Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica, and today's video is going to be our spring homeschool plans for Emily's fifth grade year. I'm a little bit sad because spring means that we've almost completed this year, and I'm not ready for her to be in middle school. But nonetheless, let's go ahead and talk about what our plans are for spring. Now, when I refer to spring, I am talking about March, April, and May. That will be the three months that we're doing most of what I'm showing you. And I also wanna go ahead and say that this is a plan and plans change, and we are really big on following her interest and her passions. So I might show you all of this, and we might do none of it, or we might do all of it. Who knows? But this is what I have planned for our spring semester in our homeschool. So again, that's March, April, and May, so the next three months. In the springtime, we absolutely love spending as much time outdoors as possible. In Florida, it gets ridiculously hot in the summer, so the more time we can spend outside in the spring, the better. So that is gonna be reflected in a lot of what you're gonna see here today, because we wanna be outside as much as we can while it's still tolerable and enjoyable. So the first thing that I'm going to be showing you is our unit study, because that influences a lot of things in our homeschool in each semester, and that is mini-beasts. So we will be spending a ton of time exploring all things bugs and creepy-crawly and getting outside as much as possible to observe them in their natural habitats, and we are so excited about that, because like I said, we love spending time outside. So this is going to be a big portion of what we're doing in the spring. This includes pretty much all of our science, a lot of our geography, some of our language arts, probably ends up being some of our math too. It's gonna be a little bit of everything. In addition to that, for language arts, Emily is going to be doing, well actually she's gonna be finishing her handwriting without tears. She literally has like, I think two pages left in this one. Yes, two pages left in the cursive handwriting, and so she's going to go ahead and move on to the cursive success book. Now I do wanna stop because if you are watching this thinking, oh, you need handwriting without tears or whatever, I just want to say something before we move on. Emily hated handwriting. Like I have pictures of her in kindergarten and first grade balling her eyes out with any and every handwriting curriculum we used. I promise you that handwriting without tears was most definitely with all the tears. And so I threw all handwriting books away, and we did not do handwriting at all until about a year ago, and Emily came to me and asked how she could learn to write prettier, how she could learn to write in cursive, how she could sign her name like me. And I said, well, you would need to learn cursive handwriting for that. And I said, there's a couple different ways we can do it. And she said, well, I saw these books in your office, which is where I keep all the excess homeschool curriculum. And I had these because when I bought handwriting without tears, I bought everything. I bought it all because I was like, yes, no tears. That's what I want. So I bought the whole thing. So these were on the shelf, and there's a cursive Kickstarter too that she's done that was on the shelf. She's like, I saw these books in your office and I think I want to try them. And so she started doing them. Now, the minute that she comes to me and she tells me I'm done or I don't really want to do them anymore, it is not something that I'm requiring. I did want her to learn to read cursive. That was very important to me because I wanted her to be able to read our historic documents. But as far as actual like a structured handwriting curriculum, it was not important to me. It was definitely not important enough to enter the tears that we were going through. So I say that because I want you to know that it's not something I would have pushed. It's not like my plans for our homeschool. It's something that she really wanted to do and therefore we're doing it. So that's where we're at with handwriting. And then for other parts of language arts, like writing, I really like to do things that are real world and free writing and creative versus just learning like this is how you write a paragraph. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I really want her creative voice to come through and real world writing that's important versus the structure because I remember that we were taught one way to write in high school and then I went to college and I was taught another way to write. Then I went on to go to a bachelor's and get my bachelor's in business and it was like, oh no, you can't write like that and now you have to write like this. And I learned all of them when I needed to learn them. So I want her to be able to write and know what that voice is versus the structure of it and like knowing what that is. So some of the ways I do that is by encouraging writing in all different forms. The newest and funnest addition that she has really been enjoying is this Ghostwriter book. It is Kwame Alexander, which she's read some of his books and love them, Freerite and it's a poetry notebook. So she's really been enjoying this. It's just kind of like, let me see if I can show you. Like little poetry based activities and it's all kind of comes back to and references a lot of Kwame's books like The Crossover. So she's really been enjoying doing that. We still do mail time frequently. We don't do it every Monday anymore but it still happens very frequently in our homeschool. So we read subscription letters. She writes to friends and family. She absolutely loves it. And then we also still journal very frequently. This has been something that has been a new addition to our homeschool and I grabbed mine, not hers, but I'll show you an example of a spread just so that you can kind of see what it is. We journal, we kind of scrapbook. That's just a fun way for us to connect. Again, that real world writing, it's personal writing and she's had a blast. We both have had a really, really fun time doing that. And then she is going to continue to take book club classes with Mary Hannah Wilson. She loves those. She is going to stay in them probably forever. She's already looking forward to the summer book and the movie classes that Mary's gonna be doing. And so for the spring, the three book clubs that she's gonna be taking with her are for the books by the Great Hornspoon, Elijah of Buxton and Restart. And then for math, we are going to be doing a little bit of wild math. This is all outdoor math based. I actually think I have a look through video of maybe the first grade or second grade when we used it. So I'll link that for you guys. But it's all like getting outdoors and doing your math outside, which like I said, we love spending time in the spring outdoors. And so I thought this would be the perfect way to get some math done outside. We'll also be pairing it with math in the garden, which this is a book I've had forever, but it's so much fun. And so Kevin and her will be doing a lot of these activities together when they do some gardening. And I do want to come back to the wild math and say that this is basically an entire year curriculum. We will not do the entire thing. I will pick and choose based off of things I either want her to cover or things I know she needs to review with. And we will just do them outside, fun in nature, versus indoor inside in our homeschool room, like we would normally do math. So I'm just kind of basically subbing it out. We will not like do the whole thing in three months.  