Don’t Just Vote, Make it an Informed Vote

Wyoming’s election day is only three weeks away.

“Wait a minute,” you say, “I thought election day is always on the first Tuesday in November!” That is technically true. But in Wyoming that’s mostly a formality.

Truth is, Wyoming is one of the reddest states in the union. That means the real choices are made in the party primaries, not in the general election. Chances are that whoever wins the Republican nomination on August 21 will be elected in November. There might be a few exceptions to this rule, but not enough to diminish the point.

Since the Republican Party dominates state politics, two things tend to happen. First, it suppresses the conservative vote. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it happens. Busy conservatives are so sure that a Republican will be elected, they are content to let others concern themselves with the details. That would make sense except for the second fact.

The second fact is that in Wyoming a significant number of Democrats run as Republicans. With about 93% of Wyomingites voting Republican, Democrats who want a serious chance to win will switch parties. This ought to cause busy conservatives to understand why the primaries are so important.

Know Who Rides for the Brand

Just because all the candidates are members of the same party doesn’t mean they share your personal values. It doesn’t even mean that they embrace the party platform. You would be surprised to know how many Republicans vote against the party’s platform when they get to Cheyenne. In Wyoming, it is difficult to tell the players by the color of their jerseys. Instead of a soccer game, it’s more like a rodeo. You just have to know each contestant personally.

Elections should not be mere popularity contests. Much less should be they about name-recognition and who has the most money to spend on signs and mass media. Elections are about finding the candidate who shares your vision of where we should go and knows best how to get there.

Some share your vision, but don’t have the know-how necessary to navigate the halls of government effectively. For instance, if a governor thinks he will be like a king who can just call the shots, he will get a rude awakening in Cheyenne. There are three separate-but-equal branches of government. A candidate needs to have the people-skills necessary to lead and a detailed understanding of the bureaucracy to know how to navigate the halls of power.

On the other hand, there are some candidates who have experience and knowledge of how to lead people and work with bureaucracies, but who do not share your vision of where this state should go. An effective leader who takes you in the wrong direction is twice as bad as an incompetent leader who leaves us where we are. Progress is not just movement. It is movement in the right direction.

Wyoming and the Big Five

In Wyoming, there are five state-wide offices up for election: governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer and superintendent of public instruction. Together, these are known as the “Big-Five” and each is for a four-year term. The current superintendent has no challengers, so that office is not in play. The same goes for the secretary of state who will be challenged by a Democrat in November, but not during the primary.

Three Republicans are running for treasurer: Curt Meier, Leland Christensen, and Ron Redo. For auditor, there are two: Nathan Winters and Kristi Racines. The governor’s race, however, is wide open. There are six Republican candidates. Listed alphabetically, they are: Bill Dahlin, Foster Friess, Sam Galeotos, Mark Gordon, Harriet Hageman, and Taylor Haynes.

In addition to these state-wide offices, we will also be electing local people to represent us in the State House and Senate. We will elect county officers and city officers as well.

A Trust from God

In the broad sweep of world history, American citizens exercise say-so in their government like almost no one on earth. The vast majority of the world never gets the chance to make governmental decisions. You get the chance every single year. That’s amazing.

Christians believe that this is not just an accident of history, this is a stewardship from God. Your vote is not just a right, it is a duty. When we look at bad rulers in the past, we judge them for either neglecting their duties, or for making ungodly decisions. Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Hitler are people that we blame for evils that happened under their watch.


When people look back on our day, whom will they blame or praise? True historians won’t be blaming the politicians. The real responsibility lies with the voters who put them in office. Knowing this, our duty is not only to cast a vote, but to cast an informed vote.

Knowing What to Know

The Uinta County Republican party will be hosting “The Greatest Show” at the Fair Grounds on Saturday, August 11. It’s huge candidate forum with every candidate on the ballot invited. I would highly recommend that you take time out of your schedule to be there.

Candidates for many offices will be there to tell you who they are and how they intend to govern. You can learn an awful lot by listening to them speak side-by-side. You can compare what things they emphasize and what they ignore. You can compare how much they know about the details of various issues and how Wyoming government works.

