How do you solve a problem like Wikipedia?



Wikipedia has recently come under the microscope. I take some credit for this, as a co-founder of Wikipedia and a longtime vocal critic of the knowledge platform.

In September, I nailed (virtually) “Nine Theses About Wikipedia” to the digital door of Wikipedia and started a round of interviews about it, beginning with Tucker Carlson. This prompted Elon Musk to announce Grokipedia’s impending launch the very next day. And a national conversation evolved from there, with left- and right-leaning voices complaining about the platform’s direction or my critique of it.

As long as Wikipedia remains open, it is entirely possible for those who think differently to get involved.

As its 25th anniversary approaches, Wikipedia clearly needs reform. Not only does the platform have a long history of left-wing bias, but the purveyors of that bias — administrators, everyday editors, and others — stubbornly cling to their warped worldview and vilify those who dare to contest it.

The “Nine Theses” are the project’s first-ever thoroughgoing reform proposal. Among the ideas:

  • Allow multiple, competing articles per topic.
  • Stop ideological blacklisting of sources.
  • Restore the original neutrality policy.
  • Reveal the identities of the most powerful managers.
  • End unfair, indefinite blocking.
  • Adopt a formal legislative process.

Such ideas were bound to be a hard sell on Wikipedia. It has become institutionally ossified.

Nevertheless, I was delighted that the discussion of the theses has been robust, without much further prodding from me. Following the launch, Jimmy Wales actually stepped into the fray on the so-called talk page of an article called “Gaza genocide,” chiding the participants for violating Wikipedia’s neutrality policy. I chimed in as well. But the criticism was thrown back in our faces.

This brings me to the deeper problem: Wikipedia is stuck in its ways. How can it possibly be reformed when so many of its contributors like the bias, the anonymous leadership, the ease of blocking ideological foes, and other aspects of dysfunction? Reform seems impossible.

Yet there is one realistic way that we can make progress toward reform.

Above all else, those who care should get involved in Wikipedia. The total number of people who are really active on Wikipedia is surprisingly small. The number editing 100 times in any given month is in the low thousands, and this does not amount to that much time — perhaps one or two hours per week. Those who treat it as a part-time or full-time job — and so have real day-to-day influence — number in the hundreds.

In interviews, I have been urging the outcasts to converge on Wikipedia. You might think this is code for saying that conservatives and libertarians should try to stage a coup, but that is not so. Hindus and Israelis, among others, have also complained of being left out in recent years. The problem is an entrenched ruling class. As long as Wikipedia remains open, it is entirely possible for those who think differently to get involved.

RELATED: Wikipedia editors are trying to scrub the record clean of Iryna Zarutska’s slaughter by violent thug

Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images

If you are a conservative or libertarian who is concerned about the slanted framing of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, get involved. If you are a classical liberal who is alarmed by the anti-Semitism within Wikipedia — like Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz — it is time to make your presence felt. Wherever you may fall on the ideological spectrum, I call on good-faith citizens to become engaged editors who take productive discourse seriously, rather than scapegoating “the other side.”

Even a dozen new editors could make a difference, let alone hundreds or thousands who might be reading this column. Given that Wikipedia attracts billions of readers, in addition to featuring prominently in Google Search, Google Gemini, and elsewhere, improving the platform will strengthen our collective access to high-quality information across the board. It will bring us closer to truth.

So how do we solve the Wikipedia problem? With you, me, and all of us — individual action at scale.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Universities treated free speech as expendable in 2025



The fight over free expression in American higher education reached a troubling milestone in 2025. According to data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, efforts to censor speech on college campuses hit record highs across multiple fronts — and most succeeded.

Let’s start with the raw numbers. In 2025, FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire, Students Under Fire, and Campus Deplatforming databases collectively tracked:

  • 525 attempts to sanction scholars for their speech, more than one a day, with 460 of them resulting in punishment.
  • 273 attempts to punish students for expression, more than five a week, with 176 of these attempts succeeding.
  • 160 attempts to deplatform speakers, about three each week, with 99 of them succeeding.

That’s 958 censorship attempts in total, nearly three per day on campuses across the country. For comparison, FIRE’s next-highest total was 477 two years ago.

