I stumbled upon this rather stunning rendition of Ave Maria by then Cardinal Wojtila (future John Paul II) in 1976 while perusing (as is my wont) the American Conservative. Somehow it seemed a fitting end to such a gay day:
To recap a little: Arizona governor Brewer vetoed the religious liberty bill earlier tonight on the grounds that it had “the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve,” while Texas governor, Rick Perry, after the ruling striking down Texas’ ban on marriage rights for gay couples, insisted that the feds should stay out:
Texans spoke loud and clear by overwhelmingly voting to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman in our Constitution, and it is not the role of the federal government to overturn the will of our citizens.
Meanwhile, Florida’s governor, Rick Scott said he’d veto a religious liberty bill identical to Arizona’s. And libertarian Wally Olson penned a helpful piece on how the Arizona law expands on the federal definition:
The Arizona bill pushes mini-Religious Freedom Restoration Acts into relatively new territory by specifying that it applies not just to “government” but to “state action” more broadly, the crucial difference being that it aims to insert a right to religious accommodation as a defense in litigation between private parties arising from state laws.
In other matters, today we covered what happens when you don’t know what a twat is; witnessed the beard craze seriously jumping the shark; checked in on the outfits of the Pope Emeritus; wondered what punctuation mark was the best for our online world; and witnessed yet another nasty ad hominem attack by Leon Wieseltier on yet another New Republic colleague – with the alleged editors of the magazine standing by.
The most popular post of the day was The Tiger Gets Hungrier; followed by Erick Erickson Has A Point.
See you in the morning.
The Dish 