queen Reads to Small Children at Michelle Obama Public Library in Long Beach

Seriously, this Michelle Obama Public Library in Long Beach is not even two miles from my college. So saying this "hits a little close to home" is putting it mildly. This is mind-boggling.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Photo of Horned Drag Queen Reading to Kids at Long Beach Library Goes Viral."

And see Gateway Pundit, "Satanic Looking Drag Queen with Horns Reads to Little Kids at Michelle Obama Public Library." (The Long Beach Public Library removed photos of the drag queen from its social media accounts, but of course, the Internet's forever. I'm shaking my head at this, man.)

What are we teaching kids in school? Demonic teachings alive in Long Beach. I’m outraged they would allow this. pic.twitter.com/Q72nhnWbBo

— Omar Navarro (@RealOmarNavarro) October 16, 2017

This is PURE EVIL. Shame on the parents for allowing their children to sit there! Who does that???

— Cristina Laila (@cristinalaila1) October 16, 2017

Demonizing Heterosexuals

Actually, this op-ed doesn't appear very supportive. In fact, the author demonizes normal people as grotesque monsters. And she spews fake "research" suggesting the most successful family arrangement for raising kids is lesbian partnerships. So stupid.

I get angry reading these leftist screeds sometimes. They're so fucked up.

Let's consider frankly an aspect of the same-sex marriage debate not adequately covered so far: heterosexuality https://t.co/IOiCUBwsed

— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) September 29, 2017

My wife and I have six children. Gonna bet that's six more children than Dr. Pryor has.

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) September 29, 2017

Matt Walsh, The Unholy Trinity

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Matt Walsh, The Unholy Trinity: Blocking the Left's Assault on Life, Marriage, and Gender.

The Slow Fade to Social Depravity

On Twitter:

New Gallup poll tells a tale on the state of our culture, and it’s not good https://t.co/ZTw4tH2q5i

— LifeSiteNews.com (@LifeSite) June 13, 2017

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not a pessimist; however, what I am going to say might cause angst among some in the pro-life and pro-family movement, especially Catholics.

A recent Gallup poll exposed three terrible truths. First, we are not succeeding in transforming hearts and minds to cultivate and sustain a Culture of Life. Second, we are losing the younger generation to materialism, secularism and moral relativism. Third, the moral compass and Christian conscience in America is systematically being phased out of existence while indifference and tolerance of evil fill the void.

I readily admit that I usually place little emphasis upon polls; however, the results of this survey highlight and parallel trends we see around the world. Societies are radically rejecting centuries of Judeo-Christian beliefs concerning life and family while embracing a secular view of life and the human person.

How did we get here? It's been a slow fade. The acceptance of homosexual marriage. Normalizing it. Flaunting it. Adoring it like a god. https://t.co/HEarItXX5J

— Terri Green (@TerriGreenUSA) June 13, 2017

And don't forget normalizing transgender ideology and depravity. Christian values are playing defense. It's an assault on decency.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 13, 2017

Court Rules Kentucky Print Shop Has Right to Avoid Making Gay Pride T-shirts

Good.

Screw the homosexual Nazis.

At WSJ (via Memeorandum and Vox Populi):

Court Rules Kentucky Print Shop Has Right to Avoid Making Gay Pride Shirts... https://t.co/xEoLZoiPgp

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 13, 2017

A Kentucky appellate court on Friday ruled that the Christian owner of a printing shop in Lexington had the right to refuse to make T-shirts promoting a local gay pride festival.

The dispute represents the latest court fight testing the limits of antidiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

The cases have led to a number of state court rulings against Christian-owned businesses that refused to bake cakes, design floral arrangements or take portrait photographs for same-sex weddings.

The ruling by the Kentucky Court of Appeals favored the business owner. A crucial difference in this case was the expressive nature of the service denied: literally words on a shirt.

In a split vote, a three-judge panel concluded that the store, Hands on Originals, couldn’t be forced to print a message with which the owner disagreed.

The dispute started in 2012 when Gay and Lesbian Services Organization in Kentucky asked Hands on Originals to make T-shirts with the name and logo of a pride festival...

Flashback to the Weekly Standard, "You Will Be Assimilated":

You Will Be Assimilatedhttp://t.co/1gu8Ivan7U pic.twitter.com/dguZejRK72

— The Weekly Standard (@weeklystandard) June 26, 2015

Gorsuch Sworn In

Following-up, "Neil Gorsuch Will Have Immediate Impact."

