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Public Discourse

The Future of Marriage: “Why The Inevitable” Is Not Inevitable

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Public opinion, the methods and messaging of LGBT activists, and social reality all converge on a simple fact: marriage is worth fighting for and we can win.
Public Discourse

Stripping the Constitution

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Adam Freedman’s stark proposal in The Naked Constitution that we strip our founding document of its modern and academic glosses shows us that we need to take structural reforms to our Constitution seriously.
Public Discourse

The GOP and Social Issues: Sophomoric Arguments at the Wall Street Journal

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By discarding its support for life, marriage, and religious freedom, the GOP, contrary to what some party members think, will doom itself to minority status.
Public Discourse

Medicine’s Dance with Death

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A physician-philosopher argues that modern medicine is oriented toward the dead body because it is no longer informed by an ultimate purpose for human existence.
Public Discourse

The Abolition of Man-and-Woman: On Marriage, Grammar, and Legal Strategy

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Preserving marriage as a union of man and woman is bound to fail unless we address the true point of contention in the marriage debate, one completely ignored by even the best legal advocates for redefining marriage: the question “what is marriage?"
Public Discourse

Potentiality Rightly Understood

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From the beginning of its existence a human being is always already a person because personhood belongs to it essentially as an instance of that natural kind. The second of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Potential Misunderstandings

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Pro-choice philosophers err in their criticism of the pro-life position because they do not understand potentiality in terms of a being’s essential properties. The first of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Liberty and a Free Press

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Can the press still prevent a tyrannical majority opinion as it did in Tocqueville’s time? Second of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Walter Lippmann and the Crisis in Journalism

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Progressive journalist Walter Lippman’s 1922 book Public Opinion still offers a relevant critique of the concept of “public opinion” and journalists’ power to shape it. First in a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Saving Natural Law from Itself

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Naïve proponents and skeptics of the natural law often point to the world “out there” as the source of objective truth (or lack thereof), but the truths of the natural law are to be found through the actions of our intellect.
Public Discourse

Life in the ‘Kingdom of Whatever’

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The Reformation unintentionally undid the medieval synthesis of faith and reason. Now we romantically seek a spiritual life free from authority and tradition, or rationalistically seek truth as if human beings were autonomous and self-sufficient.
Public Discourse

Same-Sex Marriage Ten Years On: Lessons from Canada

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The effects of same-sex civil marriage in Canada—restrictions on free speech rights, parental rights in education, and autonomy rights of religious institutions, along with a weakening of the marriage culture—provide lessons for the United States.
Public Discourse

Free Speech, the Supreme Court, and Neutral Principles

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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and Judge Robert Bork argue that the First Amendment gives the people greater deference to determine legitimate speech than the courts.
Public Discourse

Taxed for Wearing Their Heads

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The Anti-Federalists’ early fear about Congress’s taxing power—that it would result in a tax on humans’ very existence—are now realized in the Supreme Court’s upholding of Obamacare.
Public Discourse

The Vindication of Mark Regnerus

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Mark Regnerus’s response to his critics shows more clearly that instability is characteristic of same-sex relationships and that stable same-sex parented households are virtually non-existent. Second of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Mark Regnerus and the Storm over the New Family Structures Study

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Attacks on sociologist Mark Regnerus after he challenged the “no differences” thesis haven’t obscured the high quality of the New Family Structures Study or its troubling findings. The first of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Rape, Conception, and God: Why Mourdock Was Right

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Richard Mourdock’s comment didn’t imply that God wills rape; instead, it reminds us that God wills a great good in the coming-to-be of any human life, regardless of the evil circumstances surrounding its conception.
Public Discourse

Men Don’t Mother

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Promoting “genderless parenting” contradicts what the facts show us both about the harms of single parenthood and the benefits of having a mom and a dad.
Public Discourse

Neither Darwin Nor God?

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Distinguished philosopher Thomas Nagel rejects both evolutionary materialism and theism as adequate accounts of the origin and nature of human life, proposing instead a naturalistic “nonpurposive teleology.” But naturalistic teleology, just like existence itself, calls for a cause that transcends the created order.
Public Discourse

Public and Religious Education: L’État, C’est Tout

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There is no good reason to be suspicious of people of faith. There is every reason to encourage them and to be grateful for them, because even by worldly standards they make good citizens. But the State does not want to keep separate from the churches. It wants to absorb them.
Public Discourse

A War on Religion?

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In a world where the government believes that the First Amendment’s religious freedoms don’t apply to churches, religious organizations, non-profit and for-profit businesses, health-care providers, and anyone outside the four walls of a church building, we are all at risk.
Public Discourse

George Washington’s Legacy as a Foreign Policy Guide

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Washington’s life suggests that prudence, flexibility, and moderation both in personal and national pursuits of power should guide our leaders in their foreign policy strategies.
Public Discourse

First Principles for American Foreign and Security Policy: A Presidential Debate Primer

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As Americans consider foreign policy and national security issues during a presidential campaign, a refresher on our nation’s first principles provides guidance for assessing current problems and contending views. The first of a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Promoting Women’s Equality in Pakistan

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An assassination attempt on a 14-year-old girl reminds us that we need to promote better education and equality for women in Pakistan.