The 525 scholar sanction attempts are the highest ever recorded in FIRE’s database, which spans 2000 to the present. Even when a large-scale incident at the U.S. Naval Academy is treated as just a single entry, the 2025 total still breaks records.

The common denominator across these censorship campaigns is not ideology — it’s intolerance.

Twenty-nine scholars were fired, including 18 who were terminated since September for social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Student sanction attempts also hit a new high, and deplatforming efforts — our records date back to 1998 — rank third all-time, behind 2023 and 2024.

The problem is actually worse because FIRE’s data undercounts the true scale of campus censorship. Why? The data relies on publicly available information, and an unknown number of incidents, especially those that may involve quiet administrative pressure, never make the public record.

Then there’s the chilling effect.

Scholars are self-censoring. Students are staying silent. Speakers are being disinvited or shouted down. And administrators, eager to appease the loudest voices, are launching investigations and handing out suspensions and dismissals with questionable regard for academic freedom, due process, or free speech.

RELATED: Liberals’ twisted views on Charlie Kirk assassination, censorship captured by a damning poll

Deagreez via iStock/Getty Images

Some critics argue that the total number of incidents is small compared to the roughly 4,000 colleges in the country. But this argument collapses under scrutiny.

While there are technically thousands of institutions labeled as “colleges” or “universities,” roughly 600 of them educate about 80% of undergraduates enrolled at not-for-profit four-year schools. Many of the rest of these “colleges” and “universities” are highly specialized or vocational programs. This includes a number of beauty academies, truck-driving schools, and similar institutions — in other words, campuses that aren’t at the heart of the free-speech debate.

These censorship campaigns aren’t coming from only one side of the political spectrum. FIRE’s data shows, for instance, that liberal students are punished for pro-Palestinian activism, conservative faculty are targeted for controversial opinions on gender or race, and speaking events featuring all points of view are targeted for cancellation.

The two most targeted student groups on campus? Students for Justice in Palestine and Turning Point USA. If that doesn’t make this point clear, nothing will.

The common denominator across these censorship campaigns is not ideology — it’s intolerance.

RELATED: Teenager sues high school after tribute to Charlie Kirk was called vandalism

rudall30 via iStock/Getty Images

So where do we go from here?

We need courage: from faculty, from students, and especially from administrators. It’s easy to defend speech when it’s popular. It’s harder when the ideas are offensive or inconvenient. But that’s when it matters most.

Even more urgently, higher education needs a cultural reset. Universities must recommit to the idea that exposure to ideas and speech that one dislikes or finds offensive is not “violence.” That principle is essential for democracy, not just for universities.

This year’s record number of campus censorship attempts should be a wake-up call for campus administrators. For decades, many allowed a culture of censorship to fester, dismissing concerns as overblown, isolated, or a politically motivated myth. Now, with governors, state legislatures, members of Congress, and even the White House moving aggressively to police campus expression, some administrators are finally pushing back. But this pushback from administrators doesn’t seem principled. Instead, it seems more like an attempt to shield their institutions from outside political interference.

That’s not leadership. It’s damage control. And it’s what got higher education into this mess in the first place.

If university leaders want to reclaim their role as stewards of free inquiry, they cannot act just when governmental pressure threatens their autonomy. They also need to be steadfast when internal intolerance threatens their mission. A true commitment to academic freedom means defending expression even when it is unpopular or offensive. That is the price of intellectual integrity in a free society.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

When Bernie Sanders and I agree on AI, America had better pay attention



Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned recently in the London Guardian that artificial intelligence “is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media, and within the general population” despite the speed at which it is developing. “That has got to change.”

To my surprise, as a conservative advocate of limited government and free markets, I agree completely.

AI is neither a left nor a right issue. It is a human issue that will decide who holds power in the decades ahead and whether individuals retain sovereignty.

As I read Sanders’ piece, I kept thinking, “This sounds like something I could have written!” That alone should tell us something. If two people who disagree on almost everything else see the same dangers emerging from artificial intelligence, then maybe we can set aside the usual partisan divides and confront a problem that will touch every American.