Now also for math, we will be using teaching textbooks still. I really, really enjoy that for on the go when we're traveling or when we need, well, when I need to not have to teach or when Kevin needs to not have to teach if there's just some time that we are really, really busy or we're sick or whatever. It's nice to have that as a backup to be able to say, hey, can you just go get some math done on teaching textbooks or hey, we're traveling and I don't want to take all this curriculum with us. Let's get some math done that way. We also use night zookeeper the same way for language arts. I didn't mention that, but we use it the same way. It's great for if she wants to do more school because sometimes she'll want to do something else and we're done, you know, like our brains can't work anymore, we're done for the day and so she'll utilize teaching textbooks or night zookeeper then she utilizes them a lot when we're on the go. If Kevin and I are just like we don't feel good or we're sick, but she still wants to do school that day. So we always keep those two in our back pocket they're some of our absolute favorites. So those are in there too. And then once or twice a week, Kevin does a steam class with Emily and so he likes to do a little bit of a math kind of like started off with a math problem or a math activity. And currently some of their favorites are bedtime math. We actually use these when she was really little and we haven't used them in a while.  So she's loving the bedtime math again. She is absolutely loving the Mathological Liar. These have been a favorite for two or three years now. She loves it when they start their steam life with these because it's kind of like a case to solve. And then her newest favorite is Pim Dice which is a order of operation dice game. Now sometimes they'll play the game other times he will just roll the dice and have her make an order of operation problem. Just kind of like I said to kick start their lesson off. Either way, she absolutely loves them. So that is some of our math favorites. Now let's talk about subscriptions because that is a big part of our homeschool. I was just talking about Kevin doing steam with Emily and that is like a big part of what they do during their steam. He does a math problem. They might go over something that she's having some trouble with and they'll review and then typically they do some sort of steam subscription box together. So I'm gonna show you the subscription boxes that we are currently getting that we're gonna continue to get through this spring. We change them up a little bit every semester just to have something new. We are now getting almost the entire Mel Science line because we love their boxes so much. So we're getting their art of math boxes which I guess is technically math but it goes with steam and I'm excited to see what that's going to do for them. We are also getting their physics box and we are still getting their chemistry box. So that is three, I guess it's not their entire line. They have a younger one too but that's three of their lines that we get in love. We also are still getting the Kiwi Eureka crate. We've gotten the Tinker crate in the past but she wanted something a little bit more advanced. So we get the Eureka crate. I don't know that Emily could do the Eureka crate by herself because I think it's like a 13 or 14 plus but with Kevin's help, they definitely get it done together. So keep that in mind. The age is probably closer to what it actually says just because Emily's 10. I don't know that I would get it for a 10 year old to do independently. We recently also added on the Crunch Lab boxes which they've done two of which so far and they've really enjoyed both of them. We haven't done more than that. I'll let you know how we continue to feel about it but it seemed like a really great addition. They were going through boxes faster than I could get them in even at three or four boxes a month if they did more than one a week. It was like they didn't have enough to get through a month. So we added another one for them to do. And then as a family, we have been enjoying the history boxes. So this is history unboxed. It is a really, really great history subscription. The one in my hand happens to be Ancient Egypt. This is actually an empty box because we've already done this one but we got the ancient history kind of like the whole thing. So they send one a month or you can get them all at one time. It depends on how you want to pay for them. And it has two or three activities in it. It's absolutely wonderful. I have a look inside video for a lot of these subscription boxes. So I will link them all for you. And if you want to see inside any of the ones I don't have yet, let me know in the comments. And then our last kind of oldie but goldie, this one has been around forever. It's one of our family favorites and it's Universal Yums. We love being able to try snacks from all around the world, sit around the table. We normally have a game night and we eat all of the snacks while we're having a game night. It is just so much fun. I don't see that subscription ever going anywhere. And then one I don't have a box for because Emily literally rips it to shreds every time it comes in is the My Zoo box. She is an animal lover and so she absolutely loves that box as well. And then the last thing that I want to share with you guys are the classes that she's taking. So I talked to you about the book club. So in addition to book club, she's also taking Lego class that is three weeks out of the month and that's online. And she absolutely adores Miss Bethany which is who teaches it. She's been taking those with her. Since 2020 because they started during the pandemic. She takes, like I said, the book club with Miss Mary and then she also takes a zoo club class kind of thing at our local-ish zoo. When I say local, it's still like an hour and 20 minutes away but the closest zoo to us and that class is once a month. And she was taking an art class in person but she decided that she wasn't enjoying that because she felt like it was a little more craft than art and kind of kitty. And so Kevin and I signed up for Masterpiece Society and we are all as a family taking classes with them. So we're doing the drawing 101 and the watercolor 101 classes with them. Currently we do those about once a week. So those are the classes that she slash we are taking this spring. And because I said that we wanted to spend as much time outdoors this spring as possible, I did actually go and kind of scour my shelves and pull a few books that were activity-based so that we could spend time out there doing activities together as a family or that I could give her activities to do, strew them, whatever will be. So if you were looking to also spend as much time outdoors and the spring as possible, I thought I would share these books with you. So the first one is the Thousand Hours Outside Activity Book. I absolutely love Jenny, she's amazing. So I got that to support her. It's low-tech nature activities for a high-tech world. Then we have the Usborne Outdoor Book. This one is Inspiring Ideas for Discovery and Exploring the Outdoors. And then the last one I pulled off the shelf was the Never Get Board Outdoors. We love the Never Get Board series so I thought the outdoor one would be perfect. So that is our plans for spring. We are going to try to spend as much time outside as possible doing as many things as we can. I'm sure our journaling will include some nature. Our unit study is definitely gonna be outside with all of the bugs and creepy-crawly nature as possible. We're gonna be doing some wild outdoor math, like gardening, all of the outdoor springy things that we can do while we have that great weather. And now I would love it if you would tell me what your spring homeschool plans are. Is the weather great where you're at in the spring? Are you still kind of suffering through some winter? Do you bundle up through the next few months?  I would love it if you would tell me. What is your weather like? What is your homeschool gonna be like and what are your plans?


