Cicero, natural law, and why you can’t marry a plant
Have you ever wondered why certain things seem to make sense while others just don’t seem right? Why, for instance, do humans get great pleasure out of relationships with each other yet struggle to...
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Ruling on crosses is a threat to religious freedom
The use of religious symbols on public property will remain a controversial issue. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a case to determine whether 13 memorials for fallen Utah Highway...
View ArticleIncompetent referees and bad laws
Like millions of other Americans watching Monday Night Football this week, I was in disbelief. It didn’t matter what team you were rooting for, if you had even one good eye to see with, you knew that...
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Polyamory and willful blindness?
Imagine a scenario where a small child is allowed to play with loaded weapons without meaningful oversight from the parents. Then imagine the parents excuse their behavior by saying that the child had...
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Don’t vote blindly on judges: Here’s where to find information
In all even-numbered years, Utahns have the opportunity to choose whether judges should keep their jobs for another term in office. In the 2010 election, many voters were frustrated by the lack of...
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Privacy and bad behavior
Forty-seven years ago in the Griswold case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment to the Constitution “has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion.” A...
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DOMA ruling reveals ultimate goal of "gay rights" activists
http://sutherlandinstitute.org/uploaded_files/meromoment/7-2-13.mp3 The following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. Recent Supreme Court...
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The Constitutional duty to defend the law … until you decide not to
Imagine a world where abandoning your oath to defend the laws of the land, in order to forward your own ideological beliefs, is rewarded by those who are supposed to protect the rule of law. You have...
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Slate gets it right on Zimmerman
Left-of-center Slate Magazine published a thoughtful take on the Zimmerman/Martin case. Author William Saletan decided to watch all seven hours of closing arguments and came to this conclusion: The...
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What can we expect from judges?
The American Civil Liberties Union has decided to bring lawsuits in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia alleging the U.S. Constitution mandates redefining marriage in those states’ laws to...
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‘The American Illness’: How the legal system drags down our economy
http://sutherlandinstitute.org/uploaded_files/meromoment/8-6-13-2MM.mp3 The following post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. A friend of mine...
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What Justice Scalia really said
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia A recent opinion piece in The Salt Lake Tribune tried to recruit Justice Antonin Scalia to the cause of redefining marriage. Here’s the passage: Even Justice...
View ArticleClueless AG Office lawyers opened door for Shelby’s specious ruling
http://sutherlandinstitute.org/uploaded_files/meromoment/12-24-13MM.mp3 This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. Four days is a long time...
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How Judge Shelby got the 14th Amendment wrong
http://sutherlandinstitute.org/uploaded_files/meromoment/1-7-14MM.mp3 This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. The 14th Amendment to the...
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Lawyers and the integrity of Lincoln
A statue of Abraham Lincoln in Urbana, Ill. I am currently reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Henry Ketcham, titled The Life of Abraham Lincoln. This book (fortunately part of the public domain)...
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Sutherland statement on state brief filed with 10th Circuit Court
Utah’s articulation of its interest in marriage is brilliant. Combined with several forthcoming amicus filings, the state’s case is impenetrable. The people of Utah can have confidence that their...
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Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court
Hobby Lobby in Stow, Ohio. (Photo: DangApricot via Wikimedia Commons) The Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby religious freedom case is important for many reasons; I’ll just cite a couple. First,...
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Michigan judge’s dismissal of research was unbelievable
This op-ed by William C. Duncan, director of Sutherland’s Center for Family and Society, was published March 29 in The Salt Lake Tribune. What does “unbelievable” mean? To most of us, it means that...
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Sutherland applauds Supreme Court decision on town-meeting prayer
Sutherland Institute believes the United States Supreme Court made the correct decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway. In ruling that government should not become “supervisors and censors of religious...
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A win for public prayer, and freedom, at Supreme Court – Mero Moment, 5/13/14
[display_podcast] This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. In the May 5 U.S. Supreme Court decision City of Greece, New York v. Galloway,...
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A disappointing 10th Circuit ruling; on to Supreme Court
It’s disappointing to have a few federal judges decide that they can unilaterally override the decision of Utah voters to preserve marriage as society’s way of preserving children’s opportunity to be...
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Sutherland applauds Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision
Sutherland Institute issued the following statement today, June 30, 2014, in reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case: The Supreme Court has done the right thing. No one should...
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States still need their own religious freedom laws – Mero Moment, 7/1/14
This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. Green River (Utah) Presbyterian Church. The United States Supreme Court decided an important...
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Ignoring old truths to create a new reality
It’s easy to win an argument when you invent a new reality. In the case of same-sex marriage, plaintiffs simply argue that a definition of marriage that has existed, culturally and legally, for...
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Swallow, Shurtleff, and a culture of corruption – Mero Moment, 7/15/14
This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. When I received news that former Attorneys General Mark Shurtleff and John Swallow had been...
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Another angle on natural law
In our writings at Sutherland Institute we occasionally use the term “natural law,” referring to the common foundations of justice and fairness innate to each of us. An article in the Intercollegiate...
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A possible Supreme Court twist in Utah’s marriage case
Last week, Utah asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that Utah’s marriage amendment (approved by the Legislature and two-thirds of voters...
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Not so fast: Federal judge says Constitution doesn’t require redefining marriage
Perhaps the most powerful argument for same-sex marriage has been that it is “inevitable.” It’s powerful because it contains an implicit threat: If you think there is something unique and uniquely...
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Hobby Lobby horrors? Not exactly
Legal writing can be dense and overly technical. Perhaps that’s why there persists some confusion about the effect of the Hobby Lobby decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. It did not help that the...
View ArticleStatement on Supreme Court’s refusal to hear marriage case
Children are entitled to be raised by a married mother and father. Sutherland Institute is deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court has failed to correct the lawlessness of lower courts that have...
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Take the long view of court’s (non)decision on marriage — Sutherland Soapbox,...
This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. Utah’s marriage law, and a measure of its self-determination, has now been wiped out by the...
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Statement on 6th Circuit Court marriage decision
In a strong, well-reasoned opinion, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has vindicated the rights of the people of those states to recognize marriage as the union of a husband...
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6th Circuit marriage decision is powerfully protective of liberty –...
This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. The podcast can be found at the bottom of this post. Last week’s decision of the U.S. Court of...
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Parents’ rights: Integrating rights and responsibilities
The U.S. Constitution is understood to protect the ability of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, free from state interference. That formulation derives from a pair of cases from the...
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How marriage law has shifted in 35 years
In many family law textbooks, two cases from the 1970s are juxtaposed. The first is a 1976 California decision, Marvin v. Marvin, in which the California Supreme Court considered a claim by a woman who...
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Why legal effects of marriage case matter to everyone – Sutherland Soapbox,...
This post is a transcript of a 4-minute weekly radio commentary aired on several Utah radio stations. The podcast can be found at the bottom of this post. At the end of April, the U.S. Supreme Court is...
View ArticleQualms about the Little Sisters case
It is, of course, great news that a unanimous Supreme Court vacated lower court decisions that would have allowed the federal government to use the insurance plans of some religious organizations to...
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