Author Archives: Stephen H. Miller

Cautious on Coalitions

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The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a proud history of fighting anti-Semitic hate, which is increasing in the U.S. (where it is embedded in parts of the so-called alt-right movement, and emerges as hostility toward Israel among parts of the left), in Europe (in large measure as a consequence of Islamic immigration) and worldwide.

Now, NPR reports, the ADL is trying to broaden its mission:

In subsequent years, mostly under the leadership of ADL President Abraham Foxman, the League was focused primarily on fighting anti-Semitism, but the League’s new president, Jonathan Greenblatt, wants the ADL to renew its old civil rights activism and move the work forward. …

There is just one complication. For many current civil rights activists, solidarity with Palestinians is taking precedence over the old solidarity with American Jews. …

And it’s not just the Black Lives Matter movement that is drawn to the Palestinian struggle. Earlier this year, a group of pro-Palestinian gay-rights activists disrupted a meeting in Chicago of the National LGBTQ Task force…. About 200 marched through the meeting site, shouting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, occupation has got to go!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

It’s good to reach out and build alliances, as long as you don’t subordinate your core mission to outside agendas. So I’m fine with ADL working with civil rights groups to combat hate and defamation, and hopeful that doing so might help address anti-Semitism among African-American progressives and campus social justice warriors, many of whom believe a tiny Jewish state, surrounded by large theocratic dictatorships that ethically cleansed their Jewish populations during and after World War II, is nevertheless uniquely evil among nations.

But if the ADL follows the ACLU down the road of becoming just another left-umbrella group, that would be a pity.

[No, not just me. Ira Glasser, ACLU executive director from 1978 to 2001, has lamented “the transformation of the ACLU from a civil liberties organization to a liberal bandwagon organization.” Most recently, it has defended using the state to force bakers to design wedding cakes celebrating same-sex marriage. What matters freedom of expression and religion when government-induced equality is on the agenda?]

More. George Will looks at “leftists eager to meld their radicalism with radical Islam,” and “to mend their threadbare socialism with something borrowed from National Socialism.”

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The Culture War’s Changing Tides

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Columnist Barton Swaim, writing in the Washington Post, asks: The left won the culture war. Will they be merciful?

Swaim takes note that a growing number of religious conservatives “are rethinking their role in American society and politics,” as they concede they’ve lost the fight to have the law and culture reflect their traditionalist views on marriage and sexuality. Increasingly, they now seek, in the words of Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “to live faithfully in a world in which we’re going to be a moral exception.”

Many religious social conservatives (albeit with some notable exceptions), writes Swaim:

are determined only to remain who they are and to live as amiably and productively as they can in a culture that doesn’t look like them and doesn’t belong to them. In time, this shift in outlook may bring about a more peaceable public sphere. But that will depend on others — especially the adherents of an ascendant social progressivism — declining to take full advantage of their newfound cultural dominance. I see few signs of that, but I am hopeful all the same.

I’m perhaps less hopeful, given the trope of the progressive LGBT left that social conservatives denied us freedom and liberty and so now it’s our turn to take away theirs (especially when doing so serves the progressive view that “equality” supersedes all other rights). It’s all sadly reminiscent of the many times throughout history when members of a persecuted class have gained cultural and political ascendancy, and then persecuted their former persecutors, often with a vengeance.

And yes, I’m talking about, among other indications of intolerance backed by state power, forcing religiously conservative independent service providers—at risk of paying exorbitant fines and/or being driven out of business—to create gay-messaged wedding cakes and to artfully plan, cater and photograph same-sex weddings.

More. From New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, The Liberal Blind Spot:

“In a column a few weeks ago, I offered ‘a confession of liberal intolerance,’ criticizing my fellow progressives for promoting all kinds of diversity on campuses — except ideological…. Almost every liberal [responding] agreed that I was dead wrong. ‘You don’t diversify with idiots,’ asserted the reader comment on The Times’s website that was most recommended by readers (1,099 of them). Another: Conservatives ‘are narrow-minded and are sure they have the right answers.'”

(hat tip: Walter Olson)

More. Via a Wall Street Journal op-ed, ‘Freedom of Worship’ Isn’t Enough:

One Colorado, a gay-rights group…wanted to amend Colorado’s constitution to define religious freedom as “the ability to engage in religious practices in the privacy of a person’s home or in the privacy of a religious organization’s established place of worship.”

