Author: Michael Peabody

Between its inception in 1775 and 1912, postal employees delivered mail seven (7) days a week. In the early 1800s, religious leaders became concerned that employees were forced to work on the “Christian Sabbath,” or Sunday, and began to petition Congress to use its Article I powers to disallow Sunday delivery. This concern reached a fevered pitch in 1810 when Congress required post offices to open at least one hour on Sunday. Outraged that Congress had thus enforced Sunday desecration, religious leaders began to clamor for legislation that would outlaw Sunday operations.

During the brief window between the California Supreme Court’s decision finding a ban on same-sex marriage in violation of the California Constitution on May 15, 2008 and the ballot-initiative amending said constitution on November 5, 2008, Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer got married.

While same-sex marriages during this window period have been recognized in California since they were presumably “constitutional,” the newlyweds filed a case against the federal government in state court that was transferred upon motion of the federal government into federal court alleging that “the refusal of all states and jurisdictions” to recognize the validity of their marriage resulted in the denial of their marriage status by other states, and federal rights and benefits that other married couples received so long as they were of the opposite sex.

The keywords for today are “Secrecy” and “Transparency.” There are good secrets and bad secrets. Things to be concealed and things to be revealed. Some people want to know, others […]

On August 23, 2010, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that World Vision is a religious organization and is therefore exempt from Title VII prohibitions on religious discrimination. Three […]

In short, Judge Walker ruled based on the evidence presented, as any trial judge should, and regardless of his own personal sexual orientation or biases, Prop 8 supporters simply did not make a viable case for themselves. Sloganeering may have won the election but did not win a trial where real evidence was required. Prop 8 supporters may later look at the ruling and claim it was wrongly decided but as this essay points out, the reality is that they did a poor job presenting their evidence and only put two witnesses on the stand, both of whom had previously written statements that contradicted their testimony in favor of Prop 8. When both of these witnesses were neutralized, Prop 8 advocates had nothing left with which to prove their case and any effort by any judge to add in facts to uphold Prop 8 would have been the very definition of judicial activism.

I recently received a message from Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) calling on Christians to protest plans to build a mosque in Manhattan near […]

Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling holding that it was not unconstitutional for a public institution (Hastings University Law School) to require a institution-recognized […]

By Michael D. Peabody, Esq. – For over 25 years, the legal system has grappled with the question of what constitutes prima facie discriminatory conduct under Title VII of the Civil […]

Ryan Bell, pastor of the Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church talks with Michael Peabody about Glenn Becks’ recent controversial comments against “social justice Christians” and why Christians should work toward social justice.

SALEM, OREGON – On April 1, 2010, Governor Ted Kulongoski signed a bill (HB 3686) that will repeal Oregon’s 87-year-old ban on teachers wearing religious dress.