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Public Discourse

Just War and the Iran Crisis

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It would be wrong for the United States to engage at this time in an attack on Iran or to participate substantially in an Israeli action.
Public Discourse

When Being Pro-Life Isn’t Enough to Stop Abortion

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The challenge in preventing abortion of Down syndrome fetuses is not convincing mothers that their child is a human being with a right to life, but of assuring expectant mothers there will be support for their children after they are born.
Public Discourse

Marriage Decisions and the Importance of Judicial Reason

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Recent attacks on marriage threaten not only a foundational public institution but the rule of law itself and the legitimacy of the judicial branch.
Public Discourse

Form and Transcendence: A Reply to Micah Mattix

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The authentic story of modernism is not one of continuity and emulation, but of violent rupture and hostility to tradition. Art should be oriented toward beauty.
Public Discourse

Reproductive Technologies and the Quest for Immortality

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The fertility industry is booming because we desire genetic and memetic immortality—the preservation and reproduction of our bodies and ways of life.
Public Discourse

Landscapes of Nothingness

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The fundamental question of why there is something rather than nothing is a metaphysical and theological question—and with respect to such a question the natural sciences necessarily have nothing to say.
Public Discourse

The Bishops and the Mandate: Principled Witness vs. Politics as Usual

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The controversy over the HHS mandate is not a spat about wonkish detail or tribal privilege. It remains a struggle for the principle of religious freedom, the soul of civil society.
Public Discourse

What’s at Stake in the “Same-Sex Marriage” Debate?

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The law cannot be divorced from reality, from nature. The moment this happens, law becomes arbitrary, the whim of the ruling power: it becomes tyranny.
Public Discourse

Marriage Unmoored

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Many expect that the Supreme Court will soon overturn the traditional marriage laws remaining on the books in forty-three states, a prospect that would have been unthinkable only a decade or two ago. What happened?
Public Discourse

Equality versus Freedom?

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Lawmakers must look past the “equality versus religious freedom” standoff, and consider the substantive merits of each particular case.
Public Discourse

The HHS Mandate, Cooperation with Evil, and Coercion

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The fundamental problem with the mandate is that it coerces some people into doing what they think is wrong, and this problem remains regardless of whether the coercion excuses the actions of the people being coerced.
Public Discourse

Obama’s Contraception Cram-down: The Pork Precedent

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An ancient example of resistance to a tyrant’s attempt to coerce violations of religious conscience provides an interesting perspective on resistance to the Obama administration’s recent healthcare coverage mandate.
Public Discourse

Mandates and Bad Law

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Were the central task of government to be seen as that of aiding citizens in their own self-constitution, oriented towards real human goods including the good of religion, the HHS mandate would be seen for the unjust imposition it is.
Public Discourse

The Paradise of Sexual Revolution

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The sexual revolution puts forth a vision of paradise in which we rig up some nifty devices to guarantee infertility, consider neither holiness nor virtue, and believe in the blessings of no one and nowhere and nothing.
Public Discourse

Justice Kennedy, Abortion, and Same-Sex Marriage

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If marriage is to be preserved in the present struggle, our task is to sort through the influential kinds of arguments about same-sex marriage and abortion that have been introduced by Justice Kennedy.
Public Discourse

The HHS Mandate and Legal Precedent

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Contrary to what Obama supporters would have us believe, there’s no precedent for the HHS mandate.
Public Discourse

Morals and Mandates

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Morality is not about keeping as long a leash as you can on the harms you cause. It is about keeping upright intentions and rejecting unfair tradeoffs—neither of which Obama’s proposed revision even pretends to affect.
Public Discourse

President Obama, the Right Not to Do Wrong, and the Politics of Ruse and Delay

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No one can be rightly coerced by the state to be directly complicit in the commission of a wrong. This goes for any businessman, employer, insurance company, or individual, regardless of faith.
Public Discourse

Is Free Verse Immoral?

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Free verse does not simply express a “debased” yearning for freedom from tradition. Like earlier forms of metered poetry, it too expresses the trials of confining human thought to written language.
Public Discourse

The Ninth Circuit’s Desperate Targeting of Justice Kennedy

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This week’s decision in the Prop 8 case is a desperate appeal to Justice Kennedy, and the latest assault of judicial supremacy.
Public Discourse

Coming Apart, and Back Together?

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Charles Murray argues we’ve come apart, but can therapeutic Deism and the sexual revolution put us back together?
Public Discourse

A Muslim View on Respecting Life

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Life’s fragility should remind us of the greatness of God, and the goodness of God’s creation should inspire us to respect life. Adapted from remarks made in the Princeton University Chapel for Respect Life Sunday.
Public Discourse

Personally Opposed, but Sleeping with the Enemy

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Personally opposed, but actively supporting…well, it’s complicated.
Public Discourse

Natural Causes, Divine Commands, and Human Wellbeing

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The precepts of the natural law are obligatory not because they are commanded, but because they are necessary for our well-being. God’s revelation of these precepts is better understood as a divine reminding and authoritative inviting.