More. Via the New York Post, Evangelical Christians wonder where the hell their power went:

Politically, old guard religious right organizations such as the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are greatly diminished or gone, and no broadly unifying leader or organization has replaced them. In this year’s presidential race, the social policy issues championed by Christian conservatives are not central, even amid the furor over bathroom access for transgender people. …

“If a homosexual couple comes in and wants a cake, then that’s fine. I mean I’ll do it as long as I’m free to speak my truth to them,” said Slayden, taking a break after the lunchtime rush. “I don’t want to get (to) any point to where I have to say or accept that their belief is the truth.”

The problem, many religious conservatives say, is that government is growing more coercive in many areas bearing on their beliefs. They say some colleges — citing a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that required school groups to accept all comers — are revoking recognition for Christian student clubs because they require their leaders to hold certain beliefs. …

And this:

Trump uses rhetoric that has resonance for Christian conservatives who fear their teachings on marriage will soon be outlawed as hate speech. “We’re going to protect Christianity and I can say that,” Trump has said. “I don’t have to be politically correct.”

Progressives think they represent all that is, well, progressive, even as they go about working to deny liberty to others, and then defend themselves citing how conservatives worked to deny them their liberty—as if that then makes it ok to do unto others as they tried to do unto you.

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A Libertarian Moment

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The Libertarian Party has just nominated successful, two-term governors with reputations as being fiscally conservative, socially liberal, to be its presidential and vice-presidential candidates. With former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico at the head of the ticket, and former Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts in the vice presidential slot, the LP is in a position where it could, perhaps, become a force to be reckoned with.

Many disaffected Republicans can’t stomach the idea of voting for Trump, and a few Bernie supporters can’t stomach the idea of voting for Hillary (and some of them, especially the college kids, were never actually socialists but liked Sanders’ views on pot and could similarly be attracted to Johnson’s long-standing opposition to the drug war).

The Johnson-Weld ticket supports marriage equality. And, in a recent Facebook post, Johnson takes the position that under anti-discrimination laws a private business can’t discriminate against who it will serve, but “anti-discrimination laws do not, and cannot, abridge fundamental First Amendment rights.” I agree with that.

Many had hoped that the GOP would nominate a socially moderate former governor willing to put the party’s anti-LGBT culture-war past aside and move on, while stressing a commitment to fiscal responsibility and to limiting government over-reach. That, obviously, didn’t happen. So this year, in particular, the LP represents an alternative that’s worth considering.

While you can’t expect to get everything you want from candidates running for the highest offices in the land, the Johnson-Weld ticket comes pretty darn close.

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Politics as Usual

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Via the Washington Post, Paul Ryan is in another fight he doesn’t want, this time over LGBT rights:

Republican leaders have tried to steer lawmakers away from wading into the hot-button debate. But with LGBT issues already boiling in the states, social conservatives seem eager to take up the cause by seeking to attach an array of religious-exemption measures to must-pass spending bills, a move that could seriously gum up the budget process.

Earlier this week, House leaders cautioned Republicans at a closed-door session that Democrats were likely to keep trying to force them into uncomfortable votes on LGBT discrimination, according to aides and members who were present.

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History Lesson: Capitalism, Not Socialism, Led to Gay Rights

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Via David Boaz:

Some historians like to claim socialist ideas helped bring about gay rights in the modern era. But they’re mistaking academic theory for reality….Those gay intellectuals talked a lot about socialism, but they lived in capitalism. And it was the capitalist reality, not the socialist dreams, that liberated gay people.

Some of us can remember when socialists, unlike libertarians, were adamant about not associating their movement with something as disreputable as gay rights.

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Why Obama’s Bathroom Decree Is Counter-Productive

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Peter H. Schuck, emeritus professor at the Yale Law School, on why Obama was wrong to impose a national rule on school bathrooms without public debate:

Do identity-based bathrooms meet this demanding [civil rights] test? The administration’s letter says yes. The subtext is that skeptics must be yahoos and bigots….

Here are just a few questions that people might have asked before making up their minds. How uncomfortable are people with the prospect of those with different anatomies sharing their bathrooms? Is this discomfort likely to grow or decline? Since gender identity cannot be confirmed before entering bathrooms, how great is the risk of voyeurism or other abuses? How costly will it be to provide gender-neutral bathrooms, and how would people of all genders feel about such alternatives?

And Schuck doesn’t even address the issue of public school locker rooms, where these questions are even more pertinent.

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‘Equality’ Supersedes All Other Rights, Right?

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Files these under signs of the times.

