Paul Random

It’s been next to impossible to have perused any news site this past week without seeing multiple references to the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein files case and the story involving the disgraced former CEO and head of human resources at Astronomer, the tech start-up.

Caught on camera at a Coldplay concert earlier this month, lead singer Chris Martin quipped of the philandering couple captured in an embrace, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” 

As it turns out, the former caused the latter.

On Wednesday, a federal judge denied the Trump administration’s request to release grand jury transcripts from an investigation of the late convicted child sex-offender Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Citing the “endless efforts to politicize the Epstein investigation,” House Speaker Mike Johnson recessed Congress early in an effort to sidestep and delay anticipated legislative action on the investigation.

Both stories exhaust and turn off discerning readers, especially people with moral conviction. Sexual abuse and adultery are awful topics, but in the media world, they also seem to garner a lot of gawkers and clicks.

Yet in addition to all the web traffic they generate, both stories have also been generating and eliciting a lot of derision and disgust. In an increasingly “anything goes” sexual era, have the American people suddenly rediscovered a moral foundation?

To be sure, the Epstein reprisal appears to be prime political fodder for activists eager to exploit its tawdriness to enact maximum electoral damage.

But the Coldplay Kiss Cam?

Surveys consistently show that the vast majority of Americans believe it’s morally wrong to cheat on a spouse. Yet, in recent years, there’s also been research showing moral inconsistencies related to infidelity.

According to the data:

“Seventy percent of women say that a married man who has an affair is always morally wrong, while fewer (56%) say the same when married women have relationships outside their marriage.”

The gap is even wider when the question is posed to younger women, with 71% thinking a man having an affair is wrong, compared to just 51% if the woman is the offender. Women with post-graduate degrees are even more permissive, with just 41% suggesting a woman having an extra-marital affair is always wrong.

Why the glaring double standard?

Presumably, some of the explanation may be attributable to the perception that women are straying from their marital vows because their husbands have strayed from theirs.  That’s a big assumption, and one that brings the popular adage to mind: two wrongs don’t make a right.

Andy Byron, the CEO caught in the adulterous embrace at the Coldplay concert, issued a statement in the days following the news acknowledging the “disappointment” he caused. He apologized to his wife and family, but then went on to say the video capture “should have been a private moment.”

Only our marriage vows are typically made in public, because our family, friends and broader community serve as witnesses to the couple’s promise of lifelong fidelity. We wear rings as a public declaration of the union.

Marriage isn’t just romantic – it’s cultural and socially consequential.

It might surprise people to learn that adultery is still considered a crime in 16 states and Puerto Rico: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin.

In fact, in Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, extramarital sex is considered a felony.

The New York Post, known for its tabloid, sensational headlines, ran a series of photos of the couple on the concert big screen along with the headline, “DUMBOTRON!!”

Only adultery is no laughing matter. It doesn’t just damage or destroy unions between husband and wife but blows apart children’s relationships with mom and dad, upends family cohesiveness, and threatens to sow seeds of discord for future generations.

These harsh realities don’t seem lost on the American people, especially given their interest and disgust over this very public affair. Perhaps the ugly spectacle and consequences of it might discourage observers from walking down a similar path. In the meantime, prayers for the children and spouses victimized by this affair would certainly be in order.

Image from X.

Overwrought eulogies and sympathetic tributes have been rolling in since CBS announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show .

According to the New Yorker, Colbert’s nightly offering represents “one of the last public pipelines to some version of the truth.”

Jason Zinoman wrote in The New York Times,

The loss of “The Late Show” is not the death knell, but it is a death knell. The other late-night network hosts Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel each have their strengths, but they weren’t comic supernovas the way Colbert was when he took the job. They don’t define the sensibilities of young viewers and future comedians the way Letterman or O’Brien did. And the success of the current crop of hosts — and some of their most interesting work — is built for an online audience.

Late night television talk shows date back to 1949’s Faye Emerson Show on CBS. Nicknamed “The First Lady of Television,” Emerson was a movie star before she was a talk show host. Her stock and notoriety rose after marrying President Franklin Roosevelt’s son in 1944. They divorced in 1950.

The debut of The Tonight Show starring Steve Allen is credited with ushering in modern late-night fare that gained steam with the explosive growth of television itself. Personalities Jack Paar and Johnny Carson eventually became household names and water cooler fodder the next morning.

Eventually earning the moniker of “The King of Late-Night,” Carson averaged over 15 million viewers a night. Over 55 million tuned in for his farewell program on May 22, 1992.

By comparison, Colbert’s last season averaged 1.9 million viewers and saw advertising revenue drop from an annual take of $121.1 million in 2018 to $70.2 million in 2024.

It would be easy and not all wrong to chalk up the fade of late-night television to the ongoing media revolution that’s upending viewer habits. Seemingly endless choices for consumers inevitably leads to fewer eyeballs on one-time leading shows. Why stay up when you can watch almost anything on demand anytime, anywhere?