In addition to what they say about themselves, it is just as important that you learn what they have actually done in the past. What they have done well they, will tell you about themselves. What they have done poorly, their opponents will tell you. You will want to know about both.

Votes, donations, volunteer work, and business decisions from the past all matter. Anybody can tell you what you want to hear at the moment. Nobody can change his or her past. He can repent of it, or defend it, but he can’t change it.

If you can’t be there to hear them in person, there are great resources online. Several candidate forums around the state have been recorded and uploaded to YouTube. I recommend watching “The Republican Gubernatorial Primary Debate 2018” sponsored by WyomingPBS. This July 12 debate brought together the three gubernatorial candidates who were highest in the polls. They got to respond to questions and to each other for almost two hours.

However you choose to inform yourself, it will give you confidence and peace of mind that when you go to cast your vote, you will not be voting out of thoughtless name-recognition, or party-affiliation. This could trick you into voting against your own world-view. By taking your civic duty seriously, you not only will cast a vote, but cast an informed vote.

Author’s Note: I have carefully refrained from telling you my candidate preferences in this column. If you want to know them, feel free to email me and we can talk. That being said, in the interest of full disclosure, I have been volunteering as co-chair of Harriet Hageman’s Faith and Family Committee since April.

Humanae Vitae Turns Fifty

“Marriage… is far from being the effect of chance or the result of blind evolution of natural forces. It is in reality the wise and provident institution of God the creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design.” Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.

Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of this papal encyclical. It remains one of the most controversial and most widely read encyclicals ever issued. As a Lutheran pastor, I don’t make a habit of reading papal documents, but this one deserves our attention and comment.

It was issued in the middle of one of the most turbulent times in our history. We were at the start of the Sexual Revolution. For the first time since Constantine (over 1,600 years) an all-out assault on marriage broke out. This war on the most fundamental building block of society is still raging.

Under the slogan of “Free Love,” true love was attacked. The love that bound husband and wife in a permanent union to care for the children who were conceived by their love was replaced by an “anything goes” attitude that was enslaved to feelings and urges run amok.

A Weird Catholic Thing

The hot-button issue of the day was “birth control.” The Pill had come out in 1960 and Griswold v. Connecticut had recently been decided in favor of granting the right of married couples to use it. In this context, it was easy to dismiss Humanae Vitae as a weird “Catholic thing.”

Most protestants did just that. Even Catholics, in alarming numbers, privately dismissed it as the bloviations of an out-of-touch pope. Secularists made fun of it and used it as one more reason to marginalize religion in the public square.

As a young man in 1987, my first knowledge that it even existed came when I stumbled onto an obscure song by Jerry Jeff Walker written and recorded within a week of Humanae Vitae’s release. I’m not recommending it as fine art. But, in case you’re curious, the song was titled, “The Ballad of the Hulk.”

Now, fifty years later, nobody is holding symposiums or writing thoughtful articles about the Jerry Jeff song. But people all over the world are rereading the pope’s words and pondering how they relate to the monumental changes we have seen over the past five decades.

Not Just About Birth Control

That’s because Humanae Vitae was never just about “birth control.” It is about the very nature of human life. It is about the relationship between male and female. It is about marriage and family, children and the true nature of love. If you are interested in these things—and who isn’t?—you should at least familiarize yourself with this thoughtful encyclical.

In it you will find several predictions. For one, it foresaw increased “marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” Pope Paul VI wrote these words at a time when the divorce rate in America had been steady since the end of World War II. In little more than a decade it doubled. Meanwhile, the marriage rate has dropped more than thirty percent to all-time lows. In a culture pervaded by pornographic words and images fewer children than ever live with their mother and father.

Another prediction was that men would “forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.” From pop lyrics that degrade women in the extreme, to the college hook-up culture, to the #MeToo phenomenon, I think this prediction was right on the money.

Third, the pope predicted that unscrupulous government authorities would be tempted to use the levers of power to impose birth control on the unwilling. We saw this prediction fulfilled immediately. Before the ink was dry on Humanae Vitae, the USAID agency was forcing foreign governments to implement birth control policies as a condition of receiving food and medicine.