Say as we say, or else:

Greeting customers as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” — or even not using the pronoun “ze” or “zir” — could prove costly for New York City businesses under rules drafted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bureaucrats.

The Gotham mayor’s Commission on Human Rights says entities that fail to address customers by their preferred gender pronouns and titles are in violation of the law and could be subject to penalties of up to $250,000.

Law professor Eugene Volokh comments:

this isn’t just the government as employer, requiring its employees to say things that keep government patrons happy with government services. This is the government as sovereign, threatening “civil penalties up to $125,000 for violations, and up to $250,000 for violations that are the result of willful, wanton, or malicious conduct” if people don’t speak the way the government tells them to speak.

I hope there aren’t any Quakers in NYC who still would like to refer to folks by “thee” and “thou.”

Our message on your (church) property:

Greg Bourke and Michael De Leon, who also were among the plaintiffs in the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court case creating a constitutional right to gay marriage, are accusing the Archdiocese of Louisville of discriminating against them for rejecting their headstone design celebrating gay marriage.

The two men bought a joint burial plot in St. Michael Cemetery, which is run by the Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Louisville.

They later submitted a design of a headstone for the plot, which featured an inscription of the couple’s wedding rings interlocking and an image of the Supreme Court building.

In a letter marked March 30, the Archdiocese denied the headstone design request, saying it goes against Catholic teaching on marriage. … The Archdiocese said other designs on the headstone, including “both your names and dates of birth and of course the religious symbol of the cross,” were acceptable. “However, we cannot approve the depiction of the Supreme Court building and the use of wedding rings.”

in another account:

Bourke said the Archdiocese is exempt from the local Fairness Ordinance that prohibits discrimination against members of the LGBT community, and the “Archdiocese has every legal right to do what they’re doing,” Bourke said. “We have no protection whatsoever in a situation like this.”

Which suggests he thinks they ought to have such “protection” to force the archidiocese to allow symbols and statements on church property that it finds at odds with the Catholic faith.

In both these stories, those pursing their objectives in the name of equality think what they want trumps the expressive, property and faith rights of others.

More. Via the Wall Street Journal’s Notable & Quotable, remarks by Cuban poet and human-rights activist Armando Valladares on receiving the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s Canterbury Medal in New York, May 12:

Just as there is a short distance between the U.S. and Cuba, there is a very short distance between a democracy and a dictatorship where the government gets to decide what we believe and what we do. And sometimes this is not done at gunpoint but instead it is done one piece of paper at a time, one seemingly meaningless rule at a time, one silencing at a time. Beware young friends. Never compromise. Never allow the government—or anyone else—to tell you what you can or cannot believe or what you can and cannot say or what your conscience tells you to have to do.

His full remarks can be viewed here, or read here.

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The Methodists’ Time for Choosing

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The United Methodist Church—the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. and the third largest U.S. denomination overall—ends its quadrennial general convention in Portland, Ore., later this week. As the Washington Post reports:

The focus has been on whether to change or keep the denomination’s rejection of homosexuality. But a broader question is up for a vote: What do the 13 million Methodists from Africa to Asia to America have in common? …

Delegates from dozens of countries will consider the possibility of full inclusion of LGBT people, the “agree to disagree” option, whether gay people can be ordained, the question of officiating at same-sex weddings, whether such weddings can be held in Methodist churches and whether the current Book of Discipline wording should remain.

Roughly half of the denomination’s members are from the U.S., and while it appears a majority of North American conference delegates support LGBT inclusion, 30% of the delegates come from Africa, “where Methodists tend to be much more conservative on issues of homosexuality,” the Post reports.

Of the three options (1) maintain the anti-LGBT prohibitions, (2) embrace LGBT inclusion, and (3) let difference countries/regions adopt their own policies, the last may be the best that can be hoped for, and indeed the right solution for a church so at odds with itself. But there’s a strong likelihood that the anti-gay contingents, with some support from conservative U.S. Methodists, will keep the prohibitions in place. We’ll see.

The conference is also dealing with four measures proposing the church divest its investments from Israeli companies, and last January the church’s pension fund removed five Israeli banks from its portfolio. If the conference maintains its anti-gay policies and extends its anti-Israeli policies, then U.S. members should seriously consider whether affiliating with a global church that shuns the light and embraces bigotry is where they wish to celebrate the Lord.

