News & Views - Commentary

News & Views - Commentary | FACT In our commentary, read about the political and cultural issues affecting Tennesseans written from a conservative perspective. Columns are typically written by Dr. Kent DelHousaye, a trained political theologian and a longtime pastor and the current FACT president. David Fowler https://fluxconsole.com/files/image/96845.png https://fluxconsole.com/files/item/441/56004/apple-touch-icon.png 2026-09-12T12:19:20-05:00 https://www.factennessee.org/feed FeedWriter 2026-09-10T12:19:20-05:00 2026-09-10T12:19:20-05:00 Knox County Confronts the Amplified Islamic Call to Prayer proposed an ordinance that would prohibit the amplified Islamic call to prayer in public, carrying a $1,000 penalty for each violation.

The question this resolution poses is simple: What may be broadcast, by loudspeaker, into Tennessee homes without consent?

Defenders of amplified calls to prayer argue there is no meaningful difference between a loudspeaker and a church bell – but that comparison falls apart with any level of scrutiny.

Church bells are a quintessential American symbol and still ring in many towns across Tennessee today, announcing the beginning of a service, marking the hour, tolling for a funeral or a wedding, in addition to several other purposes. After a generation in the same town, church bells often fade into the ordinary rhythm of life.

The adhan, however, is a spoken proclamation, one Commissioner Fox describes as "a proclamation about Islam claiming superiority over other religions," broadcast across entire neighborhoods five times a day. Here is the language of the adhan:

Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest) – Recited four times
Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah (I bear witness that there is no god but Allah) – Recited twice
Ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasool Allah (I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah) – Recited twice
Hayya 'ala-s-Salah (Hurry to the prayer) – Recited twice
Hayya 'alal-Falah (Hurry to success) – Recited twice
As-salatu khayrun min an-nawm (Prayer is better than sleep) – Recited twice during the early morning (Fajr) prayer
Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest) – Recited twice
La ilaha illa Allah (There is no god but Allah) – Recited once at the end

A daily proclamation that "there is no god but Allah," broadcast across Tennessee neighborhoods five times a day, is categorically different from church bells ringing to celebrate a wedding. “Allahu Akbar” – the phrase notoriously shouted before terrorist attacks – being broadcast in Tennessee communities would be unsettling and unwelcome, to say the least.

Fox contends that our current reading of the First Amendment, a rigidly neutral public square in which the government must treat every religious claim as interchangeable, is a modern invention rather than the founders' design. He sees ordinances like this one as the first step in a longer effort to restore the amendment's original meaning – the same incremental strategy that overturned Roe.

“Christians need to reclaim the First Amendment for its original intent, which recognized federal-only limitations on any one particular sect of Christianity as having favored status over other sects, the same way that Christians reclaimed the abortion issue; the way that gun-rights advocates have defeated gun control. Long term, this means adopting legislation at varying levels of government the way the State of Mississippi challenged Roe v. Wade’s spurious ruling,” Fox argued.

Justice Joseph Story, writing his Commentaries on the Constitution in 1833, argued that the Establishment Clause was meant to prevent a national church and competition between Christian denominations, not to compel government indifference toward religion itself.

Justice William Rehnquist wrote in his Wallace v. Jaffree dissent that the "wall of separation between church and State" is "a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned."

The old adage “prevention is the best cure” is eminently applicable in this case. While there are no mosques currently attempting to amplify the call to prayer in Knox County, we can read the writing on the wall – a cursory glimpse at what is happening in the UK shows us exactly what’s waiting on America’s doorstep if preventative measures aren’t taken.

FACT remains committed to defending the rights of Tennessee communities to govern their own public square. If this issue concerns you, consider contacting your county commission or supporting our work.

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/knox-county-confronts-the-amplified-islamic-call-to-prayer FACT info@factn.org 2026-09-03T12:19:20-05:00 2026-09-03T12:19:20-05:00 $751 Million for Tennessee Kids – Inside the Record Meta Settlement $17.1 billion to settle claims that it engineered Instagram to be addictive to children and purposefully hid the dangers from parents. This is the largest state consumer protection settlement in American history outside of the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s.

