NY Times Covers Religious Liberty and Marriage Conference

On December 15, 2005, the Becket Fund brought together ten of the nation's top First Amendment scholars and practitioners -- left, right, and center, with a wide range of views on the merits of same-sex marriage -- to discuss the types (and likely outcomes) of religious liberty lawsuits that will arise if the law requires equal treatment of same-sex and different-sex marriages.

At the end of March, we published on our website a list of conference participants and their topics, as well as posting the revised drafts of most of the papers, copies of which are available here.

On May 22, the Heritage Foundation hosted a panel about our conference and the Weekly Standard article, including Becket Fund President Anthony Picarello, conference participants Prof. Jonathan Turley and Prof. Robin Wilson, and Maggie Gallagher. Streaming video of that panel can be viewed (Windows Media format) at this link. 

Since then, the media coverage has been extensive:

• First came the cover story in the May 17 issue of the Weekly Standard, an article by Maggie Gallahger that discusses the conference in depth and interviews some of the participants.  Her article is at this link.
• On May 26, the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed on this topic by conference participant Prof. Douglas Kmiec, which is available at this link. 
• On May 27, Associated Press reporter Richard Ostling published a story on the conference that appeared in dozens of major papers nationwide.  The version appearing in the Houston Chronicle can be viewed at this link.
• On June 1, The Christian Science Monitor published a story by Jane Lampman at this link.
• On June 2, World Magazine published a feature by Lynn Vincent at this link. 
• On June 5, The Chicago Tribune published this story by Judy Peres on its front page.
• On June 8, The San Francisco Chronicle ran a front page story by Carolyn Lochhead on the Senate vote on the federal marriage amendment, which included discussion of the religious freedom issue and our conference.
• On June 10, The New York Times published this story by Peter Steinfels in the "Beliefs" column.
• On June 11, the Sunday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer included this column by Jonathan Last.
• On June 14, The New York Sun ran this op-ed by Marc Stern.  (Subscription required.)
• On August 24, the Philadelphia Inquirer included this op-ed by Becket Fund attorney Roger Severino.