Different policies, same fears

I’ve worked in the policy world for more than a decade, and it’s fair to say Bernie Sanders and I have opposed each other in nearly every major fight. I’ve pushed back against his single-payer health care plans. I’ve worked to stop his Green New Deal agenda. On economic policy, Sanders has long stood for the exact opposite of the free-market principles I believe make prosperity possible.

That’s why reading his AI op-ed felt almost jarring. Time after time, his concerns mirrored my own.

Sanders warned about the unprecedented power Silicon Valley elites now wield over this transformational technology. As someone who spent years battling Big Tech censorship, I share his alarm over unaccountable tech oligarchs shaping information, culture, and political discourse.

He points to forecasts showing AI-driven automation could displace nearly 100 million American jobs in the coming decade. I helped Glenn Beck write “Dark Future: Uncovering the Great Reset’s Terrifying Next Phase” in 2023, where we raised the exact same red flag, that rapid automation could destabilize the workforce faster than society can adapt.

Sanders highlights how AI threatens privacy, civil liberties, and personal autonomy. These are concerns I write and speak about constantly. Sanders notes that AI isn’t just changing industry; it’s reshaping the human condition, foreign policy, and even the structure of democratic life. On all of this, he is correct.

When a Democratic Socialist and a free-market conservative diagnose the same disease, it usually means the symptoms are too obvious to ignore.

Where we might differ

While Sanders and I share almost identical fears about AI, I suspect we would quickly diverge on the solutions. In his op-ed, he offers no real policy prescriptions at all. Instead, he simply says, “Congress must act now.” Act how? Sanders never says. And to be fair, that ambiguity is a dilemma I recognize.

As someone who argues consistently for limited government, I’m reluctant to call for new regulations. History shows that sweeping, top-down interventions usually create more problems than they solve. Yet AI poses a challenge unlike anything we’ve seen before — one that neither the market nor Congress can responsibly ignore.

RELATED: Shock poll: America’s youth want socialism on autopilot — literally

Photo by Cesc Maymo/Getty Images

When Sanders says, “Congress must act,” does he want sweeping, heavy-handed regulations that freeze innovation? Does he envision embedding ESG-style subjective metrics into AI systems, politicizing them further? Does he want to codify conformity to European Union AI regulations?

We cannot allow a handful of corporations or governments to embed their subjective values into systems that increasingly manipulate our decisions, influence our communications, and deter our autonomy.

The nonnegotiables

Instead of vague calls for Congress to “do something,” we need a clear framework rooted in enduring American principles.

AI systems (especially those deployed across major sectors) must be built with hard, nonnegotiable safeguards that protect the individual from both corporate and governmental overreach.

This means embedding constitutional values into AI design, enshrining guarantees for free speech, due process, privacy, and equal treatment. It means ensuring transparency around how these systems operate and what data they collect.

This also means preventing ideological influence, whether from Beijing, Silicon Valley, or Washington, D.C., by insisting on objectivity, neutrality, and accountability.

These principles should not be considered partisan. They are the guardrails, rooted in the Constitution, which protect us from any institution, public or private, that seeks too much power.

And that is why the overlap between Sanders’ concerns and mine matters so much. AI is neither a left nor a right issue. It is a human issue that will decide who holds power in the decades ahead and whether individuals retain sovereignty.

If Bernie Sanders and I both see the same storm gathering on the horizon, perhaps it’s time the rest of the country looks up and recognizes the clouds for what they are.

Now is the moment for Americans, across parties and philosophies, to insist that AI strengthen liberty rather than erode it. If we fail to set those boundaries today, we may soon find that the most important choices about our future are no longer made by people at all.

The UK is now cracking down on ... words? England edges toward full-blown speech police state



Before the Magna Carta, the King of England was the law. After, he was under the law. It created the principle of due process, habeas corpus protection from arbitrary arrest, and limited taxation without consent.

“Rule of law, jury trials, rights of the accused, limits on government, protection of property, accountability of leaders — all of that comes from the Magna Carta,” Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck explains on “The Glenn Beck Program.”

“That gave birth, 500 years later, to us and our ideas,” he says.

