fbpx
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.

Learn more about Politics & Law: get your free eBook today!

Judges and justices who reasoned in favor of same-sex marriage based on social scientists’ “no differences” thesis must now contend with better research: Heterosexual married couples offer the best family structure for children, according to a new, rigorously researched sociological study.
Two Catholic universities’ decisions to drop student health-care plans show Obamacare’s long-term goal: Force Americans to choose government-subsidized plans over no insurance at all.
In his new book "Where the Conflict Really Lies," Alvin Plantinga levels a devastating critique against the “new atheism” espoused by thinkers such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
As a pluralistic liberal democracy, we should craft our laws so that individuals will never be unnecessarily coerced into violating their consciences.
The Founders’ nuanced views of religion and politics prevent us from reading modern concerns about the separation of church and state into their words.
Machiavelli’s advice to princes holds important lessons for Mitt Romney if he is elected president.
The HHS mandate illustrates three liberal ideological commitments that treat religious freedom as an afterthought.
Birtherism survives as an unreasonable surrogate for the public discussion that the left has stifled.
By showing the triumph of the therapeutic over the orthodox in American Christianity, Ross Douthat’s latest book gives Americans on both sides of the political divide much to consider.
While Islam opposes same-sex marriage, its opposition to it and to President Obama’s stance is not a matter of hate or bigotry but a matter of principle.
Liberals and conservatives alike often complain hypocritically about judicial activism. If we are to avoid letting judicial activism become rule in favor of whatever causes justices approve, then we should make the presumption of constitutionality a basic principle of judicial review.
The views about faith and religion that President Obama expressed in his Commencement Address at Notre Dame pave the way for his HHS mandate. He would protect the state from the church, not by privatizing faith, but by redefining it.
We should pass Unborn Child Protection Acts and begin the conversation about the pain of the unborn.
The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act does not deserve the support of the public because it is unconstitutional and represents poor public policy.
The electorate will often forgive—and can even embrace—a clean conversion story, where a politician honestly changes his mind and admits to it. But on marriage, such a story should not be available for the President, who was either alarmingly befuddled for several years or merely lying.
Given the legal principles involved in recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages, it’s hard to see any coherence in President Obama’s statement.
Paul Ryan’s budget plan does not violate principles of Catholic social teaching; it is one prudent application of them.
Yesterday’s statement about same-sex marriage by President Obama and last week’s departure of a gay-rights activist from the Romney campaign reveal important lessons.
Though we feel that we human beings are meant for something, not individually and arbitrarily, but together and truly, we lack the language and even the political sanction to think along those lines.
Virtuous citizenship requires building moral consensus across religious and cultural divides. The third in a three-part series.
The largely forgotten history of evangelical political activism forces us to re-evaluate the rights and wrongs of the Religious Right movement. The second in a three-part series.
The legacy of the great Protestant schism a century ago continues to hinder evangelicals from finding satisfactory ways to participate in America’s civic order. The first in a three-part series.
When did respect for conscience rights, once a bipartisan consensus, become a “Republican war on women”?
Despite their disagreements, conservatives and libertarians often agree on many things. Resolving their differences, however, means rejecting philosophical skepticism and taking right reason seriously.

Get your free eBook for The Human Person

"*" indicates required fields

Get your free eBook for Sexuality & Family

Get your free eBook for Politics & Law

Get your free eBook for Education & Culture

Get your free eBook for Business & Economics