Foreign governments hungry for American money, but unbridled by Christian ethics, did horrible things to their citizens as a result of this policy. The resulting pain and injustice inflicted on foreign women from India to Africa should make America blush.

Other governments, like China, implemented barbaric “one-child policies.” As time went on, even US citizens felt the pressure. In 2012 America’s Department of Health and Human Services published rules requiring even nuns to pay for birth control—a rule eventually overturned by the Supreme Court.

Finally, the encyclical foresaw that separating the begetting of children from marriage would lead to unlimited attempts to suppress and alter the human body. As predicted, today we are in the midst of a “transhumanist moment.” Through both science and law, our culture is driving a wedge between the human body and the human mind.

We are treating people as if they were nothing but a mind carried around in a meaningless body. With a worldview like that, what hinders us from inflicting the most terrible horrors on the body—ours or someone else’s?

Was the Pope a Prophet?

How could Pope Paul VI so accurately predict the future? Was he some sort of prophet? I think not. If you believe the pope is a prophet, you had better believe every word that comes out of his mouth.

But if you simply think that he was right about human nature, you can easily see that his predictions were based on simple facts. At the heart of Humanae Vitae are two basic facts. First, marriage is about the total gift of yourself—body and soul—to the other. Second, that total self-giving is intrinsically related to children.

Not very long ago we all understood this. Over the past five decades confusion and doubt have clouded our minds. But don’t take the pope’s word for it, you can observe these truths for yourself.

You can observe these principles at work in your own life and in the lives of your friends and family. You can observe these principles by looking at world history and noting which societies flourished and which societies floundered.

You can observe these principles through the lens of the social sciences. Hundreds of sound research studies have demonstrated the wisdom of Humanae Vitae. You can also observe these principles taught in the Christian Scriptures.

The pope’s predictions were not based on some secret prophecy. They were based on the simple truth that marriage and children belong together. There is only one relationship that can lead to the procreation of children. Because it can, and often does, God has placed a wall of protection around the married couple.

It is the responsibility of society—you and me—to honor and support that marriage. When we fail to do that, people are hurt. It is as simple as that. That wall of protection is for all three persons involved. The father, the mother, and the child all have unique vulnerabilities in a family. The institution of marriage protects all three.

Humanae Vitae remains a remarkable document. It’s not what you think it is. Fifty years later, it still speaks the wisdom of the ages. Even a Lutheran can admit that.

Jahi McMath's life gives cause to rethink "brain death"

Jahi McMath's funeral, July 6, 2018

“It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgement” (Heb. 9:27 ESV). Has the state of California found a way to defy God and engineer two deaths? Or are they still defending a malicious lie? That’s the fundamental question raised by the death of Jahi McMath on June 22, 2018.

Four and a half years earlier, on December 12, 2013, the state of California declared Jahi dead. Against the objections of her mother and father--and against a court order--California issued a legally binding death certificate. It forbade, under penalty of law, anybody in the state of California to treat Jahi as a living person. It was the ultimate discrimination.

With the stroke of a pen, she was an outlaw in the purest sense of the word. The death  certificate meant that she was outside the protection of any laws. Doctors who saw hope were forbidden from helping her. Law enforcement officers who saw her rights being violated were forbidden to protect and serve. Even her parents who are, by nature, her inalienable guardians were stripped of parental rights.

Benioff Children's Hospital

The story began on a Monday when Jahi entered Benioff Children’s Hospital to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. The surgery itself seemed successful. But in the recovery room she began to bleed profusely.

Bleeding after such a surgery is normal, but not this much. After two hours she had filled up two plastic bins with blood. Her mother, a professional nurse, kept asking for the doctor, but he wouldn’t come for another two and a half hours.

By then, Jahi’s massive loss of blood caused a cascade of injuries. Her blood pressure dropped until her heart stopped. Then, deprived of oxygen, her brain was severely damaged.

Why was she not given a transfusion or plasma? Why didn’t the doctor come?  These and many other questions will be addressed at trial. Oddly, in spite of the death certificate issued over four years ago, her parents could not file a wrongful death suit. That’s because she wasn’t actually dead.