Yet the demise of late-night television can also be explained by a large swath of the audience becoming frustrated and fed up with the garbage being offered up by network programmers. Monologues no longer just poke fun but look to prod, pierce, and propagandize an almost always liberal point of view.

The very fact that media pundits are framing Colbert’s departure as a loss of a “pipeline” to supposed “truth” makes clear the agenda all along hasn’t just been comedy but a concerted campaign to communicate an ideological agenda.

Writing in National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke correctly blames the cancellation of Stephen Colbert on Stephen Colbert:

As the host of the “Late Show,” Stephen Colbert was annoying, in a direct and palpable sense. He hectored; he sneered; he gatekept for a narrow, pious worldview; and, above all else, he sacrificed jocosity for ideology — a trade that never, ever pays. Under Colbert’s inadequate leadership, the program came to resemble the sort of bedeviled mutt that one might expect if one were to instruct artificial intelligence to produce a chat show, having trained it solely on old episodes of “The View.” Not only did the product fail to look like America; its architects neither knew what America looked like nor wanted to know what America looks like. It was insular, smug, and self-serious — and, worst of all, it routinely committed the only mortal sin in show business: It was boring.

Convictional Christians have never been overly enthusiastic about late night television, and for good reason. Even in its golden age it pushed and crossed moral boundaries. But the modern day pompous gas bags posing as comedians have taken the smugness Cooke writes about to an entirely new level. It might resonate in certain elite and radical circles, but mainstream Americans have no interest being lectured by liberals who despise both them and their beliefs.

Scripture makes clear that laughter is part of healthy living (Ecc. 3:4). Life can be difficult and its challenges sobering, but we all know from experience that “A cheerful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22). But the best comedy is clean and lifts up – it’s not crass and doesn’t tear down.

In reality, CBS’ cancellation of Stephen Colbert impacts very few people. When it comes to filling the time, they’d be wise to show a daily classic movie that won’t insult our sensibilities or mock and malign people of the Christian faith.

Image from Getty.

In-N-Out president Lynsi Snyder told popular Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey on Friday that she’s moving the popular burger empire out of California and building a new office in Franklin, Tennessee.

“There’s a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here,” said Snyder.

In-N-Out opened the doors of its first store in Baldwin Park, California on October 28, 1948. It was a drive-thru stand located just across the street from founder Henry Snyder’s childhood home.

Christian fans of the burger chain especially appreciate the company’s tradition of placing Bible verses on the company’s cups and wrappers. Lynsi’s Uncle Rich was responsible for that evangelistic expression. Taking over as head of the company at the age of 24, Rich became a Christian soon after he began attending Calvary Chapel and soaking up the teaching of pioneering pastor Chuck Smith.

Rich Snyder died tragically in an airplane crash in 1993, but his niece Lynsi happily maintained the tradition as a way to honor both his legacy and her love for the Lord.

Moving a company or organization out-of-state can be a herculean task and a decision that’s never taken lightly. But California’s deteriorating social culture and escalating antagonism towards convictional Christians forced Lynsi’s hand.

Incidentally, Focus on the Family departed California back in 1991. The ideological chasm wasn’t nearly as wide as it is today, but the cost of living and the difficulty of hiring and retaining top talent was a significant point of tension and reason for the move from Pomona to Colorado Springs.

A survey by Emerson College Polling last year revealed that 56% of Californians have thought about pulling up stakes and leaving the Golden State permanently. According to data from the Census Bureau, California experienced a net loss of nearly 240,000 people in 2024 – and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Last year, In-N-Out decided to shutter a restaurant in Oakland, Calif., out of concern for customer and employee safety.

“There was actually — gunshots went through the store, there was a stabbing, there was a lot,” said Snyder. “For the safety of our associates, we just felt like, this is not OK.”

Meanwhile, Tennessee has enjoyed steady population growth in recent years and has been experiencing a net gain of tens of thousands of new residents annually. Drawn to the area because of its lower cost of living – the state has no income tax – and isn’t in a constant battle with moms and dads over parental rights. It’s also friendly to Christians and doesn’t see believers as hostile actors but rather good citizens.

Preborn children are safe in the Volunteer State thanks to Tennessee’s Human Life Protection Act of 2022 that banned abortion. The state also looks out for the welfare of sexually confused minors. Children aren’t allowed to be sexually mutilated thanks to the passage of SB1, which the Supreme Court recently upheld as constitutional.

For all these reasons and more, In-N-Out and Lynsi Snyder and her family will be warmly welcomed in Franklin, Tennessee. The company’s first restaurant in their new state is expected to open in 2026.

Will the company’s departure from its home for the last 77 years be enough to get the attention of the radical ideologues who seem determined to drive people and businesses like them away? Only time will tell.

Image from Getty.