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Public Discourse

What Our Obligations to Other Animals Are Not

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Charles Camosy’s new book argues that we should treat animals with the same Christian justice that underlies our treatment of other people. But human beings and other animals are not fundamentally equal in the way that all human beings are, as free and rational beings created in the image of God.
Public Discourse

Complicating Conception: The Desires of Parents and the Rights of Children

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Infertile parents who desperately seek a child might see anonymous sperm donation as the solution to their fertility difficulties. But as the stories in the Anonymous Us collective reveal, the difficulties faced by donor-conceived children are just beginning.
Public Discourse

It’s Time to Return to the New Critics

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Although they are often attacked as being ahistorical or obsolete, New Critical methods of interpreting literature can help students become better readers who see the value in literature, ambiguity, and the search for meaning.
Public Discourse

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: The Constitutional Soundness of Ultrasound Requirements

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“Informed choice” legislation does not impede a woman’s ability to choose abortion. Such laws enlighten the abortion choice by making clear exactly what it is that is being chosen.
Public Discourse

Understanding the Slavery-Abortion Analogy

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In both Dred Scott and Roe, the justices of the Supreme Court had to decide what it means to be a person, whether human beings can be considered property, and what it means to be deprived of liberty. They got it wrong both times.
Public Discourse

Love’s Biblical Alternative to Interfaith Dialogue

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How should Christians form relationships with Muslims?
Public Discourse

Why Max Weber Was Wrong

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The association of Protestantism with capitalism, famously articulated by Max Weber and now widely accepted by many, is theologically dubious, empirically disprovable, and largely incidental. An edited excerpt from Gregg's new book, Tea Party Catholic.
Public Discourse

Emergency Contraception Can Cause Abortion

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Hidden behind misleading terminology, the facts emerge: emergency contraceptives such as Ella and hormonal IUDs can and do cause abortions
Public Discourse

Québec’s Secular Charter

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Québec wants to define itself in terms of a Christian past while setting a course for a secularism that is profoundly hostile to all religious believers.
Public Discourse

Peonage for the Twenty-First Century

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The Common Core exists only because we have forgotten that parents have a right to educate their children. The state has no educational authority of its own apart from what parents delegate to it.
Public Discourse

Motherhood and Career: A Thrilling Tug of War

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The home and the office pull in opposite directions, but modern mothers can assemble a team on both ends of the rope to help them manage that tension—and they can learn to thrive in the process.
Public Discourse

A Modest Balanced Budget Proposal

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Constitutional amendments requiring Congress to pass a balanced budget are unrealistic and doomed to fail. It would be more effective to combat deficit spending by requiring the president to submit a balanced budget.
Public Discourse

Where Do (Modern) Babies Come From?

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“Eggsploitation” reveals the predatory practices of the fertility industry, which lures young women in need of money to undergo medical procedures that carry the risk of severe long-term health problems.
Public Discourse

What Makes a Marriage? Love, Sex, or Comprehensive Union

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Prof. Charles Reid thinks love makes a marriage. He claims we think sex makes a marriage. In truth, comprehensive union makes a marriage. And getting marriage right matters for everyone.
Public Discourse

Thanksgiving and the Constitution

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Strict separation of church and state would require us to throw out Thanksgiving as a religious holiday proclaimed by the president. Instead, we should embrace Thanksgiving and throw out strict separationism as a misguided interpretation of the Constitution.
Public Discourse

“The Conservative Mind” Turns Sixty

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With optimism, precision, and intellectual elegance, Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind” defined what it meant to be an American conservative for the second half of the twentieth century.
Public Discourse

Jonathan Rauch’s Denial

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Jonathan Rauch, in his memoir Denial, argues that only access to the institution of marriage can make gays and lesbians whole. In doing so, he purposefully suppresses the truth that there are many other options available to those who are attracted to persons of the same sex.
Public Discourse

A Lesson in Equality from California

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Governor Jerry Brown’s recent veto of a California bill seeking to extend the statute of limitations for certain sex abuse cases reminds us of a basic principle of law: like cases must be treated alike.
Public Discourse

Conscience and Its Reviewers: A Response to Kevin Doyle

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Kevin Doyle’s review of Robert George's new book is based on a fundamental error. Conscience, rightly understood, is not simply self-will. Rather, conscience identifies one’s duties under the moral law.
Public Discourse

Gettysburg and the New “Proposition” of American Politics

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In Lincoln’s day, America’s dedication to human equality was contested, but its embrace of God’s providential role in the world was a given. Now, the reverse is true.
Public Discourse

Love and Unity: Sexual Ethics in the Modern World

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One Body, by Alexander Pruss, melds rigorous philosophical analysis and insightful moral theology to advance a clearly-articulated system of sexual ethics based on the call to love.
Public Discourse

America’s Moderate Liberalism: Rediscovering Montesquieu, Recovering Balance

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The French philosopher Montesquieu’s principle of moderation taught the founders to reconcile Lockean liberalism, classical republicanism, and Christianity—a balance we could use today.
Public Discourse

When Government Keeps Teens from Seeing the Therapist

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California and New Jersey’s new laws banning talk therapy to address same-sex attraction in minors violate the rights of parents and children to seek counseling that conforms to their values. They also endanger First Amendment rights.
Public Discourse

Authentic Feminine Excellence

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Women should not view professional success and loving motherhood as at odds with each other. Instead, women ought to cultivate an authentic and creative form of excellence that engages the whole person, with all her talents, in relation with others.