However, now all of that is changing.


“The birthplace of the Magna Carta is now thinking about getting rid of jury trials and arresting more than 12,000 people every year for what they call speech crimes — 12,000,” Glenn says.

“In 2023, Russia arrested 4,000 people for speech crimes against the Russian military for Ukraine — 4,000 in Russia, 12,000 in England. The number I saw, and we don’t have all the numbers, but the number I saw that were arrested for speech crimes in China was 120,” he continues.

“Not for violence, not for theft, not for treason — 12,000 in England for words,” he adds.

But it gets worse, as the prime minister is “floating the idea of eliminating” most jury trials.

“It’ll only be for murder, manslaughter, oh, and something else like that,” Glenn says.

“This goes against the Magna Carta, the lawful judgment of your peers. OK? That is the safeguard that stands between you and an out-of-control state. This is the first and ancient firewall against tyranny. It is what makes England, England,” he continues.

“And if England, of all places, tosses that aside, what does the word ‘free’ mean anymore? OK? What does it mean? You can’t speak, and you have no jury trial of your peers. Wait, what?” he says.

“First of all, understand this: A nation that polices speech is not free. A nation that dissolves juries is not just unfree; it’s prepping for something worse, because the entire architecture of the Western world, the liberty that we have, rests on a single radical belief,” he says, adding, “The truth does not need a king.”

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Antifa burns, the media spin, and truth takes the hits



On Monday night, violence erupted at UC Berkeley. Again.

That sentence alone might not shock anyone. Berkeley and riots go together like gender studies and Marxist slogans — a tradition older than most of its students. But this time, the target was different.

Christians and conservatives should keep showing up. Every TPUSA Faith event, every lecture, every debate — attend them. The more witnesses, the less room for lies.

The mob didn’t come for a politician or a protest. It came for families.

The crowd surrounded a Turning Point USA Faith event hosted by an officially recognized student club, featuring Christian apologist Frank Turek and atheist Peter Boghossian, along with comedian Rob Schneider and British commentator and satirist Andrew Doyle. In one evening, TPUSA offered more intellectual diversity than the entire Berkeley humanities department has managed all year.

The riot that proved the stereotype

Picture families walking into a campus hall to hear a Christian and an atheist debate civilly. Now picture an angry crowd blocking the doors, throwing bottles, lighting fires, and chanting, “Punch a fascist in the face!”

Their only problem: No fascists were present. Unless, of course, you classify Turek, Boghossian, and a few Christian undergrads as Mussolini’s heirs. But that’s Berkeley logic — where “diversity” means everyone thinks the same and disagreement is treated like violence.

The radical left has no greater enemies than Christianity and free speech. Combine the two, and leftists melt down faster than a Berkeley sophomore trying to define the word “woman.”

How did we get here?

Berkeley has been the stage for riots since the 1960s. If campus unrest were Broadway, Berkeley would be “The Phantom of the Opera” — always running, always loud, always masked. But tradition doesn’t excuse terror.

The deeper problem is the culture feeding it. In today’s universities, students are marinated in ideology, not inquiry. The humanities have traded Socrates for slogans and replaced debate with denunciation.

This worldview breeds fragility and fanaticism: emotional dependence on outrage, intellectual intolerance, and the conviction that disagreement equals danger. It’s no wonder students' activism now mimics the very authoritarianism they claim to resist.

Antifa’s unofficial motto might as well be: “Accuse your opponents of what you plan to do.”

The media’s complicity

Right on cue, the Guardian rushed to describe the riot as “mostly peaceful.” That phrase should be Berkeley’s new marketing slogan: Mostly Peaceful Since 1964.

The truth is simpler. The TPUSA attendees were peaceful. The rioters were not. They screamed in people’s faces, hurled debris, blocked exits, and called it “defending democracy.” Apparently, democracy now means assaulting Christians.

The radical playbook

If you want to decode the left’s method, just reverse the leftists' accusations. They say, “Don’t demonize others,” while labeling everyone to the right of Lenin a fascist. They say, “All voices deserve to be heard,” while drowning opponents in primal screams.

