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Public Discourse

Law, Feelings, and Religion at the Bar in Iowa

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The Supreme Court of Iowa’s decision to redefine marriage abandons reason and replaces it with feelings as the standard of public consensus.
Public Discourse

How the No-Establishment Rule Does (and Does Not) Protect the Freedom of Conscience

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The Constitution’s no-establishment rule does protect the liberty of religious conscience, but not in the way, or ways, that we usually think.
Public Discourse

Cognitive Enhancing Drugs

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Recent calls for the widespread use of cognitive enhancements are based on a narrow, mechanistic view of what it means to be human.
Public Discourse

Freedom in Muslim Countries: An Endangered Species

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Encouraging peaceful, reformist Muslims requires freedom of speech and religion. Yet U.S. policies in Egypt and elsewhere support governments which actively work against Muslim reformist efforts.
Public Discourse

Should the Obama Conscience Rules Seek to Protect Persons or Provide Benefits?

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The state is required to protect persons not just from physical harm but from being forced to violate their limited but definite freedom of conscience.
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Politics and Science

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The “rightful place” of science is not as obvious as the President thinks.
Public Discourse

Confronting the Hook-Up Culture

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A new approach is needed to support students in the hostile hook-up culture on college campuses.
Public Discourse

Dividing the Child: The Problems with the Saletan Abortion Compromise

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William Saletan’s proposals for abortion compromise would do little to relieve the plight of women or save the unborn.
Public Discourse

Privatizing Marriage is not the Answer to the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

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Far from settling the marriage debate, ‘getting the state out of marriage’ will reduce liberty, leave cultural questions simmering, and harm our nation’s children.
Public Discourse

Government Mortgage Relief: Economically Flawed and Morally Dubious

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Homeownership has long been part of the American Dream, but current government plans to keep more people in their homes reflect the influence of failed economic policies from the past and may encourage more risky decision making in the future.
Public Discourse

More Government, Less God: What the Obama Revolution Means for Religion in America

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While many social conservatives have focused attention on Obama’s liberal social commitments, few have considered what effects an expanded welfare state will have on religious belief—or how these religious effects will in turn impact civic virtue, personal responsibility, altruism, or solidarity. If the European experience with the welfare state and religion is any indication, the Obama revolution could well lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.
Public Discourse

Liberty, Authority, and the Good of Religion

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Religious liberty and religious authority are frequently seen in tension, but they need not conflict. In fact, a proper understanding of both shows that they are equally necessary for full human flourishing.
Public Discourse

A Real Compromise on the Same-Sex Marriage Debate: An Invitation to Rauch and Blankenhorn

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A recent compromise on the same-sex ‘marriage’ debate granted too much to revisionists and too little to traditionalists. A better compromise will respect the societal importance of marriage while also providing for the real needs of domestic partners.
Public Discourse

What Obama Will Give the Left

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With political realities preventing Obama from satisfying his left-wing base on economic and foreign policy questions, look for Obama to give the left the barn on social issues. And expect him to do so in significant measure through the courts.
Public Discourse

Sartre Debates an Islamist

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The play “Madah-Sartre,” both funny and poignant, provides a glimpse into the contradictions, logical impoverishment, and inhumanity of Islamist ideology, while also offering a dose of basic human decency to parties in a conflict which is more often characterized by violence than civil debate.
Public Discourse

David Ogden and the New Pornographers: Why the Senate Should Reject His Nomination

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David Ogden has impressive legal credentials, but his long career as a pornography-industry attorney casts doubt on his ability to enforce laws meant to protect children.
Public Discourse

2009: A Critical Year for Protecting Children

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The recent passage of the PROTECT Our Children Act makes 2009 a critical year in governmental efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation.
Public Discourse

Taking a New Look at Pornography

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Recent technological developments in the production and dissemination of pornography, coupled with recent scientific investigations on pornography’s impact, force all thoughtful citizens to reconsider the social costs of pornography.
Public Discourse

Pornography and the Courts

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The nomination of David Ogden reminds us of the problems caused by pornography, both at home and abroad.
Public Discourse

Pro-Life Secularists and the Future of Abortion Politics

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If opposition to abortion is not necessarily tied to a religious worldview, pro-life advocates may see victory in the culture wars.
Public Discourse

Collegiate Sex-Ed

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Every fall, kids arrive on college campuses and learn that their basic moral intuitions on sexual matters don’t square with the reigning ideas. Thanks to debased campus culture and overreaching on the part of administrators and professors, students are beginning to respond systematically—and they’re having an impact. Here’s how.
Public Discourse

Positive Secularism and the American Model of Religious Liberty

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At its fullest, the American model of religious liberty is not a freedom from religion or a freedom of religion; it is a freedom for religion.
Public Discourse

The Impact of Parental Notification Laws

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Professor Michael New writes that, contrary to claims by the Guttmacher Institute, parental involvement laws do have a significant effect in reducing abortions.
Public Discourse

A Diverse Bioethics Council?

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President Bush created a council that represented the range of viewpoints held by reasonable and responsible Americans on the most urgent and divisive bioethics questions facing the country. Will President Obama do the same?
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