Category: Law and policy

Nikki Haley ’28!

(Or, JoshuaLetter’s first foray into electoral politics.)

A September 9, 2024 ABC News piece by Oren Oppenheim articulates why I admire Nikki Haley and why I expect to be voting for Donald Trump for president in 2024:

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley pushed back against criticism from former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Haley’s support for former President Donald Trump despite previous comments saying she found him unfit for office.

In an exclusive “This Week” interview on Sunday, co-anchor Jonathan Karl asked Cheney about Haley saying she’s on “standby” to campaign for Trump after the former South Carolina governor openly opposed him in the Republican primaries.

Cheney, who last week endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, told Karl, “I can’t understand [Haley’s] position on this in any kind of a principled way. I think that, you know, the things that she said, that she made clear when she was running in the primary, those things are true.”

During the Republican presidential primary, Haley said Trump lacked focus and that “chaos follows him.”  Months later, Haley said she would vote for Trump despite her disappointment with him.

Reacting to Cheney’s remarks, Haley told “Fox and Friends” Monday morning, “I respect her decision, but she can’t say my decision is not principled. It actually is.”  Haley continued:

We can either vote based on style or we can vote on substance. I’m voting based on substance.  I’m looking at the fact we can’t live the next four years like we did the last four years. This is no contest.

Seeking to contrast Trump with Harris on the economy, border and energy, Haley added, “We should be very clear, if you don’t like him, say you don’t like him, but you can’t say that his policies are worse than Kamala Harris’s.”

Haley also directly criticized Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance when asked about the “gender gap” with women supporting Harris more than Trump.  “I think it’s because Donald Trump and JD Vance need to change the way they speak about women. You don’t need to call Kamala dumb. She didn’t get this far, you know, just by accident – she’s here. That’s what it is. She’s a prosecutor,” Haley said. “You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence, or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies. When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up too.”

Last month, Trump said he’s “entitled” to the personal attacks aimed at Harris – because he doesn’t respect her and doesn’t “have a lot of respect for her intelligence.”

Haley reiterated that Trump should ditch those attacks to focus on substance.  “The bottom line is, we win on policy. Stick to the policies, leave all the other stuff. That’s how he can win,” Haley said.

Meanwhile, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat amplifies Haley’s remarks and provides the Trump campaign with a winning theme by listing the policy failures of the Biden administration:

A historic surge in migration that happened without any kind of legislation or debate. A historic surge in inflation that was caused by the pandemic, but almost certainly goosed by Biden administration deficits. A mismanaged withdrawal from Afghanistan. A stalemated proxy war in Eastern Europe with a looming threat of escalation. An elite lurch into woke radicalism that had real-world as well as ivory-tower consequences, in the form of bad progressive policymaking on crime and drugs and schools.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/opinion/trump-harris-undecided-voter.html)

Further, Douthat articulates a decisive factor which is not to be overlooked:

But this unfit man was already president for four years, and for three of them his personal chaos coexisted with decent outcomes in arenas — foreign policy, inflation and immigration — where things have been much worse under the rule of the serious people, the good meritocrats, the smooth and respectable elites. And even when Covid overmastered his administration, his flailing was matched by progressivism’s period of mania, and his White House still managed to keep the middle class solvent, the stock market high, and also delivered a Covid vaccine faster than almost anyone expected.

Thomas Alderman

September 14, 2024

Rejoice!

303 Creative, LLC v. Elena

Supreme Court of the United States
June 30, 2023
Slip Opinion No. 21-476

Americans of all persuasions have cause to rejoice, now that Lorie Smith, a Christian and a Colorado web designer, has prevailed in the Supreme Court of the United States in her action against the State of Colorado, which had sought to use its Anti-Discrimination Act to compel her to design web sites celebrating gay marriage, against her sincerely-held belief that marriage should be reserved for unions of one man and one woman.  The Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, held in 303 Creative, LLC v. Elena that Smith’s right of free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, protects her from such action.  By doing so, the Court spared the country a dramatic escalation in the culture wars.

What effect would a ruling in Colorado’s favor have had?

Continue reading “Rejoice!”