They say, “Fight oppression,” while physically intimidating families trying to attend a faith event.

At Arizona State University, a colleague of mine once wrote, “I’m all for free speech — but not for bigots,” to justify banning Charlie Kirk from campus. Translation: I love freedom — as long as no one I dislike exercises it.

This is the moral logic of the modern left: Disagreement equals harm, and harm justifies censorship — or violence.

The 'radical' minority that isn’t

We keep calling these leftists radicals, but that implies rarity. Surveys say otherwise. The ideological monoculture dominates academia. The “moderate left” isn’t moderating anything; it’s supplying the radicals with silence, funding, and applause.

The tenured class that claims to value “diversity of thought” has created an institution where dissenters are treated like heretics.

RELATED: The Antifa mob at Berkeley showed us what evil looks like

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

What must be done

First, Christians and conservatives should keep showing up. Every TPUSA Faith event, every lecture, every debate — attend them. The more witnesses, the less room for lies.

Second, tell your state legislators you don’t want tax dollars funding violent intolerance disguised as higher learning.

Third, warn every parent and student what really happens on college campuses. Prepare your kids to challenge the ideological orthodoxy behind DEI, critical theory, and the alphabet soup of new moral dogmas.

Finally, support alternatives. Seek out institutions that teach truth instead of propaganda — and organizations like TPUSA Faith that defend free inquiry.

That’s why I started my Substack: to expose the rot inside American universities before your children discover it the hard way.

The cure for intellectual darkness is light. The cure for ideological riots is courage. And the cure for the Berkeley disease begins with showing up, speaking truth, and refusing to bow.

The Antifa mob at Berkeley showed us what evil looks like



Something in America’s atmosphere has shifted. A chill has entered public life. The temperature of our moral climate has dropped, and too many pretend not to notice.

Just days ago, outside a Turning Point USA event at the University of California, Berkeley, a mob gathered to protest, riot, shout down students, and mock the death of Charlie Kirk, chanting about his assassination as if it were a punch line.

The world does not need more outrage. It needs more heroes — ordinary people who will stand, speak, and serve even when no one applauds.

It was not a peaceful political protest — it was cruelty on display, a glimpse of how numb parts of our culture have become to basic humanity. You can feel the shift in moments like that — not in policy debates or press releases, but in the tone of the crowd, in the hard edge of its laughter.

A nation in the cold

We all learned Newton’s third law in school: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is not just a rule of motion; it speaks truth about reality itself.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Every act, every choice, demands a response. When Charlie Kirk was killed, the impact of his assassin’s bullet rippled through the soul of a nation. Millions felt it at once, as if something beneath the surface had cracked.

But out of that shock came something extraordinary. Instead of despair, there was revival. People who had not prayed in years began to whisper to God again. Vital questions rose out of grief: What is truth? What is courage? What is my purpose?

The counterforce

What we are seeing now — from Berkeley’s riots to the venom spreading online — is that pushback. It is the equal and opposite force. The lies about Charlie’s death, the hatred masquerading as justice, the growing comfort with cruelty — they are all part of something older, something that has always despised awakening.

The eternal struggle between good and evil has stepped out from behind the curtain and taken center stage. Whether we wanted it or not, we have been written into this story where both light and darkness work through human hands. That means each one of us has a role to play.

What heroism really means

Heroism is not reserved for the famous or the fearless. It is not about applause or recognition. It is the quiet resolve to do what is right when it would be easier to stay silent.

Courage starts small — the parent who refuses to surrender her values, the student who speaks truth in a hostile classroom. These small acts are the foundation of moral civilization.

Courage is a muscle. If you wait for a grand moment to use it, you will find it lacking.

Heroism is giving something of yourself — your time, your voice, your loyalty. It may go unseen, but it is never wasted. The heroes who carry civilization forward are rarely remembered by name. But they are remembered in the lives they touch and in the good they preserve.

RELATED: Why Gen Z is rebelling against leftist lies — and turning to Jesus

Photo by Ismael Adnan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Standing when it matters most

We live in an age when fear is constant — fear of loss, fear of exposure, fear of being alone. But fear is not destiny. It is a test. And courage is not the absence of fear; it is acting while afraid. When you tell the truth, when you remain loyal, when you choose what is right over what is safe — that is courage.

