Chelsey Youman, Esq., is Chief of Staff & Counsel for First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights.

She joined First Liberty Institute after working for a law firm in private practice, where she successfully litigated corporate fraud matters, complex commercial litigation, and consumer rights issues in both federal and state jurisdictions.

Youman received her Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University, where she was a Dean’s Scholarship Recipient. Youman is a member of the Board of Advocates, where she successfully argued in off-campus mock trial competitions and was a member of the Aggie Law Society and SMU Christian Legal Society. During law school, she clerked for the Consumer Protection Division in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas and Liberty Institute.

Apple claims to be a defender of First Amendment rights, but it just joined other business heavyweights in trying to deny them to Masterpiece Cakeshop.

On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook accepted the Newseum’s Free Expression Award. In his remarks, Cook clearly and unequivocally defended the idea that corporations have values, and that they must protect their values in the marketplace and the public square:

We have a perspective on major public issues, and we are prepared to take a stand for things that we deeply believe in. . . . A company is not some faceless, shapeless thing that exists apart from society. A company is a collection of human beings, and part of the fabric of our society. A company like ours has a culture, it has values, and it has a voice. Apple has spoken out, and will continue to speak out, for what we believe as a company. And the positions we take will continue to guide our actions.

There are too many myths being propagated about the Supreme Court case involving Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop. It’s time to set the record straight. Stay tuned to BreakPoint.

On December 5, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission—which could be one of the most significant cases in our nation’s history involving freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

If your only source of information were mainstream media outlets, you’ve probably heard the case described along these lines: hiding behind a specious claim to religious freedom, anti-gay baker Jack Phillips refused to serve a same-sex couple in his store. The couple reported this hateful discrimination to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which rightly fined Phillips.

Motivated opponents, ambivalent supporters

Everyone knew, after the massacre in Las Vegas, that gun control was not going to get anywhere. The public conversation about guns hit the usual notes — its very roteness is by now one of those notes — but this time more of it focused on why gun control has such poor prospects.

Much of the discussion centered on just why gun control’s critics are so irrational. CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza said that the central reason for congressional inaction on guns is that supporters of gun rights believe, baselessly, that liberals are out to grab their guns. Charles Sykes, a conservative disaffected by the rise of Donald Trump, argued in the New York Times that the National Rifle Association had made the issue part of the culture wars.

We need a tax code that looks like it was designed on purpose.

The Republicans’ tax bill would somewhat improve the existing revenue system that once caused Mitch Daniels (former head of the Office of Management and Budget, former Indiana governor) to say: Wouldn’t it be nice to have a tax code that looked as though it had been designed on purpose? Today’s bill, which is 429 pages and is apt to grow, is an implausible instrument of simplification. And it would worsen the tax code’s already substantial contribution to “moral hazard.”

Economists use that phrase to denote circumstances in which incentives are for perverse behavior. Today’s tax code is such a circumstance, and the Republican bill would exacerbate this by expanding the $1,000 child credit to $1,600 with an additional $300 “family credit” for each parent and non-child dependent, and by doubling the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples.

Prayer, it seems, is no longer a politically acceptable response to tragedy. Instead, we’re being told to put our trust in something else.

As I record this, just days after the horrific massacre at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a massacre which claimed 26 lives and wounded 20 others, authorities continue to piece together the motives of the young male who perpetrated this act of terror. Apparently, it was a revenge shooting at the church his mother-in-law attended, though she was not there on that Sunday morning.

The victims ranged in age from a baby in utero to 77 years, and included more than one family that lost multiple members and the pastor’s 14 year-old daughter. Most of the victims were, according to reports, children.