This is so big, it's not even fathomable.

And if Trump appoints two justices, it'll literally be an epochal victory for conservatism. Let's see if Kennedy steps down this summer, of which I heard rumbles.

In any case, at NYT:

Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as the 113th justice of the Supreme Court https://t.co/wTgfrLLZvx pic.twitter.com/9PDgzlKlwN

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 10, 2017

Neil Gorsuch Will Have Immediate Impact

At LAT:

.@TerriGreenUSA Thank goodness: #Gorsuch's impact on divided Supreme Court will begin immediately: https://t.co/qRifPCQRDI

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 10, 2017

Trump Administration's Religious Freedom Executive Order

The hits keep coming for leftists, and the freak-out index keeps dialing up.

It turns out the administration's forthcoming executive order on religious freedom's been leaked, and far-left outlets are in meltdown mode.

At Newsweek, "LGBT Groups Brace for Trump Religious Freedom Executive Order."

At at the Nation, "Leaked Draft of Trump’s Religious Freedom Order Reveals Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination":

Lefty groups are freaking out about the draft of Trump's religious liberty EO. It's good policy. He should issue it. https://t.co/Y1ICL3Ansz

— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) February 2, 2017

If signed, the order would create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity.

leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination.

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act. The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but when asked Monday about whether a religious freedom executive order was in the works, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, “I’m not getting ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue. There is a lot of executive orders, a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now.”

Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

 The breadth of the draft order, which legal experts described as “sweeping” and “staggering,” may exceed the authority of the executive branch if enacted. It also, by extending some of its protections to one particular set of religious beliefs, would risk violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

“This executive order would appear to require agencies to provide extensive exemptions from a staggering number of federal laws—without regard to whether such laws substantially burden religious exercise,” said Marty Lederman, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on church-state separation and religious freedom.

The exemptions, Lederman said, could themselves violate federal law or license individuals and private parties to violate federal law. “Moreover,” he added, “the exemptions would raise serious First Amendment questions, as well, because they would go far beyond what the Supreme Court has identified as the limits of permissive religious accommodations.” It would be “astonishing,” he said, “if the Office of Legal Counsel certifies the legality of this blunderbuss order.”

The leaked draft maintains that, as a matter of policy, “Americans and their religious organizations will not be coerced by the Federal Government into participating in activities that violate their conscience.”

It sets forth an exceptionally expansive definition of “religious exercise” that extends to “any act or refusal to act that is motivated by a sincerely held religious belief, whether or not the act is required or compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.” “It’s very sweeping,” said Ira Lupu, a professor emeritus at the George Washington University Law School and an expert on the Constitution’s religion clauses and on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). “It raises a big question about whether the Constitution or the RFRA authorizes the president to grant religious freedom in such a broad way.”

In particular, said Lupu, the draft order “privileges” a certain set of beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity—beliefs identified most closely with conservative Catholics and evangelical Christians—over others. That, he said, goes beyond “what RFRA might authorize” and may violate the Establishment Clause.

Lupu added that the language of the draft “might invite federal employees,” for example, at the Social Security Administration or Veterans Administration, “to refuse on religious grounds to process applications or respond to questions from those whose benefits depend on same sex marriages.” If other employees do not “fill the gap,” he said, it could “lead to a situation where marriage equality was being de facto undermined by federal employees, especially in religiously conservative communities,” contrary to Supreme Court rulings...

Still more.

Boycott BuzzFeed

At AoSHQ, "Boycott Part 1: Boycott All of Buzzfeed's Advertisers. Note Them, List Them, Write to Them Telling Them You'll Never buy Their Products Again Until They Cut all Ties With Buzzfeed."

Cited there: Paul Szoldra, of Business Insider:

Crap like that BuzzFeed piece is why so many people reflexively hate the media.

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) November 30, 2016

https://t.co/tmrOCGenUA pic.twitter.com/URYfCjg6IT

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) December 1, 2016

Also at Twitchy, "BuzzFeed’s New Excuse for the HGTV Story Isn’t Fooling Anyone."

Supreme Court Justices Return to Face Volatile Docket

I was just thinking about the Court's new term this week, since I'm doing civil liberties in my classes and I thought I might show my students an article or two or the coming term, which starts (each year) at the beginning of October.