If doctors were not interested in Jahi during the critical hours following the surgery, they were certainly interested after her brain was damaged. Here was a young girl with a body full of perfectly healthy organs. The possibilities for transplant were rich.


The problem is that if they wait for her heart to stop, many of these organs will be damaged and become unusable. It was to solve this “problem” that a new ethical idea was introduce 50 years ago. Why not simply change the definition of death?

In 1965 the American College of Gynecology (ACOG) changed the definition of the beginning of life from the moment of fertilization to the moment of implantation. This was not a scientific change, but an ethical/religious one. It helped to skirt the ethical problems posed by IUDs and other contraceptives that stopped the implantation of an embryo that had already been alive for several days.

If ACOG can do something as drastic as that, why not change the definition of death as well? Death had always been defined as the cessation of vital functions.  In 1968, a report titled, “A Definition of Irreversible Coma” floated the concept of “brain death.” It proposed the idea that one organ of the body (the brain) could actually die before the rest of the body.

States began altering their laws to suit this nebulous idea. Advocates convinced us that “brain death” is irreversible and inevitably leads to total death. One major difficulty, however, is that neuroscience is not exact enough that all can agree on when it occurs.

Before the notion of “brain death,” death could be determined objectively by anyone. But “brain death” laws, like the one in California, depend not on public facts but on expert opinions. Doctors become like high priests who emerge from secret consultations with an opinion from God.

The problem is that doctors can and do come to different opinions. So, California requires two doctors to agree to a “brain death” before it is legal. But, in a state with around 80,000 doctors, that’s a pretty low standard. Even a world-renowned doctor of neuroscience has no legal standing to reverse what any two doctors have decreed.


Jahi McMath

That’s what happened to Jahi. Two doctors at Benioff Hospital declared that she was “brain dead.” Her mother, a professional nurse, had access to all the same information as the two doctors and was convinced that they were wrong. But her medical training gave her no legal standing. Neither could multiple brain experts overturn the judgment.

Four and a half years later she was proved right. Jahi died not because her “dead brain” killed the rest of her, but due to complications from another surgery. Still, California is fighting to uphold their legal fiction. After Jahi lived, grew, developed, healed and communicated with others, California still refuses to acknowledge the death certificate issued by the state of New Jersey.

Here are some important facts about the case.

First, from the start “brain death” has been about organ harvesting. If the California doctors truly thought intubation was harmful to Jahi, turning it off would have been a non-issue. By taking the Hippocratic Oath, doctors promise to “do no harm.” Every procedure is supposed to be done for the sake of the patient.

When Benioff's doctors put Jahi on a respirator, her parents could reasonably assume that it was in Jahi's best interest. But the hospital sued to turn off the respirator only after her parents refused permission to cannibalize her organs. Evidently they were not thinking about Jahi's person, but only her organs. This is ethically troubling to say the least.

Second, the notion that a person can be artificially kept alive indefinitely is a lie. This has never happened--not even once. For starters, there is no machine known to man that can keep a person’s heart beating. A person’s heart either beats or doesn’t beat according to unknown factors in the person’s own psyche. Jahi’s heart kept beating despite traumatic brain injury. It stopped beating after her mother talked to her and told her that it was okay if she wanted to go to God.

Third, intubation (sometimes called artificial respiration) can only buy time for the body either to heal or to die by brain asphyxiation. Never in the history of medicine has artificial respiration prevented a person from dying who was, indeed, dying. In Jahi’s case, it gave her body time to heal and grow.

She healed from the original surgery. She matured through puberty from a girl into a young woman. Her brain healed enough that voluntary movement and communication became possible.

Fourth, the brain is the only organ in the body that continues to renew itself until the moment of death. If it had died on December 12, 2013, it could not have restored lost functions. But it did. On October 3, 2014, Dr. Alan Shewmon, a professor of neurology at UCLA and world-renowned expert on the brain, testified under oath of the overwhelming evidence that she had gained consciousness and the ability to respond to stimuli and verbal commands.

Modern medicine seems obsessed with the frightful idea that we have the power to prevent God from taking a person to Himself in death. Afraid of their own over-blown powers, they push an ethic designed to turn the tables. If we can’t keep someone alive indefinitely, these ethics actively seek to take life before God does.

