Paul Mero

We know of the cake maker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. There is a similar case where a cake maker refused to make a cake with an anti-gay message. And we have a recent case where a cake maker refused to make a cake with a Confederate flag on it.

Americans generally agree that laws ought not exist regarding the free exchange of goods, like cakes. While we’re increasingly fuzzy about the freedom of association, generally Americans agree that, when buying a cake, we have the liberty to make that economic exchange, regardless of what that cake looks like or tastes like. read more

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a problem with Uber. His problem is that Uber is putting the taxicab industry out of business and the cab unions, city contracts and partisan political arrangements are being tested.

If you don’t know what Uber is, it’s a free market alternative to traditional taxicabs. Here’s how it works: Uber is run from an app on your smart phone. You download the app, provide some basic information and a method of payment (either a credit card or a PayPal account). When you need a ride, you open the app on your phone. Through its own GPS navigation system, it knows where you are. You type in your destination and request a car. An Uber driver accepts your request and comes to pick you up. The driver takes you to your destination and you hop out – just like a taxicab. read more

My wife, Sally, and I recently were blessed with our twelfth grandchild. He’s so precious and we love him and the other eleven – and all the others that are sure to follow. Like our own six children, each of these twelve grandchildren is unique. Each is wonderfully different than the next. And I love them all.

But, I have to admit, contrary to common grandparent wisdom, I prefer my original six kids. Yes, the love we receive from our grandchildren is precious and heart-melting. Sally’s heart is big enough for all of them and more. Me? I like the ones I raised. I like their character. I hope our grandchildren follow in their footsteps – they likely will. But it’s not assured. read more

I’ve often wondered how freedom-loving people hold freedom-destroying ideas. Those familiar with my commentaries know I hold progressivism in disdain, both kinds of progressivism – the liberal left kind and the libertarian right kind. As long as I can remember in my profession I have tried to explain the problems with progressivism and how they get freedom all wrong. Perhaps the best explanation I’ve read in a long time comes from a new book titled, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Surprisingly, the author, Michael Sandel, is a Harvard political science professor – see, there’s hope yet. read more

When Catholic Pope Francis issued his latest encyclical titled, Praise Be, the Associated Press wrote, “Francis framed climate change as an urgent moral crisis…blaming global warming on an unfair, fossil-fuel based industrial model that harms the poor the most. The document…was a stinging indictment of big business and climate doubters.”

The encyclical, delivered June 18, contained over 37,000 words. Pope Francis allotted just over 1,300 words for a section titled “Pollution and Climate Change” – just over three percent of his remarks. If we analyzed his priorities in a word cloud, the term “climate change” is absent. That said, Pope Francis did address climate change. He condemned the modern world’s “throwaway culture,” an expression he also used to describe the modern scourge of abortion. read more

Anyone in the distance of my conservative voice for the past 15 years knows I want the federal government out of Utah’s education system. They also would know that I believe the Utah Constitution has a fundamental flaw regarding education. In Utah, education is the jointly held constitutional domain of the State Board of Education and the state Legislature – the former has “general control and supervision” of public education and the latter has power to fund and, hence, regulate it. This partnership is systemically dysfunctional and the ridiculous politics created by it have hampered Utah’s ability to address important student needs. read more

To Kill a Mockingbird is the finest piece of American fiction written in my lifetime. It’s also my favorite movie ever. The book’s author, Harper Lee, now nearly 90 years old, never published another one (though rumor has it we’ll see a second book this summer). Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and Harper Lee has been awarded nearly every literary award you can imagine.

The book is told through the voice of a young Southern girl in the middle of the Great Depression. It’s largely autobiographical. The young girl, Miss Jean Louise, nicknamed “Scout,” is a self-described tomboy living with her widowed father, Atticus Finch, an older brother Jem and a housekeeper, Calpurnia. Narrated over a period of three years, lots of friends and relatives come in and out of her life. read more

What comes to mind when you hear the word “repressed”? I naturally think of someone unable to express himself – perhaps someone being forced to live a lie. Hollywood liberals make a fortune uncovering what they view as repression. I remember attending a grueling three-day seminar hosted by the award-winning screenwriter Robert McKee. His mantra the whole seminar was “Tell the truth.”

Hollywood follows this mantra, even if it doesn’t always tell the truth. It sees human weakness as a constant, as a story to be told, as a noble admission of our vulnerabilities and, in that admission, as breaking free from social institutions of repression, like faith and family, or the inner institution of conscience. But Hollywood errs in thinking that human weakness is not only insurmountable but to be worshipped. Its truth is actually a lie. It worships a false god and all of its angels are fallen. read more

As the remaining Boston Bomber received a death sentence for his crimes, once again I am forced to ponder the morality and effectiveness of capital punishment.

A comedian from Texas once bragged that his state has an “express lane” to the gas chamber. And, here in Utah, the Legislature just passed and our Governor signed a bill reinstating the firing squad as a means of execution. I’d venture to guess that most people are okay with capital punishment and that most people easily invoke its final solution as an appropriate and effective means to address capital offenses such as murder. read more

Nearly a month ago, a Jewish political activist against the imposition of Sharia law in the United States and elsewhere held, what she labeled, an art contest and, for a $10,000 prize, invited artists to submit renditions of the Islamic prophet Mohammad. She was fully aware of what happened in Paris, France, when Islamic jihadists killed most of the journalistic staff of Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. She knew she was inciting at least an insult and maybe retaliation on par with Charlie Hebdo. She held the art contest to “show jihadis they won’t frighten us into silence.” read more