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David Blankenhorn, the head of the Institute for American Values — with whom and under whose auspices I’ve spent time at extremely valuable long seminars and meetings on Malta, in southern Spain, and at the Carter Center in Atlanta, dealing with relations between the Islamic world and the West — spearheaded the writing of this open letter that appears in The American Interest:
“To Protect and Defend: A Letter to Trump Supporters”
Here’s a brief podcast interview with him (roughly fifteen minutes, I think; it’s not the entirety of the podcast) concerning the letter:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/podcast/episode-125-wales-brexit-and-taking-on-trump/
And here’s an article by a law professor at Southern Methodist University who is also among the signers of the letter:
In the meanwhile, here are a couple of items to consider if you’re among those who imagine that Mr. Donald Trump, despite the fact that he has precisely no pre-campaign record of ever fighting for any of the causes that conservatives care about, will invest a lot of political capital in bruising fights over appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court and other federal courts who will save us from leftist aggressions:
“Trump Will Not Protect You from the Democrats on Gay Rights”
And such defense appears urgently necessary:
“LDS Singles and other religious dating sites must now serve LGBT singles”
“No One Wins When Christian Dating Sites Are Forced to Serve Gay Users”
In the meantime, Mr. Trump maintains his priorities:
There seem to be some very serious threats on the horizon. Consider, for example, this case, in which the Iowa Civil Rights Commission presumes to dictate internal church policies — but (take comfort!) only in areas that are “not related to a bona fide religious purpose,” such as, incredibly, “a church service open to the public.” (Yes, you read that correctly.)
As the prominent non-LDS religion journalist Terry Mattingly observed yesterday at the ongoing religious liberty conference that’s being hosted by BYU’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Mormon temples might escape government regulation under such a rule (since they’re not “open to the public”), but ward and stake services would not. (Nor, I might add, would general conference likely be exempt.)
Has Mr. Trump ever shown even the slightest interest in such issues? Would he be willing to face the difficult confirmation battles that would be required to put judges on the bench who could be relied upon to rule responsibly in such cases? There exists not the faintest shred actual evidence to indicate that he would.
“Defending Donald Trump Corrupts His Most Loyal Supporters”
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