On Sunday May 20, John joined Professor Martha Nussbaum at the University of Chicago’s Court Theatre following a performance of The Originalist–John Strand’s play about the late Justice Antonin Scalia–to discuss law, religion, and LGBT rights. The Windy City Times wrote about their dialogue here.
On May 9 at Princeton, John joined his DRLD counterpoint authors Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis, along with moderator Robert P. George and respondents Christopher Tollefsen and Kevin Vallier, to talk about their book and about the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. Here’s The Daily Princetonian‘s story on the event; a video should be forthcoming soon.
On CNN, John discussed the U.S. Supreme Court “wedding-cake case” with host Michael Smerconish. Watch the full video here.
Sara Krulwich/NYT
At The New York Times, John explains how to draw a line between some of the cake cases in the news. From the article:
Therein lies the crucial difference between the cases: Silva’s objection was about what she sold; a design-based objection. Phillips’s objection was about to whom it was sold; a user-based objection. The gay couple never even had the opportunity to discuss designs with Phillips, because the baker made it immediately clear that he would not sell them any wedding cake at all.
Read the full article here.
Which seems as good a reason as any to share this video again…
John, who is on research leave this year, has spent the month of November in Europe as a Visiting Scholar at KU Leuven, Belgium’s largest university, also giving lectures in the UK. Above, he is pictured lecturing at KU Leuven on religious liberty and discrimination. Below, clockwise from top left: At the Oxford University Press Philosophy Festival at Blackwell’s Bookshop; at KU Leuven; at a research seminar with Cambridge University’s Faculty of Law; at a public lecture at Cambridge.
The Deseret News has an interesting piece on name-calling in the culture wars which includes some comments from John and his occasional dialogue partner Matthew Lee Anderson.
From the article:
Labeling in this context, like political name-calling elsewhere, is motivated by a variety of factors, including the desire to set the tone of public debates, Corvino said.
“Advocacy organizations are trying to win political victories and that often involves not giving any ground to the other side. If you start acknowledging nuance, that makes it harder for you to ultimately win,” he said.
And today’s religious freedom debates aren’t black and white, Corvino said.
“The reason these are difficult issues is that there are important values on each side,” he said.
Read the full article here.
Today, October 11, is National Coming Out Day.
Not long ago I was asked, “What is the piece of writing of which you are most proud?” I answered that the work of which I am most proud is not a piece of writing: It’s a lecture, “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?”, which I first delivered in 1992 and then spent years honing and presenting all around the country. (It later was the basis for my 2013 book What’s Wrong with Homosexuality?.)
The 2007 version is available on YouTube, with subtitles in English, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Chinese, and Portuguese. I still get mail from around the world from people who find it helpful as they struggle with coming out.
Sadly, coming out continues to be a struggle for many–not only in far-away places but also here in our own backyard–as parents (knowingly or unknowingly) tell their LGBTQ children that their feelings are sick, unnatural, morally disordered, and worse.
We’ve made a lot of progress, and we still have a lot of work to do. #NCOD
In Commonweal, Robert K. Vischer (Dean of the University of St. Thomas School of Law) offers a thoughtful, balanced, and highly favorable review of Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination, John’s new book with Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis. From the review:
Lobbing broad accusations across our religious-liberty battle lines takes very little effort and is a sure-fire way to draw an enthusiastic crowd of the like-minded. Corvino, Anderson, and Girgis are no strangers to these battles, but they have also taken the time to ensure that they are not strangers to each other. For a nation that seems more divided than ever, that’s a great place to start.
Read the full review here.
John has a busy fall travel schedule, including a recent debate at Notre Dame (see video here), and talks next week at Old Dominion University, Harvard Law School, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. See the full calendar here.