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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.

Conservatism without a Movement? 

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Public Discourse

Has the Catholic Church Changed Its Teaching on Sex and Marriage?

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Amid reports of “earthquakes” and “seismic” shifts, we ought to remember the Catholic Church’s moral teachings in their wholeness, which have not shifted.
Public Discourse

Religious Liberty at a Crossroads?

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US religious liberty law is not perfect, but it still deserves our support. Religious exemptions witness to the value of religion as a transcendent good. And nothing in the Supreme Court cases requesting religious liberty exemptions for Muslim citizens undermines that effort.
Public Discourse

China’s One-Child Policy: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Must Work Together to End Forced Abortion and Gendercide

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Forced abortion and gendercide are not pro-life or pro-choice issues. They are human rights issues. Adapted from an address given at the Heritage Foundation on October 9th, 2014.
Public Discourse

The Profound Injustice of Judge Posner on Marriage

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The equality that demands same-sex marriage demands that all social recognition of the distinction between mothers and fathers—of the paternal and the maternal, the masculine and the feminine, and of the sexual identity of everyone as male or female—must be systematically expunged, to be replaced by the lies and seductions of “gender identities” on the ever more blurry rainbow spectrum.
Public Discourse

Fusionism, Hobby Lobby, and the Constitution

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Responses to the Hobby Lobby case demonstrate the importance of conservatives and libertarians working toward common goals.
Public Discourse

The Problem of Neutral Rhetoric

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It is impossible to make a political argument without also making a moral claim. Demanding tolerance often functions as a way to evade robust discourse about the merits of one’s principles.
Public Discourse

Life to the Full: The Dangers of Material Wealth and Spiritual Poverty

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In helping developing countries to increase their economic prosperity, we must remember that human welfare cannot be reduced to material realities.
Public Discourse

International Religious Freedom Policy and American National Security

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The Obama administration has failed to advance the cause of international religious liberty, and that failure has endangered American national security. But there are concrete steps Congress can take to improve implementation of the International Religious Freedom Act. Adapted from testimony delivered before the National Security Sub-Committee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, September 18, 2014.
Public Discourse

Jewish Praise of Truett Cathy: Chick-fil-A Founder and Sabbath Observer

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In a society in which the profit motive tends to make all other interests subordinate to the almighty dollar, Chick-fil-A’s founder declared that the store would not be open on the Sabbath.
Public Discourse

The Illusion of Neutrality

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The secular state cannot be neutral in matters of religion.
Public Discourse

The Global Citizen without a Country?

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Today’s global citizenship movement emphasizes human rights disconnected from the history of any particular nation and without a clear conception of human nature.
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.

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