LOUISIANA

“Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal says his presidential campaign raised half a million dollars at its first major fundraiser held in Baton Rouge on Saturday.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“The statue of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard has been spray-painted with the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ on both sides of its base. The statue stands at the main entrance to City Park in the circle where North Carrollton and Esplanade avenues intersect, directly in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art.” – NOLA.com

“It seemed like a no-miss event in Louisiana politics, a sitting governor announcing his bid for the White House. But the crowd at Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign kickoff rally noticeably lacked for political star power.” – Lake Charles American Press

“Democrat John Bel Edwards said Sunday night that, if he is elected governor, he would oppose state Superintendent of Education John White remaining in his post.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Jindal’s office has said the governor’s religious freedom executive order as well as state and federal law will protect clerks and state employees who have moral objections to gay marriage and don’t feel comfortable handing out licenses to same-sex couples.” – NOLA.com

“Baton Rouge same-sex couples can now get marriage licenses. Doug Welborn, clerk of court for East Baton Rouge Parish, last week said that his office would wait until after the 25-day rehearing period for the U.S. Supreme Court before issuing the licenses. But on Monday, after news broke that Jefferson Parish was moving forward with issuing licenses, Welborn said he felt more comfortable and agreed to issue licenses as of 1 p.m.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“Jefferson Parish has issued the first marriage license to a gay couple. Clerk of Court Jon Gegenheimer announced Monday (June 29) that his office would begin providing the licenses after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that same sex-couples had the right to marry in all 50 states.” – NOLA.com

“LSU head coach Paul Mainieri has been named the 2015 Skip Bertman National Coach of the Year by the National College Baseball Hall of Fame.” – WAFB

“LSU won the first battle fought in a Louisiana courtroom between the university and former defensive coordinator John Chavis. A judge on Monday denied Chavis’ request to stay LSU’s suit against him in Louisiana, continuing the parties’ legal battle in two states – Texas and Louisiana. Chavis attorney Jill Craft plans to appeal the ruling from State District Judge Timothy Kelley.” – Baton Rouge Advocate

“University Lab power forward Wayde Sims will follow in his father Wayne’s footsteps and play his college ball at LSU, the 2016 prospect announced on Sunday. ” – NOLA.com

NATIONAL

“Abolishing all civil marriage is the primary goal of the elites who have been pushing same sex marriage. The scheme called ‘marriage equality’ is not an end in itself, and never really has been. The LGBT agenda has spawned too many other disparate agendas hostile to the existence of marriage, making marriage ‘unsustainable,’ if you will. By now we should be able to hear the growing drumbeat to abolish civil marriage, as well as to legalize polygamy and all manner of reproductive technologies.” – The Federalist

“The new forms of bias and discrimination won’t stop at the door of pusillanimous and politically correct corporate boardrooms, however. Post-Obergefell v. Hodges, no top-drawer law firm is going to hire a Catholic lawyer who publicly professes what Catholicism believes, on the basis of both reason and revelation, is the nature of marriage. Catholic medical students are already under pressure to conform their clinical and prescriptive judgment to the New Normal and its insistence that there is no such thing as aberrant behavior — pressures created in part by the scientific corruption of the psychiatric profession. Some may have thought that Obergefell v. Hodges was a break for Catholic candidates for public office in 2016, having taken the marriage issue off the board, but Catholic candidates who openly profess what the Church and reason teach them about men, women, their relationship, and marriage are going to find fundraising impossible within the Democratic party and increasingly difficult among well-heeled Republicans. As for those evangelical bakers and photographers who have already felt the lash because they declined to provide services to ‘gay weddings,’ they will inevitably be joined by Catholic counterparts, left vulnerable by state legislatures cowed by a media blitz (as in Indiana a few months back).” – George Weigel/National Review

“Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly diminish, their tax-exempt statuses.”  TIME

“A public school teacher in Pennsylvania is suing the largest union in the state over the claim that she is being forbidden from donating mandated dues to pro-life and gun rights groups.” – The Blaze

“In the matter of the so-called Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court ruled that the law must not say what it in fact does say because it would be better if it were not to say what it says and were to say something else instead. In the matter of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court rules that the law must say what it does not say because it would be better if it were to say what it does not say instead of what it says. Which is to say, the Supreme Court has firmly established that it does not matter what the law says or does not say — what matters is what they want.” – Kevin Williamson/National Review

“The problem with the gay marriage debate is the insistence to have it on just two grounds. You’re either for gay marriage or against it. There’s no so-called ‘Option 3’ discussion where both sides have a chance to be partially satisfied. This involves getting the government 100% out of marriage. It’s something Ed Morrissey and Jazz Shaw have both advocated here at Hot Air and they’re right. Marriage should be privatized.” – Hot Air

“NBCUniversal, succumbing to pressure from an array of Hispanic groups, is severing its business ties to presidential candidate Donald Trump.” – CNN Money

“Banks in Greece and the country’s stock exchange will be shut all week in a sign of the deepening financial crisis. The drastic move comes after people rushed to withdraw their cash amid panic ahead of the referendum on bailout terms. Under the controls, there will be a daily €60 limit on withdrawals from cash machines, which will reopen on Tuesday.” – Sky News

“Puerto Rico’s governor, saying he needs to pull the island out of a ‘death spiral,’ has concluded that the commonwealth cannot pay its roughly $72 billion in debts, an admission that will probably have wide-reaching financial repercussions.” – NY Times

“The problem with Lumenick’s fascist thinking (and those who agree with him) is that his rationale is based solely on emotion and personal bias. To prove this point, I’ll use Lumenick’s arguments for shunning ‘Gone With the Wind’ against ‘Malcolm X.’ In many ways, as you will read below, the argument against ‘Malcolm X’ is stronger.” – John Noltie/Breitbart