Tag: ADF

Two things I love

Why I need the NOAA

I don’t recall mentioning this before. There is a very interesting web page that compiles and fascinatingly presents weather data from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I won’t tell you how to use it, but merely point out:

  • the menu in the lower left for your exploration
  • the possibility of customizing the bookmark in your browser so the page comes up centered on your own latitude and longitude (I don’t recall how I figured that out).

I was worried that NOAA would become a victim of DOGE vandalism so that we couldn’t get this kind of information readily.

Becket

Fully 23 years ago, I jetted off to Maui, all expenses paid, stayed in a Ritz-Carlton hotel at Kapalua, and spent my days learning to be a religious freedom lawyer. Or so I thought.

ADF (then “Alliance Defense Fund”, now “Alliance Defending Freedom”) had wealthy friends that made the (literally) ritzy accommodations possible. (For what it’s worth, I preferred the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem — a separate trip on my own nickel — to Ritz Carlton Kapalua. Here endeth my luxury travel porn.)

I felt a bit out of place, surrounded mostly by evangelicals whereas I had been Orthodox for five years by then. And though I returned with a promise to ADF to do a lot of pro bono work, I never got a piece of a really juicy religious freedom case. This was, I think, because ADF was starting to realize that they needed a stable of specialist lawyers, almost all in-house, to do their work well, starting with strategic case selection. I could, but won’t, tell a story about poor case selection.

I have no dirt to deal on ADF. They were advancing an important mission and learning as they went on how best to advance it. But from early on, I cringed at their strident fundraising letters, with lots of culture-war red meat of the sort that opened wallets.* And I became uncomfortable at what I saw as mission creep, classifying more and more culture-war issues as part of their mission under their four rubrics of religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

Again: this isn’t dishing dirt; ADF’s changes were readily apparent to anyone with eyes, and I had and have no inside information (beyond that there were wealthy friends; it wasn’t all grass-roots).

I was reminded of this discomfiting evolution by a new lawsuit they’ve filed. I wish them well in this lawsuit, with the gist of which I agree. But for a long time I’ve been leery of “Christian” positions that map too readily onto GOP platforms (not that the GOP always bothers with platforms these days). “Christian” support for Trump has deepened my distrust. It would be very difficult to get me to send money if there were any alternative.

Fortunately, there is an alternative. I have now disregarded fundraising letters from ADF for long enough that they seem to have dried up. My commitment to religious freedom remains, but I now express it through support of Becket Fund, a remarkably quiet, self-effacing but successful advocate about which I have no qualms. I commend Becket to you if you share my concerns.

(* “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.” Flannery O’Connor)

Your enemies are not demonic, and they are not all-powerful and the right hasn’t always lost and the left hasn’t always won. But if you convince yourself of that, you give yourselves all sorts of permission to do a lot of stupid and terrible things under the rubric of “Do you know what time it is?”

Jonah Goldberg.

Regarding said “lot of stupid and terrible things,” my failure to call out anything about the current regime does not mean I approve. There’s just too much, and on some of the apparent illegalities I don’t want to abuse my credentials without thinking it through.

I don’t do any of the major social media, but I have two sub-domains of the domain you’re currently reading: (a) You can read most of my reflexive stuff, especially political here. (b) I also post some things on the only social medium I frequent, because people there are quirky, pleasant and real.

Advantage Becket

Hair’s the thing. When Cesar Gonzales was an infant, he was seriously ill—so ill that his parents made a religious promise to God that, if their son recovered, they would keep a strand of hair on his head uncut as a sign of their faith and gratitude. Cesar got better, and he and his brother Diego both continue to keep their hair uncut and have adopted the promise to God as their own. Their Texas elementary school accommodated their faith, but that changed in seventh grade. Now, the Gonzales brothers are banned from participating in school activities like band performance, robotics team, and athletics⁠—just because of their hair. Becket has stepped in to ask the school to accommodate the Gonzales brothers’ religious exercise.

(Becket Fund email)

This is a very odd case, but I don’t question the Gonzales’ sincerity or religious motivation.

I doubt that ADF would take this case because — well, let’s just say ADF’s cases look relatively homogeneous, with few “very odd cases” — which is why I give roughly double to Becket over ADF for religious freedom support.

On the other hand, and in defense of ADF, it is the more proactive of the two, opposing (for instance) LGBT causes that are still a step or two away from religious freedom’s door. I generally can see the uncomfortable logic of these proactive positions, though it sometimes feel like “borrowing trouble” and is hard for me to defend against facile charges of phobia or mean-spiritedness; there’s just no facile counter to that.

Both are worthy of support. The breadth and consistency of Becket’s approach is why I prefer it. Your mileage may vary, especially if you’re inclined to “take the battle to ‘them’.”

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You can read most of my more impromptu stuff at here. It should work in your RSS aggregator, like Feedly, should you want to make a habit of it.

I highly recommend blot.im as a crazy-easy alternative to Twitter (if you’re just looking to get your stuff “out there” and not pick fights).

Sunken into mendacity

“You know I’m from Alabama—the home of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that did important work in the South, vital work at a pivotal time,” the attorney general explained.

He admitted that “there were hate groups in the South I grew up in. They attacked the life, liberty, and the very worth of minority citizens.”

Sessions recalled working with the SPLC to secure the death penalty for a member of the Ku Klux Klan. “You may not know this, but I helped prosecute and secure the death penalty for a klansman who murdered a black teenager in my state. The resulting wrongful death suit led to a $7 million verdict and the bankruptcy of the Klu Klux Klan in the South. That case was brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center,” he said.

“But when I spoke to ADF last year, I learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center had classified ADF as a ‘hate group.’ Many in the media simply parroted it as fact,” the attorney general added. “Amazon relied solely on the SPLC designation and removed ADF from its Smile program, which allows customers to donate to charities.”

Sessions charged that the SPLC has “used this designation as a weapon and they have wielded it against conservative organizations that refuse to accept their orthodoxy and choose instead to speak their conscience.”

He powerfully added, “They use it to bully and intimidate groups like yours which fight for the religious freedom, the civil rights, and the constitutional rights of others.”

Then the attorney general addressed ADF directly. “You and I may not agree on everything—but I wanted to come back here tonight partly because I wanted to say this: you are not a hate group,” Sessions declared.

Then he made the case. “You have a 9-0 record at the Supreme Court over the past seven years—and that includes two of the most important cases of the last term,” the attorney general said. “Two of those nine cases were 7-2, one was per curiam, and one was 9-0. In the lower courts, you’ve won hundreds of free speech cases. That’s an impressive record. These are not fringe beliefs that you’re defending.”

Rather, “You endeavor to affirm the Constitution and American values.”

Tyler O’Neil, quoting Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

You’re right, Mr. Sessions, that I don’t agree with you on everything, but thank you for speaking the truth and sharing the “back-story.”

It irks me that NPR continues credulously to bring on “experts” from SPLC, one of its sponsors.

* * * * *

Our lives were meant to be written in code, indecipherable to onlookers except through the cipher of Jesus.

Greg Coles.

Follow me on Micro.blog Follow me on Micro.blog, too, where I blog tweet-like shorter items and … well, it’s evolving. Or, if you prefer, those micro.blog items also appear now at microblog.intellectualoid.com.

Thursday, 7/7/16

  1. Two can play the Declaratory Judgment Game
  2. The GOP’s big opportunity, predictably, blown
  3. The Evangelical-Corporate Complex at work
  4. Freudian slippage
  5. Racists say the same thing!
  6. Behold, I show you a parable

Continue reading “Thursday, 7/7/16” →