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Public Discourse

Damnatio Memoria? The Council of Trent and Catholic Teaching on Divorce

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Some theologians claim that the Council of Trent lends support to the idea that the Catholic Church could accept divorce and remarriage. Careful scholarship reveals that this is not true.
Public Discourse

A Right to Euthanasia?

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For both principled and practical reasons, the Supreme Court of Canada should maintain the country’s legal ban on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
Public Discourse

Has the Catholic Church Changed Its Teaching on Sex and Marriage?

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Amid reports of “earthquakes” and “seismic” shifts, we ought to remember the Catholic Church’s moral teachings in their wholeness, which have not shifted.
Public Discourse

Religious Liberty at a Crossroads?

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US religious liberty law is not perfect, but it still deserves our support. Religious exemptions witness to the value of religion as a transcendent good. And nothing in the Supreme Court cases requesting religious liberty exemptions for Muslim citizens undermines that effort.
Public Discourse

China’s One-Child Policy: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Must Work Together to End Forced Abortion and Gendercide

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Forced abortion and gendercide are not pro-life or pro-choice issues. They are human rights issues. Adapted from an address given at the Heritage Foundation on October 9th, 2014.
Public Discourse

The Profound Injustice of Judge Posner on Marriage

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The equality that demands same-sex marriage demands that all social recognition of the distinction between mothers and fathers—of the paternal and the maternal, the masculine and the feminine, and of the sexual identity of everyone as male or female—must be systematically expunged, to be replaced by the lies and seductions of “gender identities” on the ever more blurry rainbow spectrum.
Public Discourse

The Defense of Marriage Isn’t Over

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Monday’s action from the Supreme Court is a setback for sound constitutional self-government and for a healthy marriage culture. So where do we go from here?
Public Discourse

The Beauty of the Country of Marriage

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In a brave new book, Anthony Esolen describes the very real consequences of redefining marriage.
Public Discourse

The Fundamental Case for Parental Rights

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Parents have a fundamental right to raise and educate their children as they see fit. Their authority precedes that of the state.
Public Discourse

The Happy Surrogate Families

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In addition to the tragic stories of surrogacy gone wrong, there are families and surrogates with “happy endings.” It is important to hear these stories, too, and to respond to the arguments they make in favor of surrogacy.
Public Discourse

Ruthless Misogyny: Janna Darnelle’s Story and Extreme LGBT Activism

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Men—no matter their sexual orientation—do not have a right to women’s bodies or body parts.
Public Discourse

Fusionism, Hobby Lobby, and the Constitution

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Responses to the Hobby Lobby case demonstrate the importance of conservatives and libertarians working toward common goals.
Public Discourse

Natural Morality, American Exceptionalism, and Race Relations

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The anti-slavery arguments of American abolitionists demonstrate the way in which Lockean natural rights and Thomistic natural law can be reconciled.
Public Discourse

Marriage Is Not a Water Fountain

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Segregation was based on irrational, peculiar prejudice. By contrast, protecting marriage between one man and one woman is based on universal truths about our human nature.
Public Discourse

The Problem of Neutral Rhetoric

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It is impossible to make a political argument without also making a moral claim. Demanding tolerance often functions as a way to evade robust discourse about the merits of one’s principles.
Public Discourse

Life to the Full: The Dangers of Material Wealth and Spiritual Poverty

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In helping developing countries to increase their economic prosperity, we must remember that human welfare cannot be reduced to material realities.
Public Discourse

Marriage Redefinition and a Lifelong Commitment

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The commitment to be faithful to one’s spouse—for better, for worse, in sickness and in health—is not a pledge to keep the same feelings. It is a pledge to do certain things, to voluntary conduct.
Public Discourse

Surrogacy: Children of Dreams, Parents of Means

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A new book tells the story of an infertile couple that has children through Indian surrogacy services—but it glosses over the costs to egg donors, surrogate mothers, and children.
Public Discourse

Breaking the Silence: Redefining Marriage Hurts Women Like Me – and Our Children

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The push to present a positive image of same-sex families has hidden the devastation on which many are built. We must stand for marriage—and for the precious lives that marriage creates.
Public Discourse

International Religious Freedom Policy and American National Security

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The Obama administration has failed to advance the cause of international religious liberty, and that failure has endangered American national security. But there are concrete steps Congress can take to improve implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act. Adapted from testimony delivered before the National Security Sub-Committee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, September 18, 2014.
Public Discourse

Jewish Praise of Truett Cathy: Chick-fil-A Founder and Sabbath Observer

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In a society in which the profit motive tends to make all other interests subordinate to the almighty dollar, Chick-fil-A’s founder declared that the store would not be open on the Sabbath.
Public Discourse

Scientific Education: Do We Love Our Children?

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To love our children well, we must equip them with a strong education in the sciences as well as the liberal arts.
Public Discourse

Happiness at Yale

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College students, like everyone else, want to be happy. Educators should help them ground this desire for happiness in acts of virtue.
Public Discourse

Incest and Pornography: More Similar Than We Think

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Although we uphold the cultural taboo on incest, we accept something with precisely the same negative effect on integrity, marriage, and family: pornography.