Here is the Latest on the Science of Same-Sex Attraction

Jesus loves LGBT!

“. . . [T]here is a great chasm between much of the public discourse and what science has shown.”

             – Lawrence S. Mayer, Paul R. McHugh, Special Report: Sexuality and Gender – Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences.  The New Atlantis, Number 50, Fall 2016.

In the first six months of 2015, I researched and wrote my Survey of the scholarly literature concerning the nature of same-sex attraction (SSA) and its causes, and published it on this blog under the title, What is Homosexuality – A Survey of the Scholarly Literature.  (Originally posted June 26, 2015; reposted July 4, 2015, see below.)  My primary motive for diving into the literature was to inform myself in order to be able to help my sons in their thinking about the topic.  Chiefly I wanted to know: is there anything to the claim that SSA is inborn and immutable?

Not much, I learned.  The most concise and fair way to summarize my findings would be to say that while there do appear to be one or more unidentified biological factors – perhaps genetic and/or epigenetic – which contribute causally to the incidence of homosexuality, other causes are much more significant, including adverse childhood experience, parental role modeling, and individual free choice; and large numbers of LGBT do change their choices of partners and even their SSA, some once, and some many times over the course of a lifetime.  In short, the weight of the evidence, far from justifying the supplanting of traditional sexual morality, instead provides substantial reason for its reaffirmation.

By pure coincidence, I finished my Survey and posted it on the very day of the decision of the US Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the gay marriage case.  By that time I had become conscious of the utter lack of discussion about the science of SSA in the policy debates, from gay marriage to transgenderism; but I was still amazed that the science was given virtually no place at all in the Court’s decision.  In the opinion of the Court there was only one mention of any scientific authority, which was a reference to the claim in the brief filed by the American Psychological Association that “sexual orientation is both a normal expression of human sexuality and immutable” – but the APA brief contains no reference to any scientific evidence.  Yet none of the four dissenting Justices even mentioned the APA’s claim, much less challenged it.  Could it be that 100 “friend of the court” briefs ignored the science completely?

I began looking for someone, anyone, engaged in bringing the science into the policy discussion.  It took over a year, but I have found two pairs of scholars who have published their own surveys of the scientific findings about SSA.  It is very gratifying to be able to say that my own findings are almost entirely consistent with theirs.

One pair published their findings way back in 2000 – unfortunately, I did not become aware of it until August 2016.  Stanton Jones is Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, and Mark A. Yarhouse is Professor of Psychology at Regent University.  Their book, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate, published by InterVarsity Press, is outstanding.  The other pair of scholars published their review of the literature in a lengthy article in the Fall 2016 issue of The New Atlantis.  Lawrence S. Mayer is a scholar at the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University.  Paul R. McHugh is University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  Their conclusions track very closely with Jones’ and Yarhouse’s (and with mine), namely: there does appear to be a weak biological factor in SSA, but “scientific research does not give much support to the hypothesis that sexual orientation is innate and fixed. . . .  Some of the most widely held views about sexual orientation, such as the ‘born that way’ hypothesis, simply are not supported by science.”

Let me emphasize again, LGBT individuals bear the image of God as much as anyone.  They are citizens and entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.  However, the reckless departure on which our society has embarked is very dangerous.  May it be that our courts and legislatures will soon become acquainted with what science has to say about SSA.  Spread the word.

SYMPOSIUM ON AMERICAN SLAVERY

Introduction

It has been fifteen years since Jack Davidson, then pastor at Cascade Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church in America) in Eugene, Oregon, Robert Iltis, Professor of Communications at Oregon State University, and I presented our Symposium on American Slavery.  The papers which we read publicly were formerly available at the original Joshua Letter web site, and with this post are available again.

The nation continues, of course, to struggle with the topics of race and the former condition of Negro servitude, as it must.  The Civil War is not as long past as we may wish to think.  Racism is very persistent in American society, as evidenced by consistent patterns of discrimination in our justice system and in our housing policies.  This concerns the church not only because we are American citizens, but also because the church has a prophetic role to play in society by bringing a biblical critique to bear upon injustice.  What’s more, the Gospel mission itself depends in part upon the demonstration that the biblical view of man provides the only philosophically adequate basis for opposing racism.  It is the doctrine of the creation of man in the image of a personal God which alone justifies our recognition of one another’s inherent value and dignity.

