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Pillar

Politics & Law

The third pillar of a decent society is a just system of politics and law. Such a government does not bind all persons, families, institutions of civil society, and actors in the marketplace to itself as subservient features of an all-pervading authority. Instead, it honors and protects the inherent equal dignity of all persons, safeguards the family as the primary school of virtue, and seeks justice through the rule of law.

The Ninth Circuit’s Religious Freedom Coup 

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Religious Exemptions Aren’t Special Privileges

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Why are Christian bakers and florists less worthy of accommodation than groups who would engage in nearly identical behavior for equally expressive, but not necessarily religious, purposes?

Equal Property Rights for All, Including Christian Wedding Cake Bakers

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Just as governors, abortionists, and sexual-identity activists enjoy legal protection for their property rights, so do religious business owners.

The Christian Baker’s Unanswered Legal Argument: Why the Strongest Objections Fail

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The Supreme Court is about to decide whether a baker has a First Amendment right not to be compelled to design and create cakes celebrating same-sex weddings. The baker’s best legal argument is simple, and it survives the best objections filed by the ACLU and Progressive scholars.

Making the Case for Complicity-Based Religious Liberty Accommodations

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Two Yale law professors say religious liberty should not be accommodated in “complicity” cases such as Masterpiece Cakeshop and Arlene’s Flowers. Their argument fails to recognize that such accommodations are a traditional and necessary part of the American legal framework.

American Muslims, Lot’s Wife, and the Christian Baker

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Several progressive Muslim organizations have signed an amicus brief supporting the same-sex couple in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. This not only distorts Islamic teaching and anthropology, it also fuels the increasingly powerful movement of militant irreligious orthodoxy.

St. John Paul II Did Not Change Catholic Teaching on Capital Punishment: A Reply to E. Christian Brugger

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If E. Christian Brugger is right, then the Church has been teaching grave moral error and badly misunderstanding scripture for two millennia. Nothing less than her very credibility is at stake.

Traditional Catholic Doctrine on Capital Punishment is Irreversible: A Reply to E. Christian Brugger

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E. Christian Brugger is wrong: neither scripture nor tradition could justify a reversal of the Church’s millennia-old teaching on capital punishment

Hobby Lobby Billionaires, Skeptical Scholars, and the Museum of the Bible

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Candida Moss and Joel Baden sound an alarm about the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby and founders of the Museum of the Bible. The real target here, though, is not so much the Greens as the evangelical Protestant view of the Bible that they embrace.

Considering Our Options: Deepening Religious Freedom, Witness, and Argument in the Public Square

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Christian witness must go deeper than simply asserting our right to our “sincerely held beliefs.” Igniting the religious question is the best way to restore reason to a public square.

The Impoverishment of Law and the Loss of Ordered Liberty

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In their new book, Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis make a strong case for pluralism and ordered liberty, while John Corvino drafts a blueprint for a comprehensive despotism that would consume the preconditions and legal safeguards for ordered liberty. Part two of a two-part review essay.

Debating Liberty: Why You Should Read the New Book by John Corvino, Ryan T. Anderson, and Sherif Girgis

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The implications of John Corvino, Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis’s well-argued debate reach far beyond the latest round in the culture wars. They go to the foundations of the American experiment in ordered liberty. Part one of a two-part review essay.

Antonin Scalia, Republican Schoolmaster

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Love of country and love of the Constitution—a simple and pure patriotism matched with a sophisticated historical sensibility—run through a new collection of Justice Antonin Scalia’s speeches.

The Secularization of Vocation

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On the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, it is worth returning to the thought of Martin Luther, particularly his understanding of vocation.

Why the Government Shouldn’t Force Bakers—Or Anyone—to Express Support for Same-Sex Marriage

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Antidiscrimination laws are fully within the government’s authority—but only when the government is not using such laws as part of a campaign to compel people to express “by word or act” their support for a government-prescribed orthodoxy. The second in a two-part series.

What Masterpiece Cakeshop is Really About

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The vendor-marriage cases are part of the centuries-old pattern in which governments have attempted to compel dissenters to publicly affirm and acquiesce in the dominant orthodoxy. The first in a two-part series.

Catholic Tradition, St. John Paul II, and the Death Penalty

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Four conditions must be met for a teaching of the Catholic Church to be considered infallible. Acceptance of the death penalty meets none of them. St. John Paul II laid down theoretical markers that provide a clear basis for a Catholic teaching rejecting the death penalty in principle. Part two of a two-part essay.

Capital Punishment Is Intrinsically Wrong: A Reply to Feser and Bessette

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Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bessette’s new book asserts that Catholics cannot legitimately reject the death penalty as wrong always and everywhere. They are wrong. Part one of a two-part essay.

Not Hobbesian but Christian: Why Patrick Deneen’s Misinterpretation of the American Founding Matters

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Nothing has so limited the scope of politics as has Christianity by placing man’s end in the transcendent. The Founders did not think that the summum bonum could be reached through political means, not because they were Hobbesian but because they were Christian. The second in a two-part series.

Fools or Scoundrels? A Response to Patrick Deneen

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To suppose that the Founders set up a republic to vitiate the virtue on which its existence depended requires the belief that they were either stupid (by creating a Hobbesian regime and not noticing) or immoral (by doing it while cleverly lying about what they were doing). The first in a two-part series.

Seattle Coffee Shop Illustrates Bedlam Surrounding First Amendment

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A Seattle coffee shop owner’s refusal to serve “these people” stands in stark contrast to artists’ cases.

Social Transformation and the Market Economy: A Reply to Samuel Gregg

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Capitalism in practice is crony capitalism. Profit-minded firms use every trick they can, including pushing for government intervention and protection, to pursue their self interest. Capitalism and liberal institutions are tremendously powerful social forces that operate both with and through the individuals who engage in economic and political activity. One of their primary features is the continuous revolution in values.

Amy Barrett, Augustine, and the Relationship between Religion and Politics

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The irony of media coverage of Amy Barrett’s confirmation hearings is that, in fact, Barrett is the one arguing for the truth that religion and politics need to be separated. She believes this because of her Catholic faith, not in spite of it.

Fr. James Martin on Marriage, Sexual Morality, and the Church’s Teachings: A Solution to the Puzzle

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Does Fr. James Martin in fact reject the Church’s teachings on sex and marriage? If so, why does he insist that he does not?

Forcing Faith-Based Organizations Out of Foster Care and Adoption Hurts Children

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Driving out those child welfare providers that have been at the forefront of caring for children for centuries fails to respect the rich and diverse religious pluralism of our nation. Their absence will not benefit same-sex couples, but it will harm children.

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