Good morning to the community of aerial solutions, it's the third day of the intergeo and I want to present you some thoughts slides about how to create a digital twin. First of all, one short information about the cooperation between DJI and GlobeFlight. GlobeFlight is the general distributor for the DJI Enterprise products in Germany and Austria and we have a very strong cooperation with DJI and work very strong together and very successful and with our more or less 100 resellers in both countries, we make the business of DJI Enterprise products. Okay, that's all for the introduction. Now we have two major tasks and for the surveying society that we have discussed into the UAV section. One is BIM, the Building Information Modelling and how to create the data for the BIM process and one is upcoming and special here in Germany is a question of a digital twin, not for the machine manufacturer, that's a complete other discussion more or less here for the urban space and here the product in the UAV section is upcoming to a very important solution how to create the digital twins and in the discussion here at the interview we discussed already three major points one is the point how is the accuracy and how many how is the requirements of the accuracy for a digital twin, what level of detail what is needed for a digital twin in an urban space and at which intervals have we updated the digital twins is it in the last time when we start the aerial surveying solution we started with five years with six years and actually it's more or less three years and it's increasing for the next year so I expect that we talk about one year update or an update when a building was built and here we have three different possibilities to create the digital twin one is the terrestrial laser scanning and the mobile mapping that creates a very high size of information in a very short time but these both solution is very limited in a high above the ground you know it as a specialist that you can use this to solutions at a height of maybe 20 meters then it's over and what's about all the information in the urban space what is above 20 meters and here the UAV is the best solution to create the data that we need and here the UAVs are a very good solution because it's simple to use large areas can be covered in a very short time the flight times are increasing so you can reach a very large area in a very short time and with new payloads that I will present today to you you have a more detailed information with only one flight and here I will show you two two major projects from our side and the general problem here that are the regulations from the aviation authority that is a little bit bumping here the possibilities of UAV using in Europe today I will show you at first a project with a share camera with an oblique camera that we expect in a very important way for creating a diggleted twin in the urban space the oblique camera has this special thing that they have five camera and you make five images at one point of flying and we tested here in Germany in a mid-sized town in in in Hessen near Kassel it's a community of Biber, Hof Biber and this town needs some more information for urban plannings, for flood protection plannings and for heavy rain simulations they need the digital twin to do this job and we have a special partner there who is creating the digital twin and I want to show you a small flight here we have the area of five square kilometers with more than 40 000 images from this oblique camera and the flight time was one working day that was quite easy and we need a processing time with DJI Terra around about 30 hours and I can show you a little results the first results of this project and I have a laser beam up perfect here you see a very detailed information about the town and you see here the colors are very good and I marked three or four areas that is very special when you use an oblique camera because you can collect more information for a vertical for all vertical walls and you see here a very the laser is not working it's a screen that's normal you see at the rooftops at the corner of the roof it's very clear very precise to collect when we looked at the church you see a lot of details and in the vertical walls of the church and very detailed that's only one one flight at around about 100 meters about above ground yeah okay that's okay the rest of the present I have to try to explain a little bit only with words because the technical failed um we see ah okay it's back but it's not back okay you see it very very detailed that is was with a one lens solution what not not possible okay I try the second solution I want to present to you was um our completely new L2 our new LiDAR from DJI that we released at Tuesday and here I can show you the first results also from a construction site but we have to postpone that please come to our booth at Hall 27 then I can show you the data also in real time and then we can discuss all the things that you want to ask and we see with this simple solutions that we can increase all the questions and we can answer the questions round about how to collect the data from a digital twin okay with with all the presentation I'm a little bit limited so thank you very much for joining for for visiting us and I'm with the first speaker I'm in time I see and I hand over to the next presenters


Hello everyone, this is Melissa Armand, I'm reviewing Google. This was an option trade that I gave last week and it's running up into the strike today. It was out till this coming Friday. It's an option trade I said to buy the Google 940 calls and it's working. In fact, this ran up this morning to 9.38.25, but it looks great. Why does it look great? Well, first let's go to the market. Even at the market, the market just made another brand new all-time high today in the queues. Let's look at the spy. The spy ran up today and got over the high as well. Not a lot, but somewhat enough and it's holding. Again, I've been saying all along, we really need to kind of gap up over the high. So who knows if we do that tomorrow or not.  Today, if you did this trade that I called last week, you're up on it. You could get out today or you could hold it for the follow-through because you've got time. The strike is 9.40, but if you took it where I called it last week and got in it, you have a price where you are up now in the trade. So why did I call this last week? Reading the overall chart, reading the follow-through, reading that it's higher, reading the gap ups, reading the bullish gaps in the chart, sometimes these things take a little bit of time. In other words, if you did it on Friday, you were up in the trade but you're up more money today. What you want to do when you exit an option trade is if you're in a call, you want to exit into the momentum up and if you're in a put to the downside, you want to exit into a red day down. So you could get out of Google today. This really is running up here into the first target and now are left and this could continue up through the previous high this morning and get up to 9.38, 9.39, 9.40. If you want a bigger move in this, you'd have to hold it. But this would be a first exit on this here today. So it's very interesting the way that I've been looking at gaps, the bullish gaps and the bearish gaps and following all of them and making the calls for the day trades and the option trades as well. Google was another one. Amazon went first on Friday. Google kind of rested Friday. Amazon made the pop Friday. Now Google was falling through today. So sometimes they take their turns. Congratulations to people that did this call in the letter. Another nice solid call that went immediately profitable for the option trade. If you'd like to sign up for the options letter, email me at molestedthestockswush.com and if you'd like to sign up for my golden gap course, you can learn how to take care of yourself and get the calls with me being in the room. Email me at molestedthestockswush.com. The class is this weekend, May 20th and 21st. Have a great day everyone.


The global terrorist threat is constantly evolving, but what we've seen in recent times is terrorist groups working together, exchanging information, collaborating. So what were once isolated groups now are far more dangerous because of that knowledge spread. Interpol's the only organisation bringing 190 member countries from around the world together to make one platform where we can address these threats. That's probably more important than it's ever been in this globalised environment. What the conference has done over the last three days is bring over 270 participants together from over 120 countries. So Interpol is really providing a global platform where these experts can come together and build strategies that transcend borders. As we know criminals, terrorists, borders are becoming more meaningless every day to them. So essentially this is the only strategy that I think in the long term can be successful. This Interpol conference builds towards the global nuclear summit that's going to take place at the end of March in Washington. This is one of a series of events from different disciplines bringing together knowledge in this case from law enforcement professionals about investigating nuclear smuggling or responding to incidents and operations to bring that expertise together. So when the 52 litres from around the globe meet at the end of March in Washington they'll be in the best position possible to make good recommendations and decisions about the way to counter this threat.