Whether this is a crass move to save money for the survivors, or to save organs for transplant, it is an infringement on human rights and an affront to God. It’s high time that Wyoming join with all states in reconsidering the rash move to adopt a different standard of death.

Jahi’s death, her one and only death, has given us all a chance to think more clearly. May she rest in peace.

WTE: Kennedy defines ‘forward thinking’

We often hear the Constitution called a “living document.” By this theory, it is like a tree constantly growing new “rights,” while old rights die and fall away. Principles once strong enough to support a law, might be riddled with termites until it topples like a dead branch.

What is more, these “rights” based on “penumbras” and “emanations” always tend to trump the rights that are actually named in the Constitution. The newest “right” found in the Constitution was discovered just three years ago when Justice Anthony Kennedy authored Obergefell v. Hodges which invented a constitutional right to marry.

Not wishing that this new “right” should trump the First Amendment, Kennedy promised, “…that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with the utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.”

In the years since, many have watched with alarm as this new right sought to devour the right of free speech, free exercise of religion, property rights, freedom of assembly and more. I, myself, have often wondered what Justice Kennedy thought of these developments. Is that what he intended all along? Or was his opinion being exploited contrary to his intentions?

In his final session at the Supreme Court, Kennedy got the chance to answer those questions. The Court agreed to hear no less than three separate cases involving First Amendment protections. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, NIFLA v. Becerra, and Janus v. AFSCME.

The first decision, Masterpiece, involved a shopkeeper’s right to free speech and free exercise of his faith in declining to join in celebrating a wedding. Kennedy himself wrote the opinion.

Kennedy wrote for a strong 7-2 majority to vacate Colorado’s punitive measures against the baker because of their unacceptable hostility to his religion. Three weeks later they applied the same standard to Washington florist, Barronelle Stutzman, vacating her conviction for exactly the same hostility.

The second decision was NIFLA v. Becerra. Like Masterpiece, it involved both the free exercise of religion and free speech. But this time, the Court skipped the religious issue already covered by Masterpiece and honed-in on the freedom of speech that Masterpiece had deferred.

NIFLA centers on a law that requires medically licensed pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise free or low-cost abortions offered through the state. The same law forces non-medical pregnancy centers to place large, wordy notices on all advertisements.

Similar laws in Texas, New York, Maryland and Illinois have been struck down since they do not stand up to the “strict scrutiny” required for government to impinge on free speech. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals applied a different standard to the California law.

Admitting that the law coerced speech without meeting the strict scrutiny standard, the Ninth Circuit attempted to carve out a new category of “professional speech” that can be impinged for lesser reasons. The Supreme Court rejected their argument and determined that NIFLA was “likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the FACT Act violates the First Amendment” (NIFLA v. Becerra, 20).

The following day SCOTUS handed down the third ruling on Janus v. AFSCME that took the unusual step of overturning a 41-year-old precedent set by Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that it was lawful to force government employees to pay a union even if they objected to joining and disagreed with its advocacy.

Justice Alito’s majority opinion made clear that the First Amendment right of free association includes also the right not to associate. In fact, this trifecta of First Amendment rulings reassert our right not to be forced (1) to worship at the government’s altar (Masterpiece), (2) to speak the government’s message (NIFLA), or (3) to join the government’s associations (Janus).

Kennedy joined the majority in all three cases, and penned opinions in two of them. Among the final words he wrote before retiring were in his concurring opinion in NIFLA. It is less than two pages long, but worth reading.

He wrote in part, “The California Legislature included in its official history the congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of ‘forward thinking,’ but it is not forward thinking to force individuals to be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view they find unacceptable. It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791.”

By these words Kennedy made clear his own stance on the “living Constitution.” He made clear that the Constitution lives not like a wooden tree, but like a living, breathing person who speaks living and powerful words that are just as relevant today as they were centuries ago.

This is Kennedy’s greatest legacy.

