‘Happy Holidays’ versus ‘Merry Christmas’

Dan Savage says something that absolutely resonates with me. It had never bothered me to have people wish me merry Christmas or for me to wish them similarly in return. But this whole nonsense of the ‘war of Christmas’ which has made the phrase ‘merry Christmas’ into a shibboleth to prove that one was not hostile to Christmas has actually had the reverse effect, where I hesitate to say it so as to avoid looking like I am on the side of the Christian nutcases. [Read more…]

Important developments in Utah same-sex marriage case

After the US District Court judge Robert Shelby declared on Friday that the Utah ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, marriage licenses started being issued while the government filed a motion with him asking him to stay his order pending appeal. The government, perhaps fearing that many more same-sex couples would get married while the judge considered their motion for a stay, also filed an emergency motion with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals asking them to immediately impose a stay. [Read more…]

The Duck Dynasty flap

It is a measure of how out of touch I am with popular culture that I often learn about a media phenomenon only long after it has been around or if it goes down in flames. Sometimes the names associated with the phenomenon (Honey Boo Boo, Miley Cyrus, the Kardashians) lurk in the fringes of my consciousness because the news headlines feature them but I know next to nothing about them. [Read more…]

Three antidiscrimination cases

I wrote recently about the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties case that is pending before the US Supreme Court that will test the limits of the Free Exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment and the reach of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 that says that any government action that impinges on a person’s religious freedom must have ‘compelling interest’ and no other less restrictive choice of action to achieve its ends. [Read more…]