On the Square Today

Justin Dyer on the legacy of Baker v. Nelson :

In a pair of high-profile cases scheduled for oral argument in March, the Supreme Court of the United States will weigh in on the current political and legal debate about same-sex marriage. As novel as it all seems, the issue of same-sex marriage first came before the high court over four decades ago in the little-known case of Baker v. Nelson (1972). The case began when two male students at the University of Minnesota sued the clerk of the Hennepin County district court for refusing to grant them a marriage license. After a run through the Minnesota court system, the United States Supreme Court dismissed the case for “want of a substantial federal question.”

Also today, George Weigel on the rise of evangelical Catholicism :

For more than thirty years it’s been my privilege to explore the Catholic Church in all its extraordinary variety and diversity. I’ve traveled from inner-city parishes to the corridors of the Vatican; from the barrios of Bogotá to the streets of Dublin; across the United States and throughout Europe, Latin America, Oceania, and the Holy Land. I’ve spoken to Catholics of all states of life and stations in life, from popes and heads of state to cloistered nuns and campus ministers and literally thousands of clergy; with political activists of all stripes and the wonderful people of the parish in which I’ve lived for almost three decades; with modern Catholic confessors and martyrs and with men and women who are troubled in their faith.