So, what do you know?

See the New York Times, "Supreme Court Faces Volatile, Even if Not Blockbuster, Docket":

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, awaiting the outcome of a presidential election that will determine its future, returns to the bench this week to face a volatile docket studded with timely cases on race, religion and immigration.

The justices have been shorthanded since Justice Antonin Scalia died in February, and say they are determined to avoid deadlocks. That will require resolve and creativity.

“This term promises to be the most unpredictable one in many, many years,” said Neal K. Katyal, a former acting United States solicitor general in the Obama administration now with Hogan Lovells.

There is no case yet on the docket that rivals the blockbusters of recent terms addressing health care, abortion or same-sex marriage. But such cases are rare, whether there are eight justices or nine.

“This term’s cases are not snoozers,” said Elizabeth B. Wydra, the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal group. “This term features important cases about racial bias in the criminal justice system, voting rights and redistricting, immigration and detention, and accountability for big banks that engaged in racially discriminatory mortgage lending practices.”

There are, moreover, major cases on the horizon, including ones on whether a transgender boy may use the boys’ restroom in a Virginia high school and on whether a Colorado baker may refuse to serve a same-sex couple.

“If either of these cases is taken, it will almost immediately become the highest profile case on the court’s docket,” said Steven Shapiro, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

There is also the possibility that a dispute over the outcome of the presidential election could end up at the Supreme Court, as it did in 2000 in Bush v. Gore.

“That is the doomsday scenario in some respects of having an eight-member court,” said Carter G. Phillips, a lawyer with Sidley Austin. A deadlocked Supreme Court would leave in place the lower court ruling and oust the justices from their role as the final arbiters of federal law.

Race figures in many of the new term’s most important cases, including two to be heard in October, and that seems to be part of a new trend. “The court hasn’t had a lot of cases recently dealing with race in the criminal justice system,” said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford.

In June, a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor brought a new perspective to the issue. Citing James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me,” she insisted that the brutal history and contemporary reality of racism in the United States must play a role in the court’s analysis.

That dissent may prove influential, said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “One item to keep an eye on this term,” he said, “is the extent to which the Black Lives Matters movement makes its presence felt on the court’s docket.”

On Wednesday, the court will hear arguments in Buck v. Davis, No. 15-8049. It arose from an extraordinary assertion by an expert witness in the death penalty trial of Duane Buck, who was convicted of the 1995 murders of a former girlfriend and one of her friends while her young children watched. The expert, presented by the defense, said that black men are more likely to present a risk of future danger.

The justices will decide whether Mr. Buck, who is black, may challenge his death sentence based on the ineffectiveness of the trial lawyer who presented that testimony.

“The Buck case raises questions that could not be more relevant to ongoing conversations sparked by police shootings about implicit bias and stereotyping of African-American men as violent and dangerous,” Ms. Wydra said. “The Roberts court, and particularly the chief justice himself, has often been reluctant to acknowledge the reality of systemic racism in this country, but the egregious facts of the Buck case make it impossible to avoid.”

On Oct. 11, the court will consider another biased statement, this one ascribed to a juror during deliberations in a sexual assault trial. “I think he did it because he’s Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want,” the juror said of the defendant, according to a sworn statement from a second juror.

The question in the case, Peña Rodriguez v. Colorado, No. 15-606, is how to balance the interest in keeping jury deliberations secret against the importance of ridding the criminal justice system of racial and ethnic bias.

Race also figures in cases on redistricting, fair housing and malicious prosecution...

Well, that's a lot of stuff on race and criminal justice, but I can't wait to see the Court take up the transgender restroom issue, to say nothing of the homosexual wedding cakes. You gotta ask how far is the culture war going to succeed in rending our country into that which is totally unrecognizable.

But keep reading. We'll certainly know in due time.

Pope Francis Calls on Catholics to Be More Understanding, Except on Homosexual Marriage (VIDEO)

Well, the Church isn't budging on homosexual nuptials, which they still won't recognize.

At USA Today, "Pope has good news for divorced, but not for gays":

There had been hope among some Catholics that the pontiff might overhaul its position on gay marriage, but the large document that ends with the hand-written signature of “Franciscus” — the pope’s Latin name — made it clear that would not happen. It said there are “absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar … to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

The document also made repeated references to Christian marriage as a “union between a man and a woman.”