Immediately what comes to your mind when I do this is both of you. You'll both know what to do. You ready? Potato boy of the nation sticking with you. Yeah, that's the great intro It's I'm Corbin This is where you were gonna say in honor of independence day. We are going to watch a video I know it's called Indian independence 1947 pre-independence history of India educational video awesome I believe this is meant for children. So that'll be our level perfect 100% but I wanted to react to some actual history of the independence of Indian liking this day opening frame with the saffron burnt Yeah, well that is their flag Here we go The British finally declared that India will be granted independence In 1947 the Muslim League launched direct action day It's purpose was to convey that an undivided India would no longer be possible on June 3rd 1947 Lord Mark Button the last British Governor General in India announced the partitioning of India into a secular India and Muslim Pakistan on August 14th 1947 Pakistan was declared as a separate nation with Muhammad Ali Jinnah as its leader on August 15 1947 at the stroke of midnight India was declared an independent This joyous period was also scarred with violent clashes between Hindus Muslims and Sikhs At least thousand people were said to have been killed during this period Around 11 million Hindus Muslims and Sikhs crossed borders in the midst of all this confusion and bloodshed Prime Minister Javaghelaan Nehru Requested Lord Mark Button to continue as a governor general until the next year when he would be replaced by Raj Gopal Shari The year following independence Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated The entire nation mourned his death Two years following Gandhi's death the constitution of India was drafted and on 26th January 1950 the Republic of India was proclaimed The state of Goa still remained under Portuguese rule even after independence I didn't know that However, on December 19th 1961 it was annexed to India when the Indian Army backed by the Air Force And did the Portuguese rule Tell you what, those were my favorite kind of classes that happened when I was in school I love those little animations Yeah, we could go to animation If the teacher said we're gonna watch a movie, I was in heaven That's when you know they didn't prepare anything for the day True Yeah, you were thrilled, the lights were out and it was time to watch a movie I learned, that's what I learned the most in was when it was told to me through film I thought I took a nap I know you probably didn't do it but actually you guys were homeschooled, right? Oh yeah Okay, because I know in public school like in science class like when they didn't have anything to put on Bill Nye And it was like the best day Science rules So here you go, I did not know that about Goa So I would assume that maybe Goa does their celebration of their independence in 61 Or did they just embrace the reality of them being a part of India and they celebrate the August 15th of 1947 I don't know Those of you who live in that region would know We still need to see Goa Goa gone Yeah, I don't think that's about this though Yeah, I know, I'm pretty sure that's a common common Well, all I know is that it crucial to Indian independence was the work of the zombies Was that Bose? I don't know, you asked me that already, deja vu I thought they said his name How did they say Sikh? They said it, they said Sikh Did they say it wrong or did she say it wrong? It struck me I'm pretty Oh man, I'll be very bothered It's my understanding in fact when she said Sikh It bothered me because I thought And I'm pretty sure it's Sikh I always assume if I hear something that I'm saying it wrong Of course But I remember with Kassari It was over and over again we were paying attention to that and learning about their pride and their great history So it means a lot to me If I've been since that time saying Sikh Then it's Sikh That would make me Sikh No pun intended And I know a big part of the Do you guys know? Because you might know The correct pronunciation I've always heard it as Sikh I think the accent then would ever made that So I think it's Also if there's wrong information in this I apologize I didn't make it And you didn't see it So if there's wrong information Please forgive us And just let us know I'd like to know Were you guys aware Were you aware of India's history Prior to our stupid reactions in terms of Having a partition in 1947 Yeah I didn't Pakistan was a part of India at one point I knew that Pakistan had been a part of India I just had no idea when that took place And I did not know anything about Everything that took place with Kashmir No clue Yeah absolutely none And any other world leader in India Other than Gandhi Can you name any other Responsible for India's independence See? And once again I know that Gandhi wasn't the We're bringing this up for those of you new to the channel In the recognition of before we started this channel We're like most Americans where all of the credit Was given to Gandhi And we learned very quickly how wrong that is And he was a contributor But Many rightfully so In India said hey you guys need to know about everybody else There were some people that were way more instrumental He wasn't Uninstrumental But he's all we get here When we talk about India's independence I think that was the Bose guy Because it looked like him The actual independence of India And we know there's way more Of the independence than we just saw I was hoping the video was a little longer A little more in depth Sorry about that It was cute I hope it was all correct Information and that was cool to learn about Goa I didn't know that either I knew that the Brits Ruled India And that's the extent They ruled everybody They ruled them You can know about every country's independence If they've had it They were once governed by England Contemporary world That's basically the gist of it That's the extent Of it I knew of Gandhi I've known for a while now That Pakistan was a part of India Years Before Pakistan had been a part of And that reminds me of Remember the commercial we reacted to Way back when we were first learning about the stuff And it was that commercial I guess it was brothers who had been separated By the line of partition The ones in Pakistan and India And then reuniting for the first time And that was because of the divide It was the partition They called that the partition That line of demarcation between the two sides In fact I told people that When they were in America and they were like Really Pakistan was part of India Yeah like recently guys Like recent history Like really recent But you know American education system Always at the top Ready Micah? Go with me on this one And say immediately what comes to your mind when I do this Both of you Potato


How did we get so politically divided? Well, it's not because both sides have gotten more extreme. Look, I got my start at American politics 50 years ago. My political views then, to grossly simplify them, were that I was against the Vietnam War and the military industrial complex, strongly supportive of civil and voting rights, and against the power of big corporations. That put me here, just left of the center. Back then, the political spectrum from left to right was short. The biggest political issue was the Vietnam War. The left was demonstrating against it, sometimes violently. Since I was committed to ending the war through peaceful political means, I volunteered for George McGovern, the anti-war presidential candidate. Even Richard Nixon on the right was starting to look for ways out of Vietnam. 25 years later, I was in Bill Clinton's cabinet, and the left-to-right political spectrum stretched much longer. The biggest change was how much further right the right had moved. Ronald Reagan had opened the political floodgates to corporate and Wall Street money, bankrolling right-wing candidates and messages that decried big governments. Bill Clinton sought to lead from the center, but by then the center had moved so far right that Clinton gutted public assistance, enacted tough-on-crime policies that unjustly burdened the poor and people of color, and deregulated Wall Street. All of which put me further to the left of the center, although my political views had barely changed. Today, the spectrum from left to right is the longest it's been in my 50 years in and around politics. The left hasn't moved much at all. We're still against the war machine, still pushing for civil and voting rights, fighting the power of big corporations. But the right has moved far, far rightward. Donald Trump brought America about as close as we have ever come to fascism. He incited an attempted coup against the United States. He and most of the Republican Party continue to deny that he lost the 2020 election. And they're getting ready to suppress votes and disregard election outcomes they disagree with. So don't believe the fear-mongering that today's left is radical. What's really radical is the right's move toward fascism.