The world does not need more outrage. It needs more heroes — ordinary people who will stand, speak, and serve even when no one applauds. This is a dark time, yes. But we should be thankful for it, because in the darkness, we discover who we are meant to be.

You do not need to change the world. You only need to change what stands before you — your home, your community. That is where real heroism lives.

When you feel fear, act anyway. That is courage. That is faith. And that is how light triumphs over darkness.

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NATO Member’s Top Court Considers Whether Saying Men And Women Are Different Is A War Crime

Finland's Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday about whether quoting the Bible is illegal 'hate speech' under its war crimes laws.

Jay Jones proves Democrats will excuse anything for power



Jay Jones, the Democrats’ nominee for Virginia attorney general, has become a general travesty. Disqualified by his own words and actions, he keeps running while Democrats refuse to call him off. Apparently, they still think he deserves the office.

On Aug. 8, 2022, Jones, who had recently resigned from the Virginia House of Delegates after representing Norfolk, texted Republican state delegate Carrie Coyner about tributes to former legislator Joe Johnson Jr. One tribute came from then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert. Jones dismissed Johnson’s centrism and Gilbert’s praise with crude contempt. His texts quickly turned menacing.

Might Jones’ first prosecution be against himself? Doubtful. But how could he prosecute others for the same vile behavior he once celebrated?

Jones called Gilbert “that POS.” He wrote, “If those guys die before me, I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves.” He added that if he could shoot Hitler, Pol Pot, and Gilbert but had only two bullets, Gilbert would get “two bullets to the head” — “every time,” he said.

He accused Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, of “breeding little fascists” and wished that Gilbert’s children would “die in their mother’s arms.” Coyner urged him to stop. He should have heeded her advice.

Half-hearted apologies

Jones has tried to apologize since his texts surfaced. At the time, he showed no hesitation or doubt about his vile remarks. For more than three years, he expressed no remorse until the prospect of consequences forced his hand — plenty of time to craft an apology and even longer to locate a conscience.

This episode isn’t Jones’ first disqualifying act. Coyner recalled Jones once saying that “if a few [policemen] died, that they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.”

In January 2022, Jones was convicted of driving 116 mph — 46 mph over the limit. A court fined him $1,500 and ordered 1,000 hours of community service. He spent half of that time working for his own political action committee, Meet Our Moment.

The attorney general serves as Virginia’s top cop and prosecutor. According to the commonwealth’s website:

The Office of the Attorney General provides legal services to the Commonwealth’s agencies, boards, commissions, colleges and universities. They are the Commonwealth’s law firm, defending the interests of Virginians and Virginia government and also work with law enforcement throughout the Commonwealth to prepare for emerging public safety threats and to promote successful, secure communities.

Jones’ record conflicts directly with the job he seeks. Voters might ask how Jones can protect Virginians from crimes he’s committed himself? The statute of limitations on threats is one year for a misdemeanor. But Virginia has no statute of limitations on felonies.

Might his first prosecution be against himself? Doubtful. But how could he prosecute others for the same vile behavior he once celebrated — or those who endanger police officers, as he once suggested was necessary?

Unaccountable stupidity

A state legislator’s role differs sharply from that of the attorney general. A legislator’s foolishness, however damaging, remains limited to the district that elected him and can be tempered by the rest of the General Assembly. The attorney general, by contrast, represents all Virginians — including law enforcement and the entire state government. His mistakes ripple through every level of public service and civic life.

RELATED: Evil unchecked always spreads — and Democrats are proof

Trevor Metcalfe/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Virginians pay the price

But Jones and his army of Virginia Democrats think otherwise. Their refusal to remove him from the ticket speaks volumes. It shows they believe, just as Jones does, that he’s entitled to be attorney general — a stance as damning as his own text messages.

Jones’ desire to be attorney general and his support from Democrats has outweighed his lack of objective qualifications for the job. Virginians should not have to bear the price of their vile partisan game.