Update. They punted, voting to delay all consideration of gay-related proposals via a commission that will spend at least two years reviewing policy on the subject:

But global membership is moving in the conservative direction, and during the Conference the progressives were watching their many proposed measures advancing equality get voted down in subcommittees, while conservatives’ efforts to strengthen the rules were advancing. …

Yet several conservative United Methodists from Africa spoke Wednesday from the floor, demanding their chance to vote on measures aimed at shoring up the ban on gay life. Conservatives in the church have been pushing for trials and other punishment for United Methodist pastors who come out or who officiate at same-sex weddings.

And this:

The vote Wednesday night in Portland, Ore., came one day after news leaked that bishops and various leaders were meeting over a plan to separate.

I wish the U.S. church had voted to leave.

More. On a positive note, the anti-Israeli propositions also lost. I should have clarified that the anti-Israeli push came predominantly from U.S. progressives, who also were among those supporting the gay-inclusive resolutions—the same conundrum we see with the Presbyterians and other denominations where the progressive left is at odds with the conservative right, and fie on both.

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Not So Friendly Inquisitors

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Via Reason: The Office of Inclusive Excellence Sounds Like a Cult.

Milo’s grandstanding is open to criticism, but his progressive denouncers are ridiculous caricatures. Progressive thought-controllers are no different from religious right inquisitors.

Also on the subject of our friendly Social Justice Warriors, blogger Rebecca de Winter on “the hilarious irony of a movement that claims ‘gender is a social construct’ while at the same time belittling males in particular at every turn.”

Also try reconciling the feminist “gender is a social construct” meme with transgender rights activism. But when have activists let intellectual consistency get in the way.

More. Progressives believe, Free speech for me, violence for thee.

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The Law: Whatever Federal Bureaucrats Declare It to Be?

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Via the National Law Journal:

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) reminded employers this week in no uncertain terms that they are required to provide transgender workers with access to bathrooms that corresponds with their gender identity. A failure to do so – the EEOC warned – runs the risk of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Title VII prohibits employers—including federal, state, and local governments— from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.

There are many reasons for opposing the North Carolina law that (along with nuking locally passed LGBT anti-discrimination provisions in the state) insists that restroom and locker facilities in government buildings and schools be determined by gender as specified on birth certificates. (The law, as the Washington Post confirms, lets private businesses continue to set their own rules for bathrooms and locker rooms, a point sometimes misreported elsewhere.)

But every bad state law is not open to the executive branch to give thumbs up or thumbs down—a power the Constitution gives to the judiciary, not the federal bureaucracy. And reinterpreting Title VII this broadly begs the question on what limits, if any, progressives think may apply to executive branch agencies.

At some point, a president not of liberal liking will obtain the White House and progressives will morph into strict constructionists who will deny they were ever anything but.

More. Yes, some of these challenges will end up before the courts, where they should be decided. But the federal government is threatening to cut funding to North Carolina’s schools based on the feds’ determination that the state’s law is invalid:

North Carolina receives more than $4 billion in federal education funding each year. Now the federal government is considering withholding that money because, the Justice Department says, the state has passed a law that violates the civil rights of transgender individuals by forcing them to use bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates instead of their gender identity.

And this:

North Carolina is facing additional threats to its federal funding as two more agencies—the U.S. Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development—say they are reviewing the state’s controversial House Bill 2.

Furthermore. Pouring fuel on the fire, the Obama administration next issued a directive telling public schools throughout the U.S. to allow students to access school restrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity. Meaning, to be blunt, penises in girls locker rooms. And any opposition, such as suggesting private changing/showering areas for non-transitioned transgender students, is prejudice, hatred, Jim Crow. End of discussion, you bigots.

Via Robby Soave at reason.com: Title IX Is a Dangerous Tool for Extending Transgender Kids’ Rights.

Via Tom G. Palmer:

This case of rule by decree and federal overreach is a very valuable gift to the Trumpanzees. The issues are not so easily sorted out and probably better addressed by using common sense in various ways.

Exactly. But inflaming the culture wars serves the interests of partisans on both the left and right.

From the comments: “In the early 80s the Reagan administration cut off highway funds for any state that didn’t raise its drinking age to 21. … Don’t pretend like there’s no precedent for the federal government making this kind of threat or that it’s only Democrats that have done it.”

Response from commenter Jared: “Balderdash. The drinking age was raised nationally by Congress—when it passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act—and so the executive branch under Reagan was executing the will of Congress. In this case, Congress, even when the Democrats were in control, has refused to pass a transgender rights law. This directive is based on the Obama administration’s radical reinterpretation of the existing civil rights laws, in the face of congressional inaction — a very different situation, and one that represents a sweeping expansion of executive power.”

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