Twin Ridge Fire Brings Thankfulness and Community-Mindedness

“To have 74 acres burn in the middle of town without losing a single house is a pretty amazing feat.” That’s what Eric Quinney, Uinta County Fire Warden, told me when we talked about Evanston’s July 4 fire.
Keep in mind, Evanston’s fire department is almost entirely volunteer. EFD has five full-time firefighters and 45 volunteers. So, when fireworks started a small grass fire just east of Crane Ave., men were called away from their family celebrations all over the county. “They are the real heroes of yesterday’s fire,” said Quinney.

Eric Quinney

The fire department monitors conditions and works with the mayor’s office to decide if a fireworks ban is necessary. Their job is made more difficult because wind conditions can change minute-by-minute. In addition, intangible values like community-building, Wyoming culture and tourism must be considered.

This year, one incautious moment happened just at the windiest part of an unusually windy day. Wednesday’s fire gave Evanston residents a sobering look at how quickly an accident can explode into a raging fire.

Between the uphill slope of the terrain and the strong westerly winds the fire was out of control immediately. One eyewitness reported that within 10 minutes the fire had raced to the top of Twin Ridge. From there, the flames bore down on the Sioux townhouses.

The last large grass fire that we had in Evanston happened 32 years ago to the day. That one began at Yellow Creek estates and burned a swath over Twin Ridge all the way to Hayden Ave. It came close enough to houses to melt some vinyl siding, but none were lost.

Now, 32 years later, the first structure in the fire’s path was a tiny house just south of Sioux Drive. It looked to be a goner as the fire reached the road and came within a few dozen yards of the townhouses. But the quick-working EFD was already protecting the structure and fighting back.

Diana Ottley first saw the flames when the fire topped the ridge. At that time, the wind was driving it towards the corner of City View and Sioux, away from any danger to the Ottleys’ house. But without warning, the wind changed.

The fire turned on a dime and started racing up the draw in a southeasterly direction. By now heavy equipment was on hand to scrape off the dry sage brush to make fire-breaks. But the wind was so strong, they barely even slowed it down.

Diana’s husband, Tib, did what every other homeowner was instinctively doing. He got out the garden hose and started spraying. “I knew it wouldn’t make any difference, but I did it anyway,” he laughed. He was in good company. From Crestview to Troy Court, helpless homeowners were doing the same.

Diana and Tib Ottley

Only 45 minutes after Diana had first seen the flames, Captain Tim Overy, Incident Commander, told them it was time to leave. The fire had come within 4 feet of the house down the hill and was now surrounding Ottleys’ on three sides, also threatening others on Troy Court.

Diana had already taken their cats to safety. Now, all that was left to do was drive away and watch from afar as their house burned to the ground. What do you take at that moment? How would you feel? What do you think?

For everyone who evacuated, it was different. Some grabbed photo albums, others important documents. Some packed underwear and animals. Tib and Diana just drove away. When I spoke with them later, they reflected on all the things filled with meaning that they left behind.

On the west wall of the living room sits a desk with the family Bible in the drawer. Together they once survived a Kansas tornado that struck the home of Diana’s grandmother. There was a wall of family photos and a room of memories of their lost son, Tib. The flames forced them to leave all behind. “If I had to do it again,” said Tib, “I would have grabbed my son’s guitar.”

But while the flames were driving away homeowners, the volunteers were not done with the fight. By now there were nearly 50 men hauling hoses, digging fire-breaks, running to keep ahead of the flames. Young and old, retired and active—all showed up to lend a hand.

Our volunteer fire department has been excellently trained, and it showed. Working together they pushed the limits of their bodies and the limits of safety. They knew what a home means, and they lingered in unsafe areas fighting the flames until the very last minute.

Not only the volunteers, but people and businesses all over town pitched in to help. People came out to help drag heavy hoses. Walmart donated food and bottled water. Ellingford Brothers, Lindley Construction, Seale Oilfield and S Bar S Trucking all donated the use of heavy equipment to help.

Neighboring departments in Bear River and Bridger Valley joined in the fight. Even Rock Springs dispatched a crew. Uinta County Road and Bridge, Uinta County Sheriff’s Department, Evanston Police Department and the City of Evanston were all coordinated by three amazing ladies working furiously at 911 dispatch.

