Because as one Des Moines resident at the Iowa State Fair told Bob Vander Plaats about trendy out-of-touch judges seeking to impress the trendy “big boys,” "That's just not Iowa."  Great story, stay tuned for big news from NOM.

Read the whole Washington Post story.

Speaking to the Canon Law Association of Slovakia this week, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput called for a robust understanding of religious freedom, criticizing the increasingly anti-Christian intolerance being carried out in the name of tolerance, particularly when it comes to issues of life and marriage. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but a few high points:

First, “freedom of worship” is not at all the same thing as “freedom of religion.”  Religious freedom includes the right to preach, teach, assemble, organize, and to engage society and its issues publicly, both as individuals and joined together as communities of faith.  This is the classic understanding of a citizen’s right to the “free exercise” of his or her religion in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  It’s also clearly implied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  In contrast, freedom of worship is a much smaller and more restrictive idea. . . .

In the United States, a nation that is still 80 percent Christian with a high degree of religious practice, government agencies now increasingly seek to dictate how Church ministries should operate, and to force them into practices that would destroy their Catholic identity.  Efforts have been made to discourage or criminalize the expression of certain Catholic beliefs as “hate speech.”  Our courts and legislatures now routinely take actions that undermine marriage and family life, and seek to scrub our public life of Christian symbolism and signs of influence.

In Europe, we see similar trends, although marked by a more open contempt for Christianity. . . . My point is this: These are not the actions of governments that see the Catholic Church as a valued partner in their plans for the 21st century. Quite the opposite.  These events suggest an emerging, systematic discrimination against the Church that now seems inevitable.

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A Catholicism of resistance must be based on trust in Christ’s words: “The truth will make you free.”³ This trust gave you insight into the nature of totalitarian regimes. It helped you articulate new ways of discipleship.  Rereading the words of the Czech leader Václav Havel to prepare for this talk, I was struck by the profound Christian humanism of his idea of “living within the truth.”⁴ Catholics today need to see their discipleship and mission as precisely that: “living within the truth.” . . .

Living within the truth also means telling the truth and calling things by their right names. And that means exposing the lies by which some men try to force others to live.

*   *   *

I suggested earlier that the Church’s religious liberty is under assault today in ways not seen since the Nazi and Communist eras. I believe we are now in the position to better understand why. Writing in the 1960s, Richard Weaver, an American scholar and social philosopher, said: “I am absolutely convinced that relativism must eventually lead to a regime of force.”

He was right. There is a kind of “inner logic” that leads relativism to repression.

This explains the paradox of how Western societies can preach tolerance and diversity while aggressively undermining and penalizing Catholic life. The dogma of tolerance cannot tolerate the Church’s belief that some ideas and behaviors should not be tolerated because they dehumanize us. The dogma that all truths are relative cannot allow the thought that some truths might not be.

The Catholic beliefs that most deeply irritate the orthodoxies of the West are those concerning abortion, sexuality and the marriage of man and woman. This is no accident. These Christian beliefs express the truth about human fertility, meaning and destiny.

These truths are subversive in a world that would have us believe that God is not necessary and that human life has no inherent nature or purpose. Thus the Church must be punished because, despite all the sins and weaknesses of her people, she is still the bride of Jesus Christ; still a source of beauty, meaning and hope that refuses to die -- and still the most compelling and dangerous heretic of the world’s new order. . . .

We live in a time when the Church is called to be a believing community of resistance. We need to call things by their true names. We need to fight the evils we see. And most importantly, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that by going along with the voices of secularism and de-Christianization we can somehow mitigate or change things. Only the Truth can set men free.

Read Archbishop Chaput’s entire speech here.

NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher issued the following statement this afternoon in regard to Ken Mehlman:

"We respect Ken Mehlman's right to his personal life.  Supporting  gay marriage, however, is a very different and very public matter. The fight over same-sex marriage really isn't about Mr. Mehlman's personal life. Marriage, as a public legal status, is a man and a woman for a reason: It is the only civil institution that brings together the two halves of humanity to ensure the children they create have the best opportunity to be raised by their own mother and father. We will fight all attempts to redefine marriage to be something that it is not -- a genderless, adult-centered sexual relationship centered on the alleged rights of adults and not the needs of children. The American people -- including over 80% of Republicans and even 40% of Democrats -- oppose same-sex marriage.  NOM has already proven in races from New York to California that it is a particularly bad idea for Republicans to support gay marriage. The disconnect in Washington stems from politicans who refuse to pay attention to the values of the people they represent. If Mr. Mehlman wishes to help us elect pro-marriage GOP politicians, we welcome his support. If not, we welcome the victories that will come in the battle that must necessarily ensue."

Augusta State University has come up with a creepily named "remediation" plan – a plan that includes requiring Jennifer Keeton, a graduate student in the counseling program, to attend a Gay Pride parade and write about her feelings. Presumably, if she has the wrong feelings the remediation has not worked.

Keeton has refused, says she cannot morally counsel gay couples on how to keep their relationships together.  A federal judge has just ruled that Keeton has no rights, the university can kick her out.

Read more.

The callers were really steamed up about the court decision overturning Prop 8. Listen in.

Prof. Hadley Arkes, the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College on the intellectual absurdity of saying, as Judge Walker ruled, that  same-sex and opposite-sex couples are identical:

Archeologists of the law may one day come upon these words: “Relative gender composition aside, same-sex couples are situated identically to opposite-sex couples in terms of their ability to perform the rights and obligations of marriage under California law.” Now imagine recasting the sentence in this way: “Relative gender composition aside, same-sex couples are situated identically to opposite-sex couples in terms of their ability to beget children.” The first line was written by federal Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco as he struck down the constitutional amendment passed by the voters of California, a move to restore the traditional understanding of marriage as a legal relation of a man and a woman.  Judge Walker’s argument made sense only if the notion of begetting was conspicuously removed from the very meaning and purpose of marriage. Surely, marriage is not necessary for love: There is genuine love between grandparents and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and in the nature of things they cannot be lesser loves because they are not attended by penetration and expressed in marriage.

Marriage is not necessary for love, but the law of marriage finds its deep justification as a framework for the begetting and nurturing of children." 

Read more.