Why Birtherism Won’t Die
Birtherism survives as an unreasonable surrogate for the public discussion that the left has stifled.
One Human Heart: Wordsworth’s Old Cumberland Beggar and the Sweetness of Being Human
Wordsworth denounces those who reduce human worth to utility and teaches us that the goodness of being is absolute. We must learn to love those incomparably useless and precious beings, the child, the elderly, the unborn, and the dying, because they and we are one.
Good Religion: In Defense of Ross Douthat
By showing the triumph of the therapeutic over the orthodox in American Christianity, Ross Douthat’s latest book gives Americans on both sides of the political divide much to consider.
Liberalism, Relativism, and the Novel: A Reply to Ramos
How many Solzhenitsyns are occupying the pipelines of novelists in America?
The Problem isn’t Liberalism, the Problem is “You”
Even if the marriage plot has dissolved, the human drama remains. It just resurfaces in a different context.
Neo vs. the Karate Kid
The Matrix and The Karate Kid offer two competing views of the relationship between how we learn and how we understand human nature.
Marriage in Islam
While Islam opposes same-sex marriage, its opposition to it and to President Obama’s stance is not a matter of hate or bigotry but a matter of principle.
Self-Government and Judicial Review
Liberals and conservatives alike often complain hypocritically about judicial activism. If we are to avoid letting judicial activism become rule in favor of whatever causes justices approve, then we should make the presumption of constitutionality a basic principle of judicial review.
The Perils of Polygamy
Recent empirical research suggests that, in virtually every respect, polygamy is socially detrimental—to society in general, to men, to women, and to children.
The Audacity of Faith
The views about faith and religion that President Obama expressed in his Commencement Address at Notre Dame pave the way for his HHS mandate. He would protect the state from the church, not by privatizing faith, but by redefining it.
A Constitutional and Wise Way to Protect the Unborn: A Response to Paul Linton
We should pass Unborn Child Protection Acts and begin the conversation about the pain of the unborn.
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act: Unconstitutional and Unwise
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act does not deserve the support of the public because it is unconstitutional and represents poor public policy.
Explaining Obama’s Evolution
The electorate will often forgive—and can even embrace—a clean conversion story, where a politician honestly changes his mind and admits to it. But on marriage, such a story should not be available for the President, who was either alarmingly befuddled for several years or merely lying.
The President’s Still Contorted Position on Same-Sex Marriage
Given the legal principles involved in recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages, it’s hard to see any coherence in President Obama’s statement.
Catholic Social Teaching and the Ryan Budget
Paul Ryan’s budget plan does not violate principles of Catholic social teaching; it is one prudent application of them.
Obama, Marriage, and the “Anti-Gay” Theme
Yesterday’s statement about same-sex marriage by President Obama and last week’s departure of a gay-rights activist from the Romney campaign reveal important lessons.
Judging Human Worth
The failure to grasp the implications of intrinsic human worth plagues arguments for physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.
In the Courthouse was the Word
Though we feel that we human beings are meant for something, not individually and arbitrarily, but together and truly, we lack the language and even the political sanction to think along those lines.
Two Steps from Reasonable About Marriage
A thought experiment crystalizes the reality that the connection between sex and children is marriage’s central element, and consequently the contemporary idea of marriage as existing for the desires of adults makes little sense.
Liberalism Is Bad for Literature
Jeffrey Eugenides shows what happens to the novel when courtship and marriage lose their binding character.
Evangelicals and Politics: The Way Forward
Virtuous citizenship requires building moral consensus across religious and cultural divides. The third in a three-part series.
Evangelicals and Politics: The Religious Right (Born 1979, Died 2000)
The largely forgotten history of evangelical political activism forces us to re-evaluate the rights and wrongs of the Religious Right movement. The second in a three-part series.
Evangelicals and Politics: The Hundred Years’ War
The legacy of the great Protestant schism a century ago continues to hinder evangelicals from finding satisfactory ways to participate in America’s civic order. The first in a three-part series.
