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Public Discourse

The Meaning of Place in America: How and Why it Shapes Lives

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While globalized technology promises to make human beings more like each other than ever, our places of residence and origin still differentiate us, whether by shaping our cultural beliefs, our habits, or our manners.
Public Discourse

Let’s Talk About Just War

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In a country where we oscillate between the extremes of realism and pacifism, learning the history of the just war tradition is important. A new book by David Corey and J. Daryl Charles offers us an introduction.
Public Discourse

Bringing Marx into the Abortion Debate

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Two points can best persuade young people about abortion: our need for laws that protect the weak and vulnerable and the deadening of conscience that often accompanies pro-choice sentiment.
Public Discourse

Sneering Social Constructionists

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Sneering at persons who are not social constructionists has become commonplace. Until defenders of inherent virtues, natural laws, divine beings, and other things that transcend social reality learn to overcome this initial set-up, they will be forever on the defensive.
Public Discourse

It’s a Wonderful Strife

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Yes, George Bailey destroyed Bedford Falls. Good riddance! The entrepreneur creates new ways of life that restore our moral bearings when old ways of life become—as they do in every age—cynical and dysfunctional.
Public Discourse

Same-Sex Marriage and Social Change: Exceeding the Speed of Thought

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Michael Klarman’s history of the push for same-sex marriage shows just how recently it’s developed and how its leaders lack substantive arguments for the nature and purpose of marriage itself.
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The HHS Mandate and Judicial Theocracy

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If we are to preserve our First Amendment rights, judges must refrain from telling plaintiffs challenging the HHS mandate that they’ve got their theology wrong.
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Absentee Fathers and the Newtown School Shooting

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Any honest analysis of the Newtown tragedy must address the social problems caused by divorce, absent fathers, and the burdens of single motherhood.
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It’s a Wonderful Country: Pottersville or Bedford Falls?

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In the classic Christmas film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the humane society of Bedford Falls is built on conservative principles, not contemporary liberal ones.
Public Discourse

Porn Use and Supporting Same-Sex Marriage

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Young adult men’s support for redefining marriage may not be entirely the product of ideals about expansive freedoms, rights, liberties, and fairness. It may be, in part, a byproduct of regular exposure to diverse and graphic sex acts.
Public Discourse

A Man for This Season, and All Seasons

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There is only one Thomas More: A man of tender nobility, subtle intellect, and forceful conviction, all rooted in profound fidelity to the larger commonwealth of Christendom outside and above Tudor England.
Public Discourse

Can the President Have a Marriage Agenda Without Talking About What Marriage Is?

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How successful can a “new conversation on marriage” be when its leaders can’t even say what marriage is?
Public Discourse

Jefferson’s Robust Views of Religious Freedom

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Notwithstanding his unorthodox views of Christianity, Thomas Jefferson staunchly adhered to the rights of all religious believers, Christian and non-Christian alike, to free religious exercise.
Public Discourse

Beyond Wishful Thinking: A Response to Schlueter

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“Natural law liberalism” is a chimera that cannot and does not exist in the American tradition.
Public Discourse

Conservatives, Women, and Votes

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Conservatives need to expand their favor with women voters by investing in female candidates and spokespeople, and by reframing their social policies in pro-woman and pro-family terms.
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Science and the Politics of Personhood

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Science can and should help determine sound public policy on matters that involve basic human rights.
Public Discourse

“Fantasy Slut League” and Natural Law

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A “Fantasy Slut League” created by high school boys in California suggests the reality of natural law even in those minds whose view of sexuality has been distorted by our culture.
Public Discourse

Moral Neutrality, Marriage, and the Supreme Court

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A recent ruling in the United States District Court in Hawaii reveals a rational basis for the Supreme Court to rule on a morally neutral basis that marriage can be enshrined in law.
Public Discourse

Sustainable Liberalism

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The solution to the political and moral crisis of our time does not lie in abandoning liberalism or in defending Lockeanism. It rests in the recovery of natural law liberalism—a sustainable public philosophy that is true to reason, to nature, and to Christian belief.
Public Discourse

Contraception and Women’s Wellbeing: Physical Health, Happiness, and Religion

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Poor women will bear the brunt of government promoted contraceptive programs, along with its problematic side-effects. While contraception does not manufacture female happiness as its proponents suggest, religion can. The third in a three-part series.
Public Discourse

Contraception and Women’s Wellbeing: NFP, Disillusionment, and the Poor

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Contraception isn’t the only way to plan a family, and it certainly isn’t cost-free: contraception leads to sexual disillusionment and weakens the marriage culture at the expense of the least well-off women. The second in a three-part series.
Public Discourse

Planned Parenthood and the Government v. Religious Liberty and Women’s Wellbeing

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An unprecedented campaign against religious liberty, characterized by a formidable alliance between the White House and Planned Parenthood, bolstered by money, power, and market branding, is threatening women’s well-being. The first in a three-part series.
Public Discourse

I’m Socially Conservative, in College, and Need a Party

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Students across the country have been pushing back against liberal dominance, but we cannot solve the problem on our own. We need the full support of our party and conservative allies.
Public Discourse

Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity at the UN

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One of the great achievements of the 20th century is the development of the universal human rights regime. But that regime teeters under the weight of new ideologies, and as it teeters it endangers not just gays and lesbians but everyone.