On August 26, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced the agreement, which resolves claims by 47 states, Washington, D.C., and three US territories that Meta designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harm, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms.

The settlement was reached as Tennessee's own trial against Meta was nearing an end, and according to AG Skrmetti's office, it was Tennessee's trial, alongside the federal multidistrict case, that “spurred the negotiation that led to the settlement.”

For a full background on Tennessee’s case against Meta, read our previous commentary here.

Tennessee's share of the settlement is $751,922,691.13. Every dollar of the net recovery will go directly into Tennessee's new Children's Digital Protection Fund, dedicated to protecting and restoring the mental health and safety of Tennessee children.

“We took Meta to trial because Instagram was hurting kids and misleading parents. Now we're ending the trial with a settlement that imposes unprecedented protections for kids and delivers record-setting money for Tennessee's Children's Digital Protection Fund,” Skrmetti said.

Under the settlement, Meta will be required to:

Cap young users at a combined two hours per day across Instagram and Facebook, with mandatory “productive pauses” after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling.
Block young users' access entirely from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
Eliminate push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year.
Implement robust age-assurance measures to verify users' actual ages.
Strengthen parental controls and age-appropriate content safeguards against bullying, eating disorder content, and content related to suicide and self-harm.
Limit social comparison features for young users, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts.

An independent auditor and the settling states will regularly assess both whether Meta implements these features and whether they actually work.

The two-hour daily cap will remain in place for five years. If Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube adopt comparable safeguards, the limit on each platform drops to 60 minutes for 10 years – a built-in incentive for the rest of the industry to fall in line.

“Tennessee was proud to be a leader in this bipartisan effort to protect our kids,” Skrmetti stated. “Our team led the charge on critical parts of the multistate investigation, fought hard in the courtroom, and spearheaded the negotiations for this historic agreement. This is a generational win for our state and for our kids.”

We are incredibly encouraged by the progress made through this unprecedented settlement, but we recognize the gaps it left and the work that remains in the years to come. This settlement does NOT:

Secure an admission of wrongdoing. Meta settled mid-trial rather than face a ruling, and the agreement expressly denies any wrongdoing on its part.
Reach beyond Instagram and Facebook. Messaging apps, virtual reality, gaming, and AI chatbots are all untouched.
Bind anyone but Meta. Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and every AI platform courting kids remain unaffected.
Last forever. Every obligation Meta agreed to expires in 10 years.
Resolve private lawsuits. Thousands of individual and school district cases are still pending nationwide.

Following the settlement, AG Skrmetti shared that his office will now turn its attention to other platforms that impact kids:

“The other companies are nervous right now. I expect we’re going to see the next domino fall very soon. There’s litigation against each of the other big companies. There’s going to be more litigation. I know we didn’t sue everybody we wanted to, because we were tied up with Meta. Well, that case is gone now. So, we’re going to be filing some additional litigation.

The fewer companies that stay standing with these addictive and [exploitative] processes, the harder it’s going to be for them to remain. And, of course, once we take care of social media, we’re going to be keeping a very vigilant eye on all the new AI products that are potentially going to be facing kids.”

Skrmetti also commended Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal for their work on the Kids Online Safety Act, which will add another important layer of protection for kids in the online space: “This settlement is the best possible solution we could get through litigation... But in the long run, we need federal legislation that clearly imposes a duty of care on every tech company that interacts with kids.”

For a full background on KOSA, read our previous commentary here.

It’s time for Congress to take up the mantle and enact nationwide protections for children and hold Big Tech accountable – once and for all.

FACT remains committed to protecting Tennessee's children and standing with parents against institutions that put profit ahead of their well-being. We'll keep fighting until every company that profits from our children's attention is held to the same standard. If this news encourages you, please consider supporting our work.