God doesn't make anyone gay: The case against banning 'conversion therapy'



In response to to a recent Supreme Court case, last week Fr. James Martin posted on X that so-called “conversion therapy” should be banned.

That’s not compassion. That’s censorship dressed up as virtue. And as a Catholic priest, he should know better.

When a young man says, 'I want help living chastely,' telling him his request is unrealistic and maybe even illegal — that’s cruelty.

This case, Chiles v. Salazar, isn’t forcing anyone to change. It’s about the freedom of young people, their parents, and counselors to even talk about faith, identity, and healing.

Refuting 'born this way'

Early this summer, my Ruth Institute colleague Fr. Paul Sullins and I submitted an amicus brief to the court concerning the Chiles case. Fr. Sullins is a former sociology professor at Catholic University of America. I am a former economics professor at Yale University. In our brief, we summarized research on sexual orientation and on change therapy.

Fr. James Martin’s core argument actually comes at the end of his post, where he says:

“Like it or not, understand it or not, this is how God made them. Accepting the way God made them is part of the 'respect, compassion and sensitivity' that the Catechism calls for.”

Notice that he treats the “born this way” idea as something so obvious that it doesn’t even need to be defended. However, this is factually incorrect.

In 2019, a massive study of the human genome clearly showed there is no “gay gene.” The genetic contribution to self-identification as “gay” is roughly the same as a genetic contribution to other complex behavioral systems, such as the tendency to alcoholism or other kinds of addictions.

Even before 2019, studies of identical twins cast serious doubt on the claim that people are born gay. These studies examine the concordance between twins. If it were really true that "gay is the new black," then concordance between twins should be 100%. The actual number is closer to 30%.

As a matter of fact, even the American Psychological Association admits:

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

Bad science, bad theology

The APA is correct when it says that many possible factors contribute to the development of persistent same-sex attraction or a gay identity. A set of contributing factors is not at all the same as one cause, as if one and only one thing were in play. The Ruth Institute’s report “Refuting the Top 5 Gay Myths” explains this in more detail. You can obtain this report at no charge by subscribing to our newsletter.

For now, let us state plainly: The claim that “this is how God made them” is bad science. It is certainly bad theology, as Fr. Martin ought to know. God doesn’t make anybody gay.

And God certainly doesn’t put anybody in the “wrong body.” That idea is physical nonsense and metaphysical nonsense. Your body is you!

Fr. Martin says there’s “no evidence” that counseling like this helps. No evidence? Seriously? That’s simply false.

RELATED: ‘Must Stay Gay’ laws face their overdue reckoning

Photo by Dendron via Getty Images

Flawed 'evidence'

Our own research at the Ruth Institute shows that talk therapy — not shock therapy or any other aversive techniques, but the talk therapy that is really at stake in this case — has helped many people find peace and stability in the face of unwanted same-sex attraction.

And the so-called “evidence” used to ban therapy that helps people reduce their feelings of unwanted same-sex attraction? There are a lot of problems with those studies, which we cover thoroughly in our amicus brief.

The most important objection is that these studies do not take account of pre-counseling distress. We found evidence that the people who are the most distressed and the most suicidal are also the most likely to seek therapy. If you correlate “lifetime suicide attempts” with “did you ever go for therapy,” some of the people were suicidal before they ever went to a counselor. It is not correct to blame the counseling for something that happened before the counseling took place!

Fr. Sullins found that taking account of the before and after basically obliterated the results of one of the most commonly cited studies that supposedly shows that “conversion therapy causes suicide.”

The truth will set you free

Besides, the claim that there is “no evidence” is a recklessly strong one. What about all the people who have Left Pride Behind, some with the help of therapy, some without? Each one of them counters the claim that “no one can change” and “therapy never works.” Even a single counter-example is enough to disprove these strong claims. And at the Ruth Institute, we’ve got a lot of cases! Don’t their stories deserve to be heard? These are real people whose stories are being systematically silenced in the public square.

I’ve listened to many of these stories. My friends who have Left Pride Behind consistently tell me that what they needed was people to walk with them, in genuine compassion.

Fr. Martin says, “It’s not a Christian value to do harm.” I agree.

But denying someone the freedom to live by his or her faith is harm.