What I want to do is talk about some material from my recent book, Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. And that's a funny title in a way, unlike the book that I had done debating same-sex marriage where you have people in favor of same-sex marriage, you have people against same-sex marriage. It seems that everybody's in favor of religious liberty and everybody's against discrimination, at least in the morally laden sense, morally negative sense of the term discrimination. But in the United States right now, and not just in the United States, there are a number of conflicts around religious liberty, and particularly cases where people in virtue of wishing to exercise their religious liberty engage in behaviors thought to be discriminatory. And so what I want to do is just talk to you about three of those cases. The Kim Davis case, she was a Kentucky clerk who did not want to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after our Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. The Hobby Lobby case, that involved a large corporation that wanted an exemption from the Affordable Care Act's mandate to provide certain contraceptive coverage amongst its other forms of health insurance coverage. And the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which involved a baker who did not wish to make wedding cakes for a same-sex couple. That case is currently before the Supreme Court in a few weeks. They will hear oral arguments, December 5th, those are scheduled. And sometime in the spring, the Supreme Court will be deciding that case. But it's interesting that so many of these cases right now seem to have this form, particularly with respect to same-sex marriage, but more generally with people who do not wish to serve or do not wish to support or be complicit in activities that they morally oppose. Because at least at its best, the history of religious liberty in the United States and in Western democracies more generally has been a history of aiming for greater inclusion. And in fact, two of the cases that we tend to talk about is the high watermark of religious liberty jurisprudence in the United States are good examples of that. Sherbert versus Werner, 1963, involved a seventh-day Adventist, Adele Sherbert, who was working at a textile mill, and her job requirements changed in such a way that required her to work on Saturdays. And she was a Saturday Sabaterian. She believed that Saturday was a Sabbath. She could not work on Saturdays. She applied for unemployment benefits with the state of South Carolina. And the state of South Carolina said, sorry, you're not available for work on Saturdays. You can't collect unemployment benefits if you're not available for work. And this went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina was treating her unfairly. They were interfering with her religious liberty. And one important thing about that case is that South Carolina quite explicitly said that nobody can be required to work on Sunday. And yet here they were saying that in order to be eligible for unemployment benefits, you had to be willing to work on Saturday. And so this seemed to be a case of religious discrimination, religious exclusion, and the court ruled in her favor. A few years later, Yoder versus Wisconsin, a case involving the Amish. In the United States, generally speaking, you must attend school through the 10th grade. The Amish wanted to take their children out of school at the 8th grade. So they wanted to take them out two years earlier than was legally required. And the court ruled in a somewhat complicated decision that the Amish should be allowed to do that as part of their religious liberty in order to preserve their special agrarian way of life. And you look at these cases, and at first glance you think, well, it's nice. We want to be more inclusive. People observe the Sabbath in different ways. People who live their lives in different ways live a more sort of farming lifestyle. But even these cases, these cases that are often brought forth as examples of the court doing good things for religious liberty, raise questions about what I sometimes call religious privilege. Cases where religious people are being given exemptions from laws where comparable secular claims would not be eligible. And these two cases in particular, Adele Sherbert was told that she did not have to be available for work on Saturday if that was her day of worship. But the court also said quite explicitly that if she had a non-religious reason that she couldn't be available for work, for example, if she couldn't get childcare on Saturday, that would not count as a good reason. And that strikes me as problematic as, wait a second, that seems to me just as legitimate a reason as the reason of going to church. Why is it that one has to have a religious reason in order to be legitimately, quote, unquote, unavailable for work regarding unemployment benefits? Yoda versus Wisconsin. On the one hand, the Amish is a gentle, peace-loving people. They have a nice way of life farming. On the other hand, why should one have to be farming and having that particular lifestyle for religious reasons in order to get this exemption? That's one concern I have. The other concern I have about Yoda is that we have reasons generally for requiring people to be in school through the 10th grade, usually through the 12th grade, but at least until the 10th grade. And the idea was, well, given their agrarian way of life, it's not really that important for these students to stay in school that long. And I say, well, that's fine, assuming they choose to remain in the Amish way of life. But what if some of these students eventually, these young people eventually decide, you know what, this lifestyle is not for us. We want to go out into the rest of the world and then are unprepared for that because their education has been cut short. So religious liberty, even in cases that look good at first glance, raises complicated questions about where the line is between religious liberty on the one hand and religious privilege on the other. So let me look now at the three cases I said I wanted to talk to you about. And I'm going to try to keep this relatively short so that we have lots of time for questions and discussion. Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis, this is a 2015 case. 2015 is when the U.S. Supreme Court extended legal marriage to same-sex couples across the country, including states like Kentucky, very conservative state. Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. When a same-sex couple came to her, she told them they could go to another county, even though that was quite a drive away, and cited her religious beliefs in that refusal. Not only did she refuse to issue the marriage licenses, she would not allow her deputy clerks to do so because, she pointed out, her name was still at the bottom of the form because she was the county clerk. A lot of people say, well, Kim Davis just needs to do her job or resign, and eventually this went to court, and the court ordered her to issue the marriage licenses or resign. And she refused to do so. She actually went to jail for a few days while she was in jail. The deputy clerk started issuing the licenses. Eventually, after a new governor was elected, the form was changed so that the clerk's name no longer has to appear at the bottom of the form, so that people like Kim Davis could retain their position without having to have their name on marriage licenses with which they disagree. And here she is. This is, like I said, she was in jail for a couple of days. Here she is after she got out of jail with her attorney from Liberty Council there on her right. And with Mike Huckabee, who is a well-known conservative radio host, he was a presidential candidate on the left, and they had this big rally and they played Eye of the Tiger and it was all because they were arguing that, you know, Kim Davis had been unfairly persecuted. And this was a case Huckabee called it the criminalization of Christianity in the United States. Now, it's interesting to me that in our book, my counterpoint authors don't exactly say that Kim Davis should have been given a free pass at the time. What they argue is that the solution of taking the clerk's name off the license is a good example of a win-win solution because same-sex couples can get the marriage licenses that they want and need and people like Kim Davis do not have to be complicit in a form of marriage that they find morally wrong. And it seems hard to argue if it's genuinely a win-win kind of solution, how can we argue with that? But I actually have some concerns about it. And the concerns I have about it are partly due to the fact that Kim Davis is a public official and as a public official is charged with administering the law as the law is written, not administering the law as she thinks it ought to be. But more generally, my problem has to do with making accommodations in cases where we recognize the particular desire of the state actor to be discriminatory. And let me give you a related example when I talk about this a little bit in the book. 2009 case involving Justice of the Peace, Keith Bardwell. He was a Louisiana Justice of the Peace. And Bardwell was morally opposed to interracial marriage. He claimed that he had nothing against black people. In fact, he said, I have piles and piles of black friends. He told this to a reporter. Piles. He actually said this. He just