Human Dignity, SOGI Claims, and the Obergefell Decision


Christine M. Venter is a Teaching Professor at Notre Dame Law School and Affiliated Faculty in Gender Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

It has now been five years since Obergefell, but one thing that even many opponents of the decision on religious freedom grounds might find common ground with, is the language used by Justice Kennedy when referring to the LGBTI+ community. In his opinion, Kennedy focused on the human dignity of the individual and what is required for dignity and full recognition of personhood. Obergefell represents the culmination of the Court’s gay and lesbian rights cases in that regard; previously Lawrence v. Texas, and United States v. Windsor, both established the idea of the centrality of the dignity of the human person. Lawrence mentioned it three times, while Windsor and Obergefell both referred to it ten times. (more…)

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COVID-19: Present and Future Implications for Religious Groups, Individuals, and Society


This post is a transcript of remarks delivered at the BYU Religious Freedom Annual Review on 10 June 2020 by Michael O. Leavitt, Founder, Leavitt Partners,  Former Governor of Utah, and Former Secretary of Health and Human Services.  

A number of years ago, I was invited by a global corporation to participate in a daylong meeting. The subject was the future. It was attended by leading economists and futurists and a  handful of corporate leaders. Candidly, I felt a little awkward even being there. The meeting was held on the top floor of a building overlooking New York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty was in the distance. The moderator started the meeting by describing a hypothetical scenario. Pretend, he said, that theyear is 2015. This was 20 in 1999. He said, think as though you’re looking back over the last 15 years. What would the most surprising thing be that happened during that period of time? One of the participants began to respond with some smart thoughts about the future. A banker spoke of the paperless currency systems that would begin to emerge. An oil executive talked about tensions in the Middle East. A technologist began to talk about faraway reaches of digitalization. (more…)

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Why Religious Freedom Matters to Me


This post from Dr. Alaa Murabit is a transcript of her presentation delivered 17 June 2020, which opened the 2020 BYU Religious Freedom Annual Review. Dr. Murabit, a medical doctor from Canada, is UN High-Level Commissioner on Health Employment and Economic Growth

I am so honored to be speaking with you all today. And I wish I could have been there in person. Obviously, circumstances mean that we’re going to have this conversation virtually, but that doesn’t mean it has to be any less impactful. Now, for those of you who don’t know me very well, I’m Alaa Murabit, I’m a UN High Level Commissioner. I’m an SDG advocate. I’m a very new mom, which means I’m getting a lot less sleep than I would like. But, above and beyond everything else, I am a person of faith. I fundamentally view the world with a lens that accounts for mercy and love and compassion, and I view power in that lens as well. And so, when I was asked to come and speak about what religious freedom means, to me, I thought it was incredibly important for me to preface this with some context from my own life and my own upbringing, but also what I think we could potentially be doing better to ensure that religious freedom is, you know, is held for everyone. It’s not just for the select around the world. (more…)

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