When a young man says, “I want help living chastely,” telling him his request is unrealistic and maybe even illegal — that’s cruelty. My friends tell me how much they valued their friends and family members who stood by them as they struggled with temptation or with relapses or with discouragement. They cherish those friends as true brothers and sisters in Christ

Christian love always points to truth. The Ruth Institute stands for the freedom to heal — the freedom to live your faith fully, even when it’s unpopular or challenging.

The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the state can control what you’re allowed to say in the privacy of a counseling room. Let us hope the justices opt for freedom of speech and religion. That’s something every Catholic — including priests — should defend.

I invite Fr. Martin, and anyone who shares his views, to look again at the gospel and the science. Jesus never banned the truth — because truth sets us free.

‘Must Stay Gay’ laws face their overdue reckoning



The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in Chiles v. Salazar, a case that could reshape counseling freedom across America. The law at issue is one of several so-called “conversion therapy bans” that restrict what therapists may say to their clients.

The Ruth Institute calls them what they are: “Must Stay Gay” laws.

The fight for counseling freedom isn’t about forcing anyone to change. It’s about defending every person’s right to seek help aligned with their own beliefs and goals.

These laws silence counselors and harm families, especially young people struggling with trauma, anxiety, and sexual confusion. The question before the court is simple: Does the First Amendment allow a state to dictate which viewpoints a licensed therapist may express?

A strong signal from the court

The central issue in Chiles is viewpoint discrimination. Colorado’s law allows therapists to affirm a child’s same-sex attraction or gender confusion — but forbids them from helping a client resist or change those feelings.

Justice Samuel Alito captured the absurdity in one hypothetical, which I paraphrase (the whole argument is here):

An adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist; he feels uneasy and guilty about feeling attracted to other boys. He asks the therapist to help him feel better as a gay man. Colorado law permits this. Another adolescent male goes to a licensed therapist and asks him to help him feel less attracted to other boys. Colorado law forbids this.

That’s government picking sides in a moral debate, not equality under the law.

When pressed, Colorado’s attorney stumbled badly. Alito then asked whether “medical consensus” has ever been wrong. She hesitated, and he reminded her of Buck v. Bell,the notorious 1927 decision that upheld forced sterilization based on “progressive” science. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed the common progressive opinion at the time: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

In closing, Alliance Defending Freedom attorney James Campbell, who represents therapist Kaley Chiles, delivered the knockout line:

The state of Colorado allows a 12-year-old girl to seek counseling to affirm her so-called gender identity as a boy without parental consent — but forbids her, even with her parents, from seeking help to accept herself as female.

That’s blatant viewpoint discrimination. On this point, the justices seemed receptive.

Junk science and the ‘born this way’ myth

The state also claimed that no one has ever changed their sexual attractions — a claim as false as it is arrogant. One counterexample disproves it, and there are thousands. Our amicus brief cites studies and testimonies from men and women who experienced real change, often through talk therapy.

Colorado’s attorney dug herself in deeper, asserting that all theories linking abuse or family dynamics to sexual identity have been “debunked.” They haven’t. The research she relies on doesn’t distinguish between minors and adults, licensed and unlicensed therapists, or talk therapy and coercive “aversion” practices.

That’s ideology, not science. And the justices noticed.

RELATED: Christian counselors fight for freedom of speech before the Supreme Court

Photo by Sakorn Sukkasemsakorn via Getty Images

The state’s lawyer also leaned on the claim that being gay is innate and immutable. She presented no evidence for that assertion, only the assumption that it must be true. But twin and genetic studies contradict it. Many people once identified as LGBT and no longer do. They exist, they matter, and they expose the lie behind the “born this way” narrative.

What comes next

The court offered no hints about how it will rule on the immutability question. But the justices heard enough to know that Colorado’s law enforces one approved orthodoxy and punishes dissent. That’s unconstitutional — and morally indefensible.

The fight for counseling freedom isn’t about forcing anyone to change. It’s about defending every person’s right to seek help aligned with their own beliefs and goals.

Here at the Ruth Institute, we’ll keep pressing the truth: “Must Stay Gay” is not OK.