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/751-million-for-tennessee-kids-inside-the-record-meta-settlement FACT info@factn.org 2026-08-27T12:19:20-05:00 2026-08-27T12:19:20-05:00 ‘Same, Lindsay’ – How "My Body, My Choice" Became an Excuse for Murder
Background
Clancy has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors say she acted "intentionally, rationally and swiftly," researching the killings in advance and waiting until her husband left the house to commit them. Her defense says a combination of psychiatric medications and postpartum struggles drove her to it. Nobody disputes that she killed her children. The only question is whether she is criminally responsible for the murders. If convicted, she faces life without parole.

That question hasn't stopped thousands of women from declaring themselves on Clancy's side before a verdict is cast. Scores of TikTok videos show women holding their own babies, sobbing, captioned "Same, Lindsay." Let the meaning of that sink in.

Supporters have raised nearly $1 million for Clancy on GoFundMe. Crowds have gathered outside the courthouse to show support. They aren’t mourning three dead children – they’re lining up behind the woman who killed them.

Men have rightfully begun ending relationships over their girlfriends' support for Clancy, arguing they can’t imagine starting a family with someone who sympathizes with a mother who murdered her children. One man called off his wedding two weeks before the ceremony after learning his fiancée supported her.

“A Lindsay Clancy defender is not who you want as the mother of your own future children,” one widely shared post stated.

“The Clancy thing is a perfect test. If your girlfriend supports her, there should be a you-shaped hole in the wall no more than five seconds later,” Daily Wire host Michael Knowles wrote on social media.

How did we get here?

The feminist movement has spent a century widening the boundary of what a woman's "choices" excuse. Suffrage secured women a voice in the law. Second-wave and third-wave feminism redefined "bodily autonomy" to mean a woman's judgment about her own body overrides any competing claim – including her unborn child's life – under the banner of "my body, my choice." That same framework has now stretched to excuse what happens to children who are already born: if her truth, her trauma, her pain explains it, the killing itself becomes secondary to her story.

That’s the disturbing and flawed logic behind the "Same, Lindsay" movement – a slogan that asks the viewer to identify with the woman who strangled her children, not with the children she strangled.

Commentator Peachy Keenan noted the irony: “Why are so many women so angry? They won. They got everything they wanted. Men have never been doing this badly, and women have never been doing this well. They make more, they have the majority of jobs, they are the majority of college graduates, they have much lower rates of suicide, addiction, and alcoholism, and live longer. Marriage is optional, divorce is no-fault, they win 99% of the custody battles, they can control fertility at will, and they can’t get drafted. We are all living in the female future they promised.” Apparently, that future has fallen flat.

Where do we go from here?

This is not a battle that will be won by shouting from the rooftops that child murder is wrong. In our hearts, we all know that. Instead, we must confront this insidious ideology by restoring basic moral guardrails in our society. We have to work from the ground up.

One initiative FACT has pursued to that end is House Bill 47, which took effect July 1, 2026. This bill allows local Tennessee school boards to display the Ten Commandments alongside the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in a prominent school location. Five districts – Blount, Rutherford, Washington, White, and Wilson counties – have already voted to do so. Rutherford County's board committed to installing the display in all 53 of its schools.

The ACLU of Tennessee, joined by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, responded by demanding every email, board document, and design record from all five districts, declaring they are "launching an investigation of every school district that foolishly accepts the state's invitation to trample" what they call students' constitutional rights.

The same movement working overtime to explain away a mother strangling her children is now working just as hard to keep "Thou shalt not murder" off a cafeteria wall. That’s no coincidence. It is a preview of where a culture ends up once it decides fixed moral commands are optional and personal narrative is supreme. That's why FACT is committed to fighting for the moral guardrails this culture keeps trying to tear down – in the courtroom, the classroom, and everywhere else the battle for our children is being waged.

FACT remains committed to defending life at every stage. If this story concerns you, consider supporting our work so we can continue to fight for the protection of Tennessee families.