The point of this giant spear was now focused on the Ottley house. Thirty-foot flames were at the base of the house, licking the eaves on the second floor. Breaking safety protocol, volunteers were lying on their backs under the flame, directing water at the fire in a desperate attempt to save the house.

Tib and Diana watched from a couple hundred yards away. They could not recall any specific thought—only a deep sinking feeling, knowing that their home would soon be ashes.

But suddenly, the wind reversed. Within minutes, the firefighters were winning the battle. Despite all their training and efforts, it took an act of God to give them success. Jesus said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth” (John 3:8 KJV).

At a moment like this, we are reminded that the most important things in life are not in our control. Mayor Williams and the county commissioners can make decisions. Captain Overy can direct the crews. Dozens of volunteers can put themselves in harm’s way. But Jesus directs the wind.

Before long, the supporting crew, en route from Rock Springs, was turning for home. Gawkers who had driven to overlooks around town to watch the fight started their cars and headed back to their picnics.

Captain Overy

A few were disappointed that the evening fireworks were canceled. They didn’t understand that every available firefighter in Uinta County was scattered across Twin Ridge and exhausted from the fight. There was no one left to call in case another fire should break out. And their work was far from over.

While Evanston went back to their parties and cookouts, all the volunteers remained vigilant, watching for flare-ups and hot spots until well past midnight. Then, and only then, did these weary heroes roll up their hoses and drag themselves home to their families.

As the sun rose over Evanston the next morning, it glinted off Captain Overy’s red pickup perched on the charred ridge. Long before dawn, he was standing sentinel over the town. Many drove the streets, examining the battlefield. Tib and Diana were simply thankful that no one was hurt.



Morning after picture: by Tim Overy

Soon our conversation turned to family and faith, to community and friendships. The fire brought danger to the town, but its aftermath brought clarity to our thoughts and thankfulness to our hearts.

I, for one, will be translating my thankfulness into a donation for the Evanston Fire Department. I hope many others will do the same.

The Federalist: Supreme Court Revives The First Amendment In 3 Key Rulings

 

They underscore the right not to be compelled to worship at the government's altar, speak the government's message, or join the government's associations.

We often hear the Constitution called a “living document.” Many think that it is like a tree constantly growing new shoots, while old branches die and fall away. Limbs, once strong enough to support a man, might now break off and drop him on his head.

For more than seven decades, we have been subjected to a Supreme Court that is constantly finding new “constitutional rights,” based not on the explicit words of the Constitution, but on “penumbras” and “emanations” supposedly derived from other constitutional protections. We have also seen, over the course of decades, that each new “right” always tends to trump the rights that are actually named in the Constitution.

Continue reading in the Federalist.

 

The Constitution Still Lives

We often hear the Constitution called a “living document.” Many think that it is like a tree constantly growing new shoots, while old branches die and fall away. Limbs once strong enough to support a man, might now break off and drop him on his head.

For more than seven decades, we have been subjected to a Supreme Court that is constantly finding new “constitutional rights.” These are based not on the explicit words of the Constitution, but on “penumbras” and “emanations” supposedly derived from other constitutional protections.

We have also seen, over the course of decades, that each new “right” always tends to trump the rights that are actually named in the Constitution.

The newest “right” found in the Constitution was discovered three years ago last week. Justice Anthony Kennedy authored Obergefell v. Hodges which created a constitutional right to marry.

This time, however, he included strong wording in his opinion, meant to prevent this new right from trumping the First Amendment. He promised, “…that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with the utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned” (Obergefell, at 27).

Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy

In the years since, many have watched with alarm as this new right sought to devour the right of free speech, free exercise of religion, property rights, freedom of assembly and more. I, myself, have often wondered what Justice Kennedy thought of these developments. Is that what he intended all along? Or was his opinion being exploited contrary to his intentions?

In his final session at the Supreme Court, Kennedy got the chance to answer those questions. The Court agreed to hear no less than three separate cases involving First Amendment protections. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, NIFLA v. Becerra, and Janus v. AFSCME.

Owner, Jack Phillips

The first decision, Masterpiece, came down on June 4. The case involved a shopkeeper’s right to free speech and free exercise of his faith in declining to join in celebrating a wedding. Kennedy Himself wrote the opinion.

