LGBT Rights, plus Millennials and Religion: Friday’s show (June 26, 2015)

The US Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 ruling, declared state bans on same sex marriages unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy based the opinion on the due process and equal protection clauses in the 14^th Amendment, writing that same sex couples, too, have a “fundamental right to marry.”

To put it mildly, it’s a big day for the LGBT community. But then, that’s been true for June 26 before. On that same date in 2003, the High Court legalized same-sex intimacy in Lawrence v. Texas, and, in 2013, the court struck down a federal same-sex marriage ban.

Today’s historic decision comes in advance of Pride Houston, the annual LGBT parade here. In advance of Saturday’s parade, Houston Matters’ Edel Howlin reports on Houston’s LGBT past, present, and future.

Then: Fewer adults under the age of 30 choose to affiliate with a religion. Are they walking away from faith, or towards something else? And what are Houston area religious leaders doing about it? We talk over the rise of religiously unaffiliated Houstonians with Anthony Pinn, a Professor of Humanities and Religion at Rice University, and Sean Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of the Jung Center.

Then, we discuss what some area religious institutions are doing to try to reach out to younger, unaffiliated Houstonians. We welcome your questions for Rev. Laura Mayo, the senior minister at Covenant Church, Ruth Nasrullah from the Council on American-Islamic Relations Houston office, and Father Italo Dell’Oro from the Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

Also this hour: From Houstonians identifying solutions to traffic problems but not wanting to pay for them, to the UT Austin campus joining the growing cacophony in opposition to Confederate statues and symbols, to a Brenham veterinarian not facing charges after allegedly boasting on Facebook she shot a cat through the head with an arrow: we discuss The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of this week’s news with our Friday panel of “non-experts.” Kicking those topics around today: Charles Kuffner, author of the Off the Kuff political blog; Ty Mahany, a Houston-based comedian; and Tamara Tabo, who writes about the law and politics at AboveTheLaw.com.