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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.

Ideas vs. People?

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Public Discourse

The Renaissance of Hope: Dissidence, the Polish Church, and the End of Communism

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The totalitarian temptation can never be entirely overcome, and there is always a possibility that barbarism will return. Thus, we must ceaselessly strive to pursue love, dignity, and freedom.
Public Discourse

What Reason Can Know and What Government Should Legislate: A Rejoinder to Arkes

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The existence of objective moral truth that is knowable by reason does not imply that people generally, much less particular public officials, will in fact know and embrace that truth. Very often, they won’t, and that is why systematic limits on government power, such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, are good laws.
Public Discourse

Judging Beliefs and Shaping Laws: A Reply to Robert Miller

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Legislators and judges not only can but must gauge the moral justification of every law.
Public Discourse

Professor Arkes and the Law

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When the law limits the courts’ power to inquire into the truth or reasonableness of religious views, this is not because the law is assuming that religious beliefs lack rational foundation. Rather, it’s because allowing courts to exercise this power on a large scale would be too dangerous.
Public Discourse

Traditional Religion in Space

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Traditional religion, with its reliance on an authoritarian God, its understanding of humans as sinners, and its grounding in particular times and places, provides the only stable foundation for affirming the sanctity of human life and enabling human flourishing in new cosmic situations.
Public Discourse

Obamacare: Text and Intention

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Confronted with its legislative weaknesses, defenders of Obamacare are appealing to the law’s intent instead of its text. This is a dangerous approach that the founders clearly rejected.
Public Discourse

Law and Morality in Public Discourse: How Christians Can Rebuild Our Culture

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It’s in seeking Jesus Christ with all our hearts that culture is built and society is renewed. It’s in prayer, the sacraments, changing diapers, balancing budgets, preaching homilies, loving a spouse, forgiving and seeking forgiveness—all in the spirit of charity—that, brick by brick, we bring about the kingdom of God. Adapted from an address delivered August 6th at the Archdiocese of Toronto’s “Faith in the Public Square” symposium.
Public Discourse

Who Deserves Respect?

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Civility is due not to a person’s opinions, but to the person himself.
Public Discourse

Protecting the Religious Liberty of Adoption and Foster Care Providers

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Provided agencies meet basic requirements protecting the welfare of children, they should be free to operate according to their values, especially their religiously informed beliefs about marriage. New legislation introduced this week would protect this right.
Public Discourse

Gordon College and Pluralism in Higher Education

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Requiring all colleges and universities to adopt the same practices and policies would destroy their institutional identities and prevent them from achieving their diverse missions.
Public Discourse

The Blessings of Liberty and the Index of Culture and Opportunity

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Opportunity is not merely the absence of artificially imposed impediments. It is also the capacity to pursue happiness, individually and in community. Adapted from the 2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity.
Public Discourse

Rethinking the Logic of Hobby Lobby

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The Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case missed an important point. As with churches, the government has no compelling interest in coercing businesses and organizations with religious objections to carry out the HHS mandate.
Public Discourse

Meanwhile, Outside the Panic Room: Contraception, Hobby Lobby, and Women’s Rights

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Contra Justice Ginsburg, the Hobby Lobby decision is no cause for alarm. Yet we should acknowledge and address a fear she highlights: the serious obstacles women face today in the realms of sex, marriage, and parenthood.
Public Discourse

Justice Sotomayor Misses the Mark: Religious Non-Profits Should Prevail

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The contradictory reasoning of Justice Sotomayor’s Wheaton dissent exposes a glaring weakness in the legal argument requiring religious non-profits to comply with HHS’s regulatory scheme.
Public Discourse

The Right to Be Wrong

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The right to religious freedom is for everyone, not just those with the “right” beliefs.
Public Discourse

Church, State, and Human Trafficking

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For the common good, we must remember the ways in which church and state can mutually benefit each other—and watch for the ways in which the state threatens that relationship.
Public Discourse

After Hobby Lobby, the Struggle for Religious Freedom Continues

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According to the structure of the Court’s logic, all objecting employers should receive the same religious freedom protection given to churches and religious orders.
Public Discourse

Supreme Court to Obama Administration: You Don’t Have to Agree with Religious Beliefs to Respect the Liberty of the People Who Hold Them . . . and the Groups They Form

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Yesterday’s decision demonstrates that the Supreme Court understands what Congress set out to do when it passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Religious freedom is for all, regardless of the popularity of the belief. Congress, in passing RFRA, has said that if the belief can be accommodated, then it must be.
Public Discourse

A Perpetual Haven: Why the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Matters

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Respect for religious conscience is not an afterthought or luxury, but the very essence of the American political and social compact. Adapted from testimony presented before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.
Public Discourse

The Intuitive Guide to Religious Liberty Law

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Common sense can tell us whether particular citizens should be exempt from certain government policies for religious reasons. Codifying such instinctive judgments into formal statutes is more difficult.
Public Discourse

The HHS Mandate, Unborn Life, and the Professionals: A Cog in the Political Machine

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It’s time to realize that ACOG’s priority is not medical fact but thwarting protection for the unborn.
Public Discourse

Of Astrophysics and Atheism: Wherefore Religion in the Space Age?

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A future without religion will be a future diminished, for faith—but only a certain kind of faith—is absolutely necessary in the space age.
Public Discourse

How the United States Government Lost Its Liberalism

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Through executive orders and judicial overreach, American government has eroded the separation of powers and lost its commitment to liberal ideals. The second in a two-part series.
Public Discourse

Intolerance as Illiberalism

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An illiberal mindset is spreading across America, corrupting our culture and our politics. The first of a two-part series.
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