George Takei was wrong about Clarence Thomas

For the record, George Takei’s comments about Clarence Thomas were racist, and, like most people on the left who have been complaining about Thomas’ “dignity” discussion in his Obergefell dissent, missed the point Thomas was making.  Clarence Thomas is a black man who grew up speaking the Gullah dialect in the Jim Crow south. He talks […]

Michael Farris and RFRA followup

On Tuesday I gave you all the rundown about how federal RFRA drafter Michael Farris admitted that he intended the law to legalize religiously motivated discrimination against LGBT people. Farris went on Tuesday’s episode of the Hannity Show and once again stated that he believes that people have the right to discriminate. I was waiting […]

Original RFRA Drafter Admits Discriminatory Intent

Like a lot of other people, I’ve been following the controversy surrounding Indiana’s SB 101, their state level RFRA bill that’s designed to allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people on religious grounds. Indiana’s RFRA has been compared frequently to the federal RFRA, both by supporters of Indiana’s law who claim that it’s no different […]

The Curious Case of the Spell Family, or, The Entirely Invented (Non)Threat to Homeschooling in Florida

Proving again that one should be careful to make promises one cannot keep, I feel that I must break my promise to myself that I would stop writing about homeschooling for a while. In the last few days a story has been making the rounds about a supposed threat to homeschooling in Florida. The potential […]

HSLDA, the Parental Rights Amendment, and Enabling Child Abusers

I’m sick, I’m really sick. When I wrote back in May about what I suspected was a legal strategy by HSLDA to make homeschooling a fundamental right, I said that I hoped I was wrong. I hoped that HSLDA’s end game wasn’t giving parents the right to do almost anything to their children short of […]

Of fundamental rights, HSLDA, and homeschooling

I wasn’t planning on writing more about HSLDA but I was talking to my mom today about HSLDA’s refusal to do anything about child abuse and how it made absolutely zero sense to defend abusers. As I moved on to talking about how I feel that they’re using the Romeike family as pawns in their effort to establish homeschooling […]

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: DOMA

Sixteen and a half years ago President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, enshrining inequality into federal law. As Clinton tells it, he had to sign it because it was a veto-proof majority and any veto would have been overruled anyway, though I rather suspect that it had more to do with the fact […]