{"id":34934,"date":"2016-07-08T09:59:38","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T15:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=34934"},"modified":"2016-07-08T10:00:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T16:00:32","slug":"worried-about-the-courts-you-have-good-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/07\/worried-about-the-courts-you-have-good-reason.html","title":{"rendered":"Worried about the courts? You have good reason."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Where<\/a>
The seat of the United States Supreme Court, located in Washington DC
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

David Blankenhorn, the head of the Institute for American Values \u2014 with whom and under whose auspices I\u2019ve 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 \u2014 spearheaded the writing of this open letter that appears in The American Interest<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Protect and Defend: A Letter to Trump Supporters\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a brief podcast interview with him<\/a> (roughly fifteen minutes, I think; it\u2019s not the entirety of the podcast) concerning the letter:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.the-american-interest.com\/podcast\/episode-125-wales-brexit-and-taking-on-trump\/<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s an article by a law professor at Southern Methodist University who is also among the signers of the letter:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/politics\/headlines\/20160707-smu-law-professor-among-those-urging-trump-voters-to-reconsider-based-on-american-principles.ece<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the meanwhile, here are a couple of items to consider if you\u2019re among those who imagine\u00a0that Mr. Donald Trump, despite the fact that he has precisely no pre-campaign record of ever<\/em> fighting for any<\/em> 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:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Will Not Protect You from the Democrats on Gay Rights\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And such defense appears urgently necessary:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLDS Singles and other religious dating sites must now serve LGBT singles\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo One Wins When Christian Dating Sites Are Forced to Serve Gay Users\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Mr. Trump maintains his priorities:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Silent on Major Supreme Court Decision on Abortion: \u00a0But the Presumptive Nominee Did Pop Off on CNN and Elizabeth Warren\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There seem to be some very serious threats on the horizon. \u00a0Consider, for example, this case<\/a>, in which the Iowa Civil Rights Commission presumes to dictate internal church policies \u2014 but (take comfort!) only in areas that are\u00a0\u201cnot related to a bona fide religious purpose,\u201d such as, incredibly, \u201ca church service open to the public.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span> \u00a0(Yes, you read that correctly.)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the prominent non-LDS religion journalist Terry Mattingly<\/a> observed yesterday at the ongoing religious liberty conference that\u2019s being hosted by BYU\u2019s International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Mormon temples might escape government regulation under such a rule (since they\u2019re not \u201copen to the public\u201d), but ward and stake services would not. \u00a0(Nor, I might add, would general conference likely be exempt.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Has Mr. Trump ever shown even the slightest<\/em> interest in such issues? \u00a0Would 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? \u00a0There exists not the faintest shred\u00a0actual evidence to indicate that he would.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDefending Donald Trump Corrupts His Most Loyal Supporters\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 David Blankenhorn, the head of the Institute for American Values \u2014 with whom and under whose auspices I\u2019ve 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 \u2014 spearheaded the writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWorried about the courts? 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