Here's Ryan Anderson's New Book on Homosexual Marriage

They got into the debate on homosexual marriage and religious freedom at last night's debate, as well as the ideological fidelity of Chief Justice John Roberts. (On Twitter, some folks pointed out that Ted Cruz was hypocritical.)

In any case, here's Ryan Anderson's book, at Amazon, Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom.

I really disagreed with Mike Huckabee. Folks need to flesh out the distinctions between Kim Davis' obligations as a public servant and elected official vis-à-vis her rights and responsibilities under the First Amendment. It's a complicated question, because while she has rights to freedom of religion, as a public official she could be violating citizens' protections against state sponsorship of religion.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis Released from Jail (VIDEO)

I'm not all that passionate about this story. It's hardly the hill to die on, IMHO.

She's a public official, an elected one at that, and it seems like her responsibility would be to respect the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. Sure, her religious liberties are implicated, but cases in which it's a private party seeking religious exceptions are certainly on firmer ground.

In any case, at the Louisville Courier-Journal, "Kim Davis released from jail; she must allow licenses":

Ending a constitutional standoff, at least for now, a federal judge Monday ordered Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis released from jail – but on the condition she doesn’t interfere with her deputies issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents four couples who sued her, said its goal has been achieved.

“This case was brought to ensure that all residents of Rowan County, gay and straight, could obtain marriage licenses,” William Sharp, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a news release.

But Davis’ lawyers at Liberty Counsel declined to say if she would comply with U.S. District Judge David Bunning’s order that she shall not meddle, “directly or indirectly,” with giving licenses to “all legally eligible couples.”

Roger Gannam, one of her lawyers, said she will still seek an accommodation from Gov. Steve Beshear and the courts to protect her religious liberty, and Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of the Orlando-based Christian legal ministry, said i it would continue to pursue the multiple appeals she has filed.

“Be assured that Kim Davis hasn’t changed her mind and hasn’t changed her conscience,” Gannam told Yahoo News in a live interview.

Staver, in a statement, said: “We are pleased that Kim Davis has been ordered released” but "she can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell like a common criminal because of her conscience and religious convictions.”

Bunning, who jailed Davis Thursday for refusing to comply with his order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, said in a two-page order that he was letting her out because he’d been assured her deputies were doing so.

"The court is therefore satisfied that the Rowan County Clerk’s Office is fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses…consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Obergefell and this court’s August 12 order,” he wrote. “For these reasons, the Court’s prior contempt sanction against Defendant Davis is hereby lifted."

More.

And at Althouse, where she has the link to Rasmussen's poll, "'Voters Show Little Sympathy for Jailed Clerk in Gay Marriage Spat'." (Via Memeorandum.)

My Old Kentucky Double Standard

Actually, this lady Kim Davis isn't the best standard bearer for religious liberty. What's key though is the left's genuinely evil double-standards. Leftists are truly diabolical.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Vilifying a county clerk while lauding other official disobedience":

So the most famous county clerk in America is now in jail. Kim Davis is the clerk for Kentucky’s Rowan County who says her Christian beliefs preclude her from issuing marriage licenses for gay couples. She maintains this position notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s June decision finding a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, and an August ruling by federal Judge David Bunning ordering her to issue these licenses.

On Thursday Judge Bunning said Ms. Davis would stay in jail until she changes her mind, adding that a fine would clearly not do the trick. Ms. Davis seemed prepared. “To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience,” she said in a statement.

Judge Bunning’s principle—that Americans, and especially government officials, do not get to pick which laws and orders they will follow—is certainly right.

Yet the Davis case also underscores a glaring double standard. In response to Judge Bunning’s decision to jail Ms. Davis, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “The success of our democracy depends on the rule of law, and there is no public official that is above the rule of law.”

We don’t recall President Obama insisting on “the rule of law” when his then Attorney General, Eric Holder, announced in 2011 that he wouldn’t defend challenges to what was then the law—the Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Bill Clinton—in the courts. Nor did we hear about upholding the law when mayors such as Gavin Newsom in San Francisco issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of state laws...

Oh, that's just the beginning of it. The left's sanctuary cities agenda is the biggest far-left lawbreaking scam in recent years, and it's getting people killed.

See also Sean Davis, at the Federalist, "Kim Davis Uproar Shows That Breaking the Law Is Only Okay When Progressives Do It."