thought that interracial marriage was wrong. So anytime an interracial couple would come to his courthouse, he would just quietly step aside and have another Justice of the Peace step in and do the marriage. Now, one thing to notice about that case is he actually caused less of a third-party burden than Kim Davis did. He didn't get in the way of anybody marrying. He didn't say you have to drive to another county to get a marriage license. He just stepped aside and let somebody else do it. And yet at the time he was rightly pressured to resign. Why? Well, again, I think it's partly because he was refusing to administer the law as the law was written, but also because we recognize that the view behind his refusal is an unjustly discriminatory view and not one that we want to aid or abet or make room for by changing our licensing system by creating some kind of exemption. So that Keith Barwell case is a real-life case. You can also think of a number of hypothetical cases of, for example, a clerk who does not want to issue marriage licenses to people who have been divorced and want to remarry. Or how about a very conservative Muslim clerk who does not want to issue marriage licenses to any woman who comes into the court if they're not fully covered with a burqa? I bet you Mike Huckabee is not going to be holding a rally and talking all about the denial of religious freedom in our country in a case like that. You can think of a number of different cases where a clerk might want to or take a Brahmin clerk who says, look, I don't want to issue licenses to these untouchable Dalits. Will you change the licensing system so that I don't have to have my name on this license? And I think we would say no in all those cases. So this is a case, I think, where just because we can offer an accommodation, it doesn't follow that we should. And in Kim Davis' case, I would not have for the reasons I just stated. Okay. Second case I want to talk about, the Hobby Lobby case. Hobby Lobby is a chain of craft stores. I don't know what you would have here that would be roughly equivalent to that. But they sell craft products and picture frames and paint and construction paper and things that you sort of make crafting. And they have hundreds of stores around the country and they have thousands of employees in these stores. And as you may know, under President Obama, the U.S. introduced something called the Affordable Care Act, which was a way to ensure greater insurance coverage, health insurance coverage for Americans. And one of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act was that if you operated a company of a certain size, you had to provide a full range of health insurance options to your employees, and that included contraceptive coverage. And the owners of Hobby Lobby announced that they did not want to pay for certain contraceptives, particularly things like the morning after pill, which they said prevents implantation and thus, in their view, acts as a kind of abortive fashion. The morning after pill is not classified as an abortive fashion by most mainstream doctors in the United States. It's not like something like RU 486. It simply makes it less likely that the zygote is going to implant. But in any case, the owners of Hobby Lobby saw that as a form of abortion. They did not want to provide that insurance coverage for their employees. And they went to court appealing to something called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This was a federal law passed in 1993. It was passed actually in the wake of a case involving a Native American who wished to use peyote as part of his Native American religious rituals and who lost his job because he then tested positive for mescaline, which is a hallucinogen that's in peyote, and was denied unemployment benefits by the state of Oregon. And this went all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled against him and said, look, the laws against peyote are not directed toward any particular religion. They are there for the common good. You broke the law. If Oregon wants to change this law, that's Oregon's business. But we're not going to give you an exemption here. And in response, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the relevant provision of which says, the government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion unless applying the law to that person is the least restrictive means for furthering a compelling government interest. So if there is a less restrictive way of furthering this interest, or if the interest is not a particularly compelling interest, we cannot apply the law to this person. We have to grant an exemption. And Hobby Lobby appealed to this law. It was the first time a corporation had appealed to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and of course, people asked the question, wait a second, how is it that a large company that sells craft paper and paint and so on can exercise religion? But under US law, corporations are persons, and the court ruled in Hobby Lobby's favor, decided that yes, for the purposes of RFRA, Hobby Lobby counted as a person. And that there was, in fact, a less restrictive way for the government to serve its compelling interest of providing health insurance, including contraceptive coverage to women, namely that the government could pay for those contraceptives itself or the insurance company could create some kind of separate rider and the insurance company could pay for them so that Hobby Lobby did not have to pay for them. And the idea was that this was supposed to be, again, a sort of win-win, a seamless way for the women to get their contraceptive coverage and for Hobby Lobby not to have to be complicit in the use of contraceptives that it thought were evil. One thing I think is important to note about this case is that while the court said that the government could pay or the insurance company could pay, the fact that somebody could pay doesn't mean that somebody will pay. And unfortunately, because of partisan politics, it took quite some time for the women, the employees of Hobby Lobby to get the contraceptive coverage that supposedly was going to be so seamlessly and easily provided to them. So there was, in fact, a third-party burden created by the court's decision in this case. But the other thing I think it's important to note is that here is a case where we see religious privilege and we see religious privilege in two ways. One is that by citing religion, Hobby Lobby's owners were able to get an exemption that other owners who did not have such religious beliefs would not be able to get. So suppose you disagreed with certain forms of contraceptives for natural law reasons and you did not have, let's say you were not a religious believer, maybe you're an atheist or an agnostic, but for natural law reasons you were against these contraceptives. You would not be able to appeal to RIFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But Hobby Lobby was able to appeal to this because it cited religious reasons. And so were other companies, including, for example, Eden Foods, another major corporation in the United States, where interestingly, some time later, the owner in an interview said, look, I don't care whether the government is asking me to buy contraceptives for my employees or Jack Daniels. That's not the government's business to make me pay for that. Which suggested that the objection was not genuinely a religious objection, rather it was an objection to the Affordable Care Act itself. It's an idea, look, I don't want to have to pay for health insurance and here's one way that I don't have to pay for it. So just by citing a religious reason, the business owners could then do an end-run around a law that they did not like. And this is one way in which I think religious privilege arises in these cases because religious business owners and only those who can plausibly claim to be religious business owners can do that. I don't think anybody should be doing it, but under the current Riffer regime, only religious business owners can do it. But there's another way that I think that this case demonstrates a kind of religious privilege. This is a little bit harder to establish because it involves certain hypotheticals. But here we have a case where a business owned by evangelical Christians in a country that, at least traditionally, has been majority Protestant Christian. Puts forth an appeal based upon these objections and the court in a very narrow decision sides with them. Suppose, however, we had a Jehovah's Witness business owner who did not want to provide insurance that included blood transfusions because Jehovah's Witnesses oppose blood transfusions. Well, you could make the same kind of argument. The government could pay for the blood transfusions, the insurance company could have a separate writer for the blood transfusions. Would the court have been as sympathetic in that case? I very much doubt it. Or suppose we had a Scientologist business owner who did not want to provide mental health care. He said, I don't want to pay for antidepressants or things like that. I don't believe in that as a matter of religion. Could have a separate policy. The government could pay for it. The insurance company could pay for it. Would we provide that kind of workaround, that kind of exemption in those cases? I don't think so. What we hear is that not only are we privileging religious people over non-religious people, but we're also likely privileging certain kinds of religion by appealing to judges who are going to be much more sympathetic to claims that they find relatable. In this case, claims of evangelical Christians versus, say, claims of Jehovah's Witnesses or other minority religious groups. Third case I want to talk about, this is the last of the cases I want to talk about, is the one that's currently before the Supreme Court, the Masterpiece Cake Shop case.  