Baylor College President Ken Starr testifies on the Home Committee on Training and Workforce on school athletes forming unions on Might 8, 2014, in Washington. Starr, whose felony investigation of Invoice Clinton led to the president’s impeachment, died Sept. 13, 2022. He was 76. Lauren Victoria Burke, Related Press
In January of 2012, the late federal choose Ken Starr, who died Tuesday in Houston, Texas, wrote an op-ed for The Washington Publish. It was concerning the upcoming presidential election.
The headline was “Can I vote for a Mormon?” and the piece was an impassioned protection of spiritual forbearance with regards to selecting a president, though it by no means talked about then candidate Mitt Romney, a Latter-day Saint, by title.
The litmus take a look at for presidents, Starr wrote, “should not be the church they attend however the Structure they defend.”
It was a chic attraction in line with the work Starr did to advertise spiritual liberty after leaving the federal government service that made him a family title. Most Individuals know him because the solicitor normal who led the Whitewater investigation that resulted within the revelation of President Invoice Clinton’s relationship with an intern named Monica Lewinsky.
And for some time, it appeared that the “The Starr Report,” issued on Sept. 11, 1998, would outline his profession. However Starr went on to develop into president of Baylor College, the place he served from 2010 to 2016, and final 12 months launched a e book that has been referred to as “an indispensable information to defending spiritual freedom.”
‘A outstanding profession’
Starr clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger within the Seventies and was appointed to the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan. He grew to become solicitor normal below President George H.W. Bush in 1989.
In her assertion on Starr’s demise, present Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone referred to as him “a devoted public servant and ardent supporter of spiritual freedom that enables faith-based establishments comparable to Baylor to flourish.”
Starr left Baylor after he was accused of mishandling stories of sexual assault on the faculty; the parting was referred to as a “mutual separation,” and he mentioned he would proceed the work he had achieved at Baylor advocating for spiritual freedom.
Writing about Starr’s 2021 e book, “Non secular Liberty in Disaster: Exercising Your Religion in an Age of Uncertainty,” Jim Denison described Starr’s profession as outstanding and mentioned Starr’s most up-to-date e book was “one of the best information to the pressing subject of spiritual freedom I've ever learn.”
“It's authoritative, winsome, and eminently readable and sensible. It provides Christians an indispensable introduction to the problems, historical past, and challenges we face in defending and using our spiritual liberties in these perilous days for Christian religion and witness,” Denison wrote.
And in First Issues, Mark David Corridor mentioned Starr made a convincing argument for spiritual freedom that ought to resonate with all Individuals. “Hopefully, it is going to encourage conservatives to struggle for spiritual liberty, moderates to worth it extremely, and progressives to recommit themselves to defending what America’s founders referred to as ‘the sacred proper of conscience’.”
‘Freedom is the baseline’
Writing for Fox Information final 12 months, Starr decried a popular culture that “has radically shifted towards a hardened perspective of aggressive calls for for conformity and elimination of freedom of conscience.”
He went on to say, “In America’s constitutional republic, freedom is the baseline. When authorities brushes up in opposition to particular person liberties, it should justify the incursion or limitation.”
In “Non secular Liberty in Disaster,” Starr wrote that “the First Modification doesn't a lot create a ‘wall of separation’ between the church and the state, however relatively a ‘wall of safety’ in order that religion communities can freely chart their very own course with out disrupting vital public pursuits.”
Regardless of his issues a couple of public that has soured on spiritual liberty, he was hopeful concerning the future, noting court docket actions on instances like Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak, through which a state appeals court docket mentioned a church didn’t must pay fines for assembly in particular person through the pandemic.
Within the e book, Starr wrote, “The prospects for persevering with safety of spiritual liberty are literally fairly good. Nonetheless, if we're to keep up our spiritual freedoms in America, we should be prepared to face up in opposition to legal guidelines and rules that threaten to compromise their autonomy.”
Starr’s household mentioned Tuesday that his demise stemmed from problems from surgical procedure. He died at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Heart in Houston at age 76.