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/same-lindsay-how-my-body-my-choice-became-an-excuse-for-murder FACT info@factn.org 2026-08-20T12:19:20-05:00 2026-08-20T12:19:20-05:00 'An idea whose time has come’ – Senate Advances Kids Online Safety Act Following FACT-Signed Letter
The single most important piece of that fight is currently moving through Congress. It’s known as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), and was introduced by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, who argues that "Big Tech platforms have shown time and time again they will always prioritize their bottom line over the safety of our children."

Background

At its core, KOSA would require online platforms likely to be used by minors to enable the strongest privacy settings by default, uphold a legally enforceable "duty of care" to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to kids, give parents and educators new tools to protect children, and submit to independent audits and research into how these platforms affect young users.

KOSA has faced several roadblocks since Blackburn first introduced it four years ago. In July 2024, it eventually passed the full Senate by a resounding 91-3 vote. It later died in the House after leadership refused to bring it to a floor vote. Blackburn and Sen. Richard Blumenthal reintroduced it in May 2025, calling it "an idea whose time has come," with the backing of both party leaders.

On February 11, 2026, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a bipartisan coalition of 40 attorneys general urging Congress to pass KOSA, warning that social media platforms "are intentionally designed to be addictive, particularly for underage users."

On July 30, FACT joined more than two dozen pro-family organizations – including Family Policy Alliance, Moms for Liberty, the Institute for Family Studies, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center – in sending a letter to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell, urging them to advance the bill.

The letter asked the committee to hold the line on two principles, which were removed from a similar bill in the House. First, a "duty of care" requirement. The letter argued that just as we require carmakers to install seatbelts and airbags, and just as we restrict marketing alcohol and tobacco to children, Big Tech should be legally required to design its products to avoid foreseeable harm to kids. Second, build on state law rather than preempt it. The letter warned against "any demand to grant preemptive immunity for emerging technology (especially generative AI) in exchange for ratifications of protections on other technologies.”

"The voices who tell you this principle means emerging technology should get free rein with our children do not speak for us!" the letter states. The Institute for Families & Technology has since launched familiesandtech.org as a clearinghouse for the effort, with plans to amplify aligned work across the country.

Progress

Six days after the letter was submitted, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously advanced KOSA with the duty-of-care provision intact. Chairman Cruz called it a bill that "with 75 cosponsors, many of whom are on this committee, and a 91-to-3 Senate vote last Congress... represents a major effort to protect children online."

Next Steps

KOSA now awaits a full Senate floor vote before heading into negotiations with the House, where the fight over duty of care and preemption will be decided. We will continue to update you as the legislation progresses through Congress. Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay informed!

FACT remains committed to standing with Tennessee parents against a Big Tech industry that profits from children's addiction and attention. Learn more about the coalition's work at familiesandtech.org, and consider supporting our work here.

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/an-idea-whose-time-has-come-senate-advances-kids-online-safety-act-following-fact-signed-letter FACT info@factn.org 2026-08-12T12:19:20-05:00 2026-08-12T12:19:20-05:00 FACT Retains Jeff Shafer As Legal Advisor Hale Institute at New Saint Andrews College and has graciously agreed to provide FACT with strategic counsel and special consultation in its public policy initiatives to advocate for the families of Tennessee.

Jeff previously served for sixteen years as Senior Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. He graduated with honors from the Regent University School of Law and is admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court and numerous federal district and appellate courts. He has litigated civil constitutional and public interest cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts throughout the United States and has developed academic and advocacy initiatives on matters of policy concern. Outside of the courtroom, he has addressed a wide array of audiences in academic and community venues, in the US and abroad, on matters of legal and cultural interest.

A statement from William Morgan, Board Chair of Family Action Council of Tennessee:

“The board of FACT is pleased to introduce Jeff Shafer as our Legal Advisor. We are thrilled to have someone with Jeff’s expertise and experience come alongside of us as a strategic partner and reliable counselor for our ministry. Jeff has been a legal consultant to FACT for many years and has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at the State Legislature. We are excited to have him help us advocate for the families of Tennessee.”

]]> https://www.factennessee.org/news-views/commentary/2026/fact-retains-jeff-shafer-as-legal-advisor FACT info@factn.org