Same-sex marriage was actually not yet legal in Colorado. They were going to get married in Massachusetts, so they can celebrate with their friends in Colorado. And the owner of that cake shop, Jack Phillips, who is pictured... I'm sorry, you can't really see the slides very well, but Jack Phillips, there is baking cakes in his cake shop, told them that he would not make a cake for same-sex weddings. He said he'd be happy to sell them other things. They could buy birthday cakes. They could buy cookies, whatever. But he would not sell them a cake for their wedding. And did not discuss any other details of the cake or the desired design or anything like that. They left. They filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.  Here is the relevant section of the law. It says a place of public accommodation, which it defines quite broadly to include any place that's open for business to the public. A place of public accommodation cannot refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual. The full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations based on race, color, disability, sex, sexual orientation, which Colorado interestingly reads to include transgender status, national origin or ancestry, creed, or marital status. So it's against the law to refuse service on any of these bases. The commission found that Jack Phillips had, in fact, refused service on the basis of sexual orientation, was liable for violating the law. He appealed that to a Colorado court. The court agreed with the commission. He appealed it up further to the Colorado Court of Appeals and so forth. And each court in Colorado that considered the case said, yes, he is liable for sexual orientation discrimination. And that case, as I said, is currently before the US Supreme Court and oral arguments will be heard on the case on December 5th.  He is simply unwilling to use his artistic talent to participate in what he thinks is a wrong view of marriage. Same-sex marriage is something he disagrees with on religious grounds. And he is rooting his argument in First Amendment principles and the relevant section of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. This is part of our Bill of Rights. It says the Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech. And it goes on to say, I don't know if the press, et cetera, and so forth. But mainly he's appealing to his freedom of religion because he thinks as part of his practice of religion he sees his faith practice as imbuing the work he does at Masterpiece Cake Shop and his freedom of speech because he says the Colorado Public Accommodation's law is requiring him to assist in a message that he disagrees with and also is constraining his artistic freedom, which in the US is generally considered to be part of freedom of speech. It's more generally thought of as expressive freedom. So I want to say a few things about this case. And the first thing I want to say about this case and I think it's particularly important when I talk to American audiences about this because there's often not a lot of understanding of anti-discrimination law and I should mention that while Colorado prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, there's no federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and only about half the states have such laws. And within the other states there are sometimes local ordinances that prohibit such discrimination. But federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national or ethnic origin and so on, and it's really not sexual orientation. But I think it's important because so many of the well-known cases in the United States right now have to do with wedding services. They have to do things like cakes and flowers and people think, really you're going to court over cakes and flowers?  You can't buy a cake? I mean, it's hard to take that very seriously. And I point out to people that these laws are not mainly about cakes and flowers. They're mainly about things like employment discrimination and causing discrimination and discrimination in basic goods and services. And so one of the cases I've been talking about recently, there was a case several months ago in Mississippi where a person called up a funeral home, a partner was dying, they had been together for something like 60 years, an elderly couple.  And the funeral home said, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And when the finally, you know, a week later when the person finally died, they went to the funeral home to fill out the paperwork with the family and the funeral director realized that this person was in the same-sex marriage and said, I'm sorry, I don't do funerals for you people. And this was perfectly legal in the state of Mississippi because Mississippi is one of those states that does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And as a result of this, this grieving widow work was to arrange, you know, during a time of great grief for a funeral service, I think it was something like 60 miles away. Actually, for cremation services, 60 miles away, and they had to cancel the funeral service because it was the last minute sort of thing. So, yes, the cakes that are in the news right now are about cakes and flowers, but these are not mainly, you know, the reason we have these laws is not mainly cakes and flowers. The second thing I want to point out is that even in the cases involving cakes and flowers, it strikes me that there's a good reason to prohibit the discrimination. And it's not just about lack of access to those services. It's also about the humiliation of being told that you can't buy the same things that other people are allowed to buy in a shop on the basis of your identity or your same-sex marriage. So there was a case in New Jersey, I talked about this case a little bit in the book, where a person spent hours with her friends trying on wedding dresses and when she went to order the dress, she told that she could not, you know, when she said, okay, what's the groom's name? There is no groom, it's for a lesbian wedding, and she was told that she could not buy the dress. In fact, the owner in that case told, this was before same-sex marriage was legal in the state of New Jersey, the owner told her it was legal for her to do what she was doing. I mean, you can wear a wedding dress to a lecture if you want. I mean, you don't have to be getting married even to buy a wedding dress, but in any case, this owner was not just discriminating, she was quite misinformed about how the law works, but these cases, even though you say, okay, I mean, you could buy a wedding dress somewhere else, sure you could buy a wedding dress somewhere else, but if you've put several hours into shopping for a wedding dress with your friends, there's something pretty humiliating about being turned away at that point. There was a case in Toledo, Ohio, not far from where I live in Detroit, Michigan, where a person ordered a birthday cake. The owner of the bakery, it's called Take the Cake Bake Shop in Toledo, Ohio, the owner of the bakery then went on the customer's Facebook page, realized that the birthday cake was for the customer's same-sex partner, and that she was in this lesbian relationship, and sent her a text cancelling the order. This is an actual image of the text she sent. Candice, I'm sorry, I just realized you're in a same-sex relationship and we do not do cakes for same-sex weddings or parties. I'm so sorry, I wasn't aware of this exactly until I saw your page. Take care. When this was reported in the news, they actually sent it around the image of the text. My initial reaction to this was that anyone who uses that font for text ought to lose in court. That's just my view. But putting that aside. All right, so one thing you want to say, who does that, right? You go on your customer's Facebook page? It seems highly inappropriate, number one. But number two, realize that the kind of objection she has here, a lot of people, even people who supported Jack Phillips, said, well, the birthday cake, that's going too far. Well, why is it going too far? Because remember, she only canceled the birthday cake order after realizing that this was a gift for somebody's same-sex partner, and she could reason much in the way that Jack Phillips reason. Says, look, I don't believe in same-sex relationships. This is an act of affection, gift-giving within the context of such a relationship. I don't want to be complicit in any way in that relationship. I don't want to sell this cake. It's the same kind of complicity argument. And if we allow Jack Phillips to have an exemption to the relevant anti-discrimination law on the basis of his religious convictions, on the basis of his free speech rights, it seems to me that it's hard to create an argument that we shouldn't do the same thing in the birthday cake case. And of course, I don't think we should do that in the birthday cake case, so I also don't think we should do it in Jack Phillips' case. So I think that there's a way to draw the line here that's useful, and it's easier to see that by looking at another case in Colorado. This is a case that happened in 2013, not long after the local Colorado Commission released its decision in the Jack Phillips case.   