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Public Discourse

Freedom of Conscience and New “LGBT Rights” in International Human Rights Law

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“LGBT rights” are being elevated above conscience rights when the two come into conflict—but this trend is to the detriment of human rights, which can stand the test of time only when they are grounded in transcendent, fixed authority.
Public Discourse

Ex Machina, Artificial Intelligence, and the Ethical Dangers–or Benefits?–of New Technology

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Very soon, the classic scenarios of artificial intelligence from science fiction will become reality. Recognizing the moral and ethical concerns such achievements will raise can help us begin to address them. Whether the development of new technology will be good or bad will depend on how we use it.
Public Discourse

An Originalist Critique of the Court’s Free Speech Tradition

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Free-speech jurisprudence has reached a state where it is acceptable to abridge speech on matters of public concern, but not on vile or private speech. And the Supreme Court has usurped the authority of line-drawing from the people to empower itself.
Public Discourse

Personal Love and the Call to Chastity

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Millennials are bombarded with the message that casual sex brings fulfillment while chastity is shameful, but a closer look reveals the profound loneliness and psychological pain motivating sexual libertinism’s most outspoken advocates. Millennials would choose differently if they realized the positive benefits of chastity.
Public Discourse

What Trump and Sanders Teach Us about America

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Enthusiastic support for Trump and Sanders shows the stranglehold that materialistic individualism has on American political culture. Unless we can find a counterbalance to our excessive focus on economic interests, we should expect to be crushed beneath their weight.
Public Discourse

Answering the Question of Every Human Life

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Every person is born with a heart, mind, and conscience that desire to seek truth and goodness—but these can only be found in an atmosphere of genuine freedom.
Public Discourse

Women and the Power to Change the World

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Women are called to shape the moral dimension of the culture, but current trends seem to indicate that the wrong women have been doing the job. Fortunately a new generation of women is rising up eager to give joyful witness to the complementarity of men and women and to the happiness they have found in Christ.
Public Discourse

The National Bank: An Early Lesson in Constitutional Fidelity

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The debate over the creation of a national bank reveals how Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton, despite profound disagreements, argued respectfully with prudence and fidelity to the Constitution. All three men offer valuable examples to today’s statesmen.
Public Discourse

Supreme Court Nominations and the Virtues of a Resolute Senate

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Liberal activists claim that the Senate must consider an Obama nomination to the Court. In fact, it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court justice to be confirmed under a divided government during a term-limited president’s final year in office.
Public Discourse

The Law of Benedict

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Pope Benedict XVI often ventured into venues historically hostile to the Judeo-Christian tradition. A new collection of essays discusses many of these speeches, probing the relationship of reason to religion, the West, and natural law.
Public Discourse

The Supreme Greatness of Justice Antonin Scalia

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For his immense contributions to constitutional discourse, his sound constitutional vision, his rigorous and vigorous opinions, his fearlessness and peerlessness, Justice Scalia is one of the greatest Supreme Court justices of all time.
Public Discourse

The National Parks: “America’s Best Idea”

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We will benefit most from the national parks if we can remember their role as natural cathedrals that orient us to the crucial relevance of “Nature” for politics and society.
Public Discourse

The Ideology of Anti-Poetry

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A recent collection of essays on the nature and function of poetry gives a clear-sighted critique of the failures of contemporary poetry.
Public Discourse

Immigrants, Assimilation, and Religion

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Our nation faces an assimilation crisis as many Middle Eastern immigrants reject our culture, which they perceive as libertine. We could improve the situation through a renewed commitment to our founding principles, particularly the reunification of faith and reason.
Public Discourse

Setting the Record Straight on Texas’s Abortion-Safety Law

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The Supreme Court is a vote away from unraveling years of incremental pro-life legislation as it examines the case surrounding Texas’ abortion-safety law HB2. But holding the abortion industry to a high standard of care should not be controversial, as the health of real women is at stake.
Public Discourse

Girls Just Want to Be Born

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The global pro-life movement will continue to speak out and defend the girl child. We must work to oppose all acts of gender based violence, protect women’s and girls’ lives, and seek consistent non-discriminatory life-affirming laws and policies.
Public Discourse

Crony Capitalism: Inefficient, Unjust, and Corrupting

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Cronyism in the marketplace not only damages the economy. It is also unjust and deeply corrupting of the body politic—perhaps especially of democracies.
Public Discourse

Bird Brains and Cross-Species Empathy

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Speaking about empathy between humans and animals requires a robust philosophy of nature. Such a philosophy can guide us in thinking more deeply about what it means to be human and how the human animal can better be connected to the broader animal world.
Public Discourse

The Hippocratic Oath: Quaint Relic or Solemn Vow?

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Despite its naysayers, the original Hippocratic oath remains an enduring icon of medical ethics because it eschews the unbound and nebulous principles of modern bioethics in favor of traditional virtues and transcendent truths.
Public Discourse

The Fight over Abortion in the UN’s New International Development Agenda

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Pro-life countries must arm themselves against the UN’s intense pressure toward population control, while at the same time supporting and holding the UN accountable to its legitimate development objectives.
Public Discourse

No Longer Calm, But Alive: Robert Royal’s Catholic Humanism

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Robert Royal makes the case that, despite a twentieth-century period of confusion and fragmentation, Christian humanism has been renewed and revitalized, so that today it is “as alive as it has ever been.”
Public Discourse

The Troubling Stakes of the Originalism-Living Constitutionalism Debate

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Any defense of constitutional originalism depends on accepting the principles of natural law and natural rights on which the Constitution was founded. Unfortunately, these principles no longer have meaning for most judges, politicians, and ordinary citizens today—which has troubling implications for the future of our republic.
Public Discourse

Why Trump Persists

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No amount of lecturing about principles will persuade voters who think that their interests are under assault—and that Trump is the only candidate taking their interests seriously.
Public Discourse

The Politics of Passion: A Lesson from The Federalist Papers

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In an era when Americans seek political leaders who display “authenticity” rather than prudence, a look back to the Federalist Papers makes clear the importance of a politics based on moderation rather than passion.