Richard John Neuhaus regards the Archdiocese of Boston’s response on the gay adoption issue to be quite weak, which has implications for religious freedom, not just for Roman Catholics, but for all culturally conservative (or orthodox or traditional; take your pick) religious groups. (See also this smart post.)

For more on the religious liberty dimension of this dispute, see these three posts at Mirror of Justice. One thng I find interesting in Rob Vischer’s post is his allusion to the possibility that the state might be interested in the quality of the pool of potential adoptive parents. If it’s parental quality, not the "equal right to adopt," that matters, then we have the possibility of an interesting argument, though not on the ground that gay adoption advocates would choose.

MOJ also calls our attention to and comments on this story, which shows how much pressure gay advocates are willing to bring to bear. It seems that, on this issue at least, the vision of everyone profiting from access to excellent legal counsel has been forgotten. This is shameful behavior by the Harvard Law School students and suggests that for them, law is merely an instrument of power (which of course is the Machiavellian lesson their Critical Legal Studies profs have been teaching them). What they haven’t been taught, apparently, is that, under this vision of law, there is no such thing as justice.