This doctrine of creation may be placed in doubt by claims that the Bible approves of slavery.  One such claim was made by Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson, the former a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), in their book entitled, Southern Slavery, As it Was.  (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1996.)  This book was the precipitating factor for the Symposium.  Dr. Davidson felt compelled to provide a refutation, and he invited contributions by Dr. Iltis and me.

Since then, Dr. Davidson was awarded his doctorate by the University of Wales for his dissertation on Eli Caruthers, the North Carolina antebellum Presbyterian pastor who authored an unpublished manuscript offering “a scripturally based alternative to the nineteenth-century hermeneutics supporting slavery.”  (Publication of the dissertation is pending elsewhere.)  Also since then, in 2011 Douglas Wilson published an interview (https://vimeo.com/25338963) in which he makes it plain enough that his views have not changed.

Beyond that, the scriptures themselves are not without difficulty on this question.  Exodus 21:16 states that “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.”  (NIV) That would seem to preclude categorically any attempt at a biblical defense of the American form of slavery.  The mere fact that Exodus 21:16 addresses the culpability of only the kidnaper himself would not absolve a purchaser of the victim, since if kidnaping for profit is a crime, then purchasing the victim would make one an accessory.

Moses did countenance other forms of slavery, however.  Leviticus 25:39-54 provides for Jews and non-Jews to sell themselves.  Jews who sold themselves were to be treated as hired workers, not slaves, and were to be released at the Jubilee, which occurred every 50th year.  Non-Jews, however, “You can bequeath . . . to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.”  Lev. 25:46.

Does that mean Jews were permitted to be ruthless with their non-Jewish slaves?  It does seem that if that had been the case, no one would have sold himself.  More to the point is Leviticus 19:33, which provides:

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.  The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born.  Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.  I am the Lord your God.

The enslaving of foes conquered in war was also practiced both in biblical times and in Africa in the 18th and 19th Centuries; but the Bible nowhere sanctions the practice.

We hope that those who read the following essays will find them useful and encouraging.

THE ESSAYS

Wrong About the History of Southern Slavery: A Response to Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson’s History of Slavery

by Rev. Jack Davidson

Wrong About the Bible : A Response to Steve Wilkins and Douglas Wilson’s Doctrine of Slavery

by Rev. Jack Davidson

Peculiar History in Slavery As It Was

by Robert S. Iltis

The Fraudulent Legal History of Sourthern Slavery, As It Was

by Thomas O. Alderman

Slavery and the American Constitution

by Thomas O. Alderman

What is Homosexuality? A Survey of the Scholarly Literature

Neither public policy nor church policy with regard to same-sex attraction (SSA) should be formed in ignorance of the essential nature of homosexuality as reflected in the best scientific evidence available.  The Survey was first posted June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court of the United States issued its opinion in Obergefel v. Hodges.  Click here to read the February 27, 2016 update.

The Definition of “Religion”

Defining “Religion” within the Meaning of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

For constitutional purposes–and whenever we speak of religion and the public schools, we cannot avoid speaking in terms of the Constitution–the United States Supreme Court has favored a functional definition of religion in deciding what sorts of beliefs qualify for protection under the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.  An older line of cases emphasized the transcendent nature of the beliefs in question: belief systems based on the existence of a Supreme Being were treated as religious; others were not.  But the modern approach to defining religion for constitutional purposes is to emphasize the role which beliefs play in the life of the individual.