But I'll tell you what happens. So a guy named Bill Jack walks into a Zucar bakery in Colorado and says, look, I'd like to order a Bible-shaped cake. And on one side, I want the image of two men and a red X through it. And on the other side, I want Leviticus 1822, homosexuality is a detestable sin. Leviticus 1822 is man shall not lie with man, as with woman is an abomination unto God. That's a lot to write on a cake. So he just said homosexuality is a detestable sin. It's a paraphrase. And it was actually even more complicated than that because he actually wanted two different Bible-shaped cakes. But the relevant part is Bible-shaped cake, men with an X through it, and homosexuality is a detestable sin. And the owner of that bakery, Marjorie Phillips, is like, sorry, that's against what I believe. I think that's discriminatory. I don't want to sell that to you. However, she said, I will sell you a Bible-shaped cake because, yeah, I mean, this is something I offer. It's in my catalog. I sell that to all of my customers.   That's your business. What you do after you leave the store is really not my business. But I'm not going to write that on the cake. And Bill Jack files a complaint with the Colorado Commission because that's the whole reason he went into order the cake in the first place. He was trying to make a point about the Masterpiece Cake Shop case. And the commission ruled that Marjorie Silva was not liable for religious discrimination. And, of course, Jack Phillips' supporters said, what? What are you talking about? It's not fair. If Jack Phillips is guilty or liable for sexual orientation discrimination, if he refuses to make the wedding cake, why is it not the same thing when Marjorie Silva refuses to make the Leviticus Cake or the God Hates Gays Cake? Both of them are just trying to live out their moral convictions, live out their religious convictions, want people to respect their artistic freedom, and so on. And my counterpoint authors in the book actually think that these cases should be treated the same. They think that both bakers should be allowed to refuse, notwithstanding Colorado law. And they also think that Colorado law, they also think that sexual orientation should not be covered by anti-discrimination law. I think there's, in fact, an important difference between the cases. And I think the difference is expressed by the difference between a design-based refusal, that is, a refusal on what is sold versus a user-based refusal, or a refusal based on to whom it is sold or for what purpose it is sold. So here's my idea. Generally speaking, business owners get to decide what they're going to sell and not going to sell. So I can't go into a kosher bakery and say I would like a cake topped with candied bacon. The baked kosher bakery is going to say, no, we don't sell bacon-topped cakes. Look, I'll provide you with the bacon bits. And they're going to say, no, we're still not going to do that. It's just not something we provide here in a kosher bakery.  Sorry that John's not here. I was going to use that example to tease him.  So if it was a vegan bakery, that's not something we sell. And in much the same way, I think that Marjorie Silva is like, look, cakes with that particular design, with the men with the 2X on them and the homosexuality of the testable syndrome, that's just not something I sell. But you might say, but wait a second, Jack Phillips can say the same thing.  To which my answer is a gay wedding cake is not a thing.   And remember, Jack Phillips did not say anything, did not in any way discuss the design with the customers. Now it would be one thing if Jack Phillips had said, look, I'm not going to make a cake with 2 men on the top. I don't do that. Or I'm not going to make a rainbow wedding cake. I don't do that. He said he would not sell a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. And in fact, his bakery had previously, and this is in the record for the case, his bakery had previously denied a cupcake order to a lesbian couple who tried to order just standard cupcakes from the bakery because they were going to use it for a celebration of their commitment ceremony, which is sort of like a wedding. That I think is very different from the case of Marjorie Silva who said, look, I will sell you the Bible-shaped cake because that's something I sell. You can even draw whatever you want on it. But I will not do this particular design. I think this is a good way to distinguish the cases. And it's something that I'm willing to be consistent about. So there was another case this past year in Kentucky. Kentucky is one of our more conservative states. But Lexington, Kentucky, which is the city where this happened, has a local ordinance that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Somebody called up a print shop that prints T-shirts and mugs and pens like they sort of customized products. And they said, look, we want to order a T-shirt for the Lexington Pride celebration. It was a gay pride celebration. We're going to order a T-shirt for this celebration. And the shop owner said, no, we're not going to... We're not going to sell you that particular... He asked, what do you want on the T-shirt? He said, well, we want this. He said, no, we're not going to sell that to you. And this is a case where, in fact, previously, the shop had refused various other kinds of designs and has right on their website. We reserve the right not to provide particular designs if this conflicts with our beliefs. And it's really interesting reading the case and some of the details of the cases. Reading law can sometimes be really boring, but every once in a while there's something really funny when you actually read the details. And it's that the shop had previously refused to do certain designs, including Jesus dressed as a pirate or selling fried chicken. I couldn't make this stuff up. And so the local gay pride organization filed a complaint in Lexington.  And then, I think, was the district court said that they were liable, but then the Kentucky Court of Appeals said, no, this is not about discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. This is about unwillingness to provide a particular design. And I actually wrote a piece for Slate, it's an online magazine, where I said the Kentucky Court of Appeals, I think got it right. I think that if we're going to have a line drawing principle here, a good way to draw that line is by making the distinction between what is sold versus to whom or for what purpose it's sold. And if you draw the line there, the Kentucky T-shirt shop should be allowed to refuse. So let me conclude and then open this up for discussion, which I'm interested in hearing from you. I think that part of what makes these cases difficult is that we have a kind of, what we might think of as a moral design problem. I think about this because I live in Detroit. And Detroit, you know, we historically are known for making cars, right? And if you're designing a car, there are certain things that you want, right? You want the car to be fast, you want it to be fuel efficient, you want it to have good trunk space and so on. And sometimes, you know, in pursuing some of those things, you have certain trade-offs, right? The more trunk space you have, the larger the car, the larger the car, the slower it's likely to be, because it's heavier, it's likely to be heavier and so forth. These cases involve our desire to uphold a number of important values. We want liberty. We want religious liberty. We want the liberty of people to be able to go out into the public sphere without being humiliated. We want to promote equality and these various other values that we have. And the challenge is to try to draw the lines in such a way that fits these things together, recognizing that none of the parties are likely to be happy 100% of the time, but we can at least keep working in such a way as to move closer to that kind of peaceable resolution. What worries me, what saddens me actually, as I've been thinking about these issues, is that so much of what gets included under the rubric of religious liberty nowadays strikes me as just a way of continuing the same-sex marriage debate and in particular a way for religious conservatives in the United States who lost the marriage debate in Obergefell. We now have same-sex marriage across the United States to find ways of saying, okay, but we still don't have to treat your marriage as real. We still don't have to treat you as full citizens. And that's troubling to me for two reasons. It's troubling to me, of course, because it hurts LGBT people and causes real grief in real lives. And again, not just about cakes and flowers, but even funeral services. But it's also troubling to me because I think it tarnishes the religious liberty brand, if you will, because what historically at its best has been about inclusion, about reaching out to minorities that we may have either explicitly discriminated against or just forgotten about, is now becoming about exclusion and discrimination and perpetuating this second-class citizenship for gay people and for same-sex couples. And I think that that's unfortunate and I think it's worth working against. And with that, I will conclude and open for questions. Thank you very much.