What puzzled many was that the Court declined to address the free speech at issue (although Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence that laid it out). The 7-2 majority narrowed its ruling to take on only the free exercise of religion. On this basis, Justice Kennedy’s opinion strongly defended the free exercise of region and took the state of Colorado to task for its obvious hostility to the baker’s religion.

Then, exactly three weeks later, the same court applied these findings to a florist in Washington. Barronelle Stutzman’s conviction under Washington State’s Anti-Discrimination Act was vacated and sent back to the Washington Supreme Court.

The very next day, June 26, SCOTUS handed down its second First Amendment decision. NIFLA v. Becerra, like Masterpiece, involved both the free exercise of religion and free speech. But this time, the Court ruled only on free speech and set aside the free exercise argument that California’s pro-life pregnancy centers have been discriminated against because the state did not favor their viewpoint.

The case centers on California’s “Reproductive FACT Act.” This law required licensed pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise free or low-cost abortions offered through the state. It also forces non-medical pregnancy centers to place large, wordy notices on all advertisements.

The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) sued to halt its enforcement. They argued that the law unconstitutionally compels speech that is opposed to the very mission of these pregnancy centers.

Similar laws in Texas, New York, Maryland and Illinois have been struck down since they do not stand up to the “strict scrutiny” required for government to impinge on free speech. The “strict scrutiny” standard means that the government must prove that its speech restrictions (1) meet a compelling government interest and (2) that they do so in the least restrictive way possible.

However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals applied a different standard. It admitted that the FACT Act coerced the speech of pro-life pregnancy centers and that it did not meet the strict scrutiny standard. But then, it attempted to carve out a new category of “professional speech” that can be impinged with only “intermediate scrutiny.”

The Supreme Court rejected this notion of “professional speech.” It remanded the case back to California’s Supreme Court with instructions to apply the standard of strict scrutiny. In so doing, it determined that NIFLA was “likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the FACT Act violates the First Amendment” (NIFLA v. Becerra, at 20).

Just as Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in Masterpiece which highlighted the passed-over free speech argument, Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in NIFLA that highlighted the passed-over free exercise argument.

Kennedy’s opinion is less than two pages long, but it’s worth quoting. He first underscores the Court’s commitment to keep the government from discriminating against religion. He wrote, “this law is a paradigmatic example of the serious threat presented when government seeks to impose its own message in the place of individual speech, thought, and expression” (NIFLA v. Becerra, Kennedy concurrence, at 1).

Next, he scolds the California Legislature for its obvious discrimination against pro-life people and viewpoints. “The California Legislature included in its official history the congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of ‘forward thinking,’” said Kennedy, “but it is not forward thinking to force individuals to be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view they find unacceptable.”

He then goes on to define true progress in four sentences.

First, “It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791.”

Second, it is forward thinking “to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it.”

Third, it is forward thinking “to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech.”

Fourth, it is forward thinking “to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come” (concurrance, at 2).

For Kennedy, if the Constitution is a “living document” it lives like a person, not like a tree. Even when it is old, it is the same that it was in 1791. It is not a corpse that can be mutilated at will. Its living words, written 227 years ago, still have power to rise up and assert their original meaning.

The following day, June 27, SCOTUS completed the trifecta of pro-First Amendment decisions. It handed down a ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that took the unusual step of overturning a 41-year-old precedent.

Mark Janus

When government labor unions were still in their infancy in 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that it was in the government’s interest to force its employees to pay the union even if they didn’t want to join it, nor agree with its positions (Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed.).

Justice Samuel Alito penned a majority opinion that overturned Abood and reaffirmed that the First Amendment right of free association includes also the right not to associate.

In fact, these three rulings taken together can be thought of as underscoring the right not to be compelled to worship at the government’s altar (Masterpiece), to speak the government’s message (NIFLA), or to join the government’s associations (Janus).

As Justice Robert Jackson put it in 1943, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, or religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” (West Virginia Board of Ed. V. Barnette, 1943).

A living Constitution is always moving toward that fixed star.