Thus in United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965), the Court, interpreting the intent of Congress in granting a religious exemption from military service, held that religion includes beliefs which occupy “a place in the life of its possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God.” 380 U.S. at 176 (emphasis added).  In reaching this conclusion, the Court relied in part upon a statement by the Ecumenical Council:

Men expect from the various religions answers to the riddles of the human condition: What is man?  What is the meaning and purpose of our lives?  What is the moral good and what is sin?  What are death, judgment, and retribution after death?  (380 U.S. at 182)

Subsequent lower court cases have followed the Supreme Court’s lead.  In Malnak v. Yogi, 592 F.2d 197 (1979), the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that the teaching of the Science of Creative Intelligence (Transcendental Meditation) in public schools was unconstitutional.  Judge Adams, concurring, discussed the history of constitutional doctrine on this question in the following way:

It seems unavoidable, from Seeger, Welsh and Torcaso, that the Theistic formulation presumed to be applicable in the late nineteenth century cases is no longer sustainable.  Under the modern view, “religion” is not confined to the relationship of man with his Creator, either as a matter of law or as a matter of theology.  Even theologians of traditionally recognized faiths have moved away from a strictly Theistic approach in explaining their own religions.  Such movement, when coupled with the growth in the United States of many Eastern and non-traditional belief systems, suggests that the older, limited definition would deny “religious” identification to faiths now adhered to by millions of Americans.  The Court’s more recent cases reject such a result.  (592 F.2d at 207)

The case of Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), to which Judge Adams referred, contains a dictum recognizing that there are “religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God [including] Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others. . . .”  367 U.S. at 495, footnote 11.  In Grove v. Mead School District No. 354, 753 F.2d 1528, 1534 (1985), the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals stated that “Secular humanism may be a religion,” citing Rhode Island Federation of Teachers v. Norbert, 630 F.2d 850, 854 (First Circuit 1980).1

Judge Adams concluded that in the modern approach toward defining “religion” for constitutional purposes, the most important criterion is the nature of the ideas in question.  If they relate to “ultimate” questions of life such as “the meaning of life and death, man’s role in the universe, the proper moral code of right and wrong . . . , they should be treated as religious.”  592 F.2d at 208.  See also Africa v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 662 F.2d 1025 (First Circuit 1981); and Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929 (Fourth Circuit 1986).

The Oregon Court of Appeals has followed suit in the case of Christofferson v. Church of Scientology, 57 Or App 203 (1982).  Said the Court, “We find that, while beliefs relating to the existence of, and man’s relationship to, a God are certainly religious, belief in a traditional, or any, `god’ is not a prerequisite to a finding that a belief is religious,” citing Torcaso v. Watkins, and Malnak v. Yogi, both supra, among other cases.  57 Or App at 240.

The functional definition of religion is not only the better rule for constitutional purposes, but also is more consistent with democratic ideas of fairness and equality.  What one believes about the ultimate nature of things profoundly affects his or her temporal values, and temporal values determine one’s political orientation.  When only theistic belief systems are recognized as religious, there is a tendency to exclude only those viewpoints from the public dialogue, while other viewpoints that are just as religious but which happen to be non-theistic are given free rein, because their religious nature is not understood.  This places people whose belief systems entail the existence of a Supreme Being at an unfair disadvantage in the exercise of their rights to participate in the democratic process, and to address the great policy questions of their day.  A pluralistic society cannot allow such an imbalance.

It is of great importance to understand the major world-views in order to maintain a balanced pluralism and to ensure that our educational processes reflect this balance.  Space does not permit a detailed examination of all of the world-views outlined above.  However, the fact that the influence of New Age philosophy is both widespread and little understood indicates the need for a more in-depth consideration of the New Age world-view.  This world-view has made an impact upon public policy and in education.  The amorphous character and continual flux of the New Age world-view make it difficult to grasp, and it is, therefore, critically important to make the effort to delineate the essential features of this movement.

———

Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961).

United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965);

Malnak v. Yogi, 592 F.2d 197 (3d Cir. 1979).

Rhode Island Federation of Teachers v. Norbert, 630 F.2d 850, 854 (1st Cir. 1980).

Africa v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 662 F.2d 1025 (1st Cir. 1981).

Grove v. Mead School District No. 354, 753 F.2d 1528, 1534 (9th Cir. 1985).

Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929 (4th Cir. 1986).

Christofferson v. Church of Scientology, 57 Or App 203 (1982).  Said the Court, “We find that, while beliefs relating to the existence of, and man’s relationship to, a God are certainly religious, belief in a traditional, or any, `god’ is not a prerequisite to a finding that a belief is religious,” citing Torcaso v. Watkins, and Malnak v. Yogi, both supra, among other cases.  57 Or App at 240.