Legislation pending in Tennessee (Senate Bill 1/House Bill 1) and in several other politically conservative states will pit these two seemingly disparate and rival movements against each other. But I increasingly believe the two have something in common that is seriously wrong. I think both deserve closer inspection, and perhaps the best benchmark for starting that inspection is the LGBTQ movement’s catchphrase, “love is love.”

It would sound hyperbolic to say that our lack of appreciation for, even aversion to, common law is killing our Republic, though it is true, but today...

The legislature convened this week, and I confess, I look at what is about to unfold in a whole new way. In the last few weeks, culminating with an insight last week. I have concluded that “Christian statesman, as I now define the term, would not describe my previous approach to law and politics. Today I show how that change affects what I believe a Christians statesman needs to know, and how that would affect such a statesman’s evaluation of an important piece of pending legislation.

Power politics is basically all progressives, liberals, conservatives, and conservative Christians know. It is all I knew until recently, and its habits are hard to break. I now believe it has an inherent defect. It became apparent last week when some Tennessee legislators began to equivocate on their continuing support for the Human Life Act, Tennessee’s abortion “trigger law.”

A new year is about to dawn. In terms of law and public policy will it bring more of the same or something new? In Tennessee we will learn soon enough from the disposition of Senate Bill 1/House Bill 1, pre-filed by the House and Senate Majority Leaders as a top legislative priority. 

As I signed a few hundred letters a week ago with a Christmas-themed postscript containing the word “joy,” I began to wonder, “What is joy? Is there an objective meaning to ‘joy’ that is not dependent on a person’s subjective circumstances?” My search exposed something about me I needed to know and knowing it filled the rest of my Christmas season with more joy.

It seems to me the chief ground offered by Christian policy organizations for opposing the Respect for Marriage Act, namely, religious liberty, is demonstrative of a fundamental problem among the “Christian right.” I think it is time that “religious liberty” be re-examined, even if it means I am expelled from the club.

A Fox News story on Monday noted that the more progressives think through the Respect for Marriage Act the more their “joy diminishes.” Their reason for discontent is one to which conservative policy makers and legal advocates, Christians, and Republicans have not yet awakened. Reading the article was, for me, vindication, and the despair of liberals a hope for change going forward.

Matt Wash exposed the fact that at least one major hospital in Tennessee is providing “gender affirming care” to minors, i.e., mutilating healthy parts of a child’s body, to change their appearance and ostensibly to address incongruities between their subjective mental states and objective physical realities. It dawned on me that how one views Christmas—whether it’s about Santa coming to town or the Son of God coming to Bethlehem—determines how one should think about such care.

Tuesday morning, I had a great sense of thanksgiving flood over me in the absolute strangest context. I was as mad as the proverbial wet hen with some people—good people—who have been grinding me down over the import to the work of God in His Church of Christians understanding the fundamentals of law and civil government. If you ever had reason to be frustrated over something or someone and giving thanks was the last thing on your mind, maybe today’s commentary will provide some help.