When I was 15, my Grandma Joe cried as she read this story from the newspaper to me and my brothers and sisters. Seeing the story touch her helped it touch me. “I am a poor boy too” has been my favorite line from The Little Drummer Boy ever since.
Author: Matt Evans
I grew up in Salt Lake City, the oldest of seven kids. My parents divorced when I was 11, an experience that shaped my life in many ways. After graduating from Cottonwood High in 1991, I served a mission in southern Spain and north Africa. When I returned home I enrolled at Salt Lake Community College and soon married Lori Middleton, a friend from high school. After doing as much of my undergrad education as possible at SLCC, I transferred to the University of Utah and graduated with degrees in Political Science and Sociology. After Lori finished her Master's program we moved to Concord, Massachusetts, so I could attend Harvard Law School. Upon graduation I took a position at a large law firm in Washington DC and we moved to the Maryland suburb of Rockville (Derwood, actually). In 2003 my wife and I were pioneers in the nascent fetal imaging industry, an industry we recognized would shape public knowledge and attitudes about the human person before birth, and were featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, and many other media outlets. The industry is especially helpful to pro-lifers for chipping away at the conventional mindset that people begin at birth. After 8 years on the east coast we returned to Utah in 2006 so our kids could grow up near their extended family. We have six wonderful kids.
CTR Rings to be Banned in France?
As though Americans needed more evidence of the absurdity of France’s government, today Chirac proposed a law to ban students from wearing religious tokens in school. Chirac thinks this is a moral battle — his conscience leads him to prohibit Jewish boys from wearing yarmulkes at school: “In all conscience, I believe that the wearing of dress or symbols that conspicuously show religious affiliation should be banned in schools.”
Why Marriage Deserves Constitutional Protection
Maggie Gallagher’s response to conservatives who have expressed qualms about amending the constitution to define marriage is superb. She approaches the issue from two angles. First, on the federalism argument, she points out mundane matters that are part of the constitution, and wonders why these topics merit nationwide uniformity, rather than state-by-state experimentation, but that the fundamental institution of society is beneath the constitution. Second, she makes a passionate argument about the importance of marriage to civilization, and the devastating effects weakened marriage has and will have on our culture. Read the whole essay. By reminding me how high the stakes of the marriage debate are, she’s struck me with fear for our country.
What if Davis v Locke arose in Utah?
As I read Dahlia Lithwick’s coverage of the Davis v Locke oral argument, I wondered what approach the court and press would have taken had the case originated in Utah. Dahlia writes: [Justice Kennedy was] bothered by the fact that Davey had his scholarship revoked simply because he’d declared a double major in pastoral ministries and business administration. According to Kennedy, Davey could have just declared the business major, taken theology courses, and kept his funding. Kennedy asks, over and over, “What is the state interest in denying him funding simply because he declared a double major?” Finally Ruth Bader Ginsburg has to answer him: “I thought the interest was the state doesn’t want to fund the training of clergymen.” Lithwick clearly thought Ginsburg’s comment responsive to Kennedy’s concern. The Utah Wrinkle About 95% of Utah’s state legislature are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).