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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.

President Trump and Birthright Citizenship

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Public Discourse

Planned Parenthood v. Casey at Twenty: The Worst Constitutional Decision of All Time

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In its effects, methodology, substantive doctrine, conception of the judicial role and of judicial authority, and conception of what constitutes the rule of law, Casey is terribly significant and terribly wrong. The first in a two-part series on the deadly significance of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Public Discourse

At the Door of the Temple: Religious Freedom and the New Orthodoxy

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The new orthodoxy of secularism fails to understand that the virtues generated by religious freedom underpin and encourage a healthy democracy.
Public Discourse

Religious Freedom: Use It or Lose It

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Recalling the history of Americans’ and their British ancestors’ dedication to religious freedom offers lessons for our own struggles that lie ahead.
Public Discourse

The Newest Front in the Battle over Marriage

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Same-sex marriage should not come in the back door, via an arguably collusive lawsuit in which no one charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law actually defends it.
Public Discourse

Religious Freedom Under Siege: The Bishops Respond

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The American Catholic bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom,” which begins tomorrow, continues a long tradition of defending religious freedom that began with Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher.
Public Discourse

Supreme Court Take Notice: Two Sociologists Shift the Ground of the Marriage Debate

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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.
Public Discourse

Franciscan, Ave Maria, and Obamacare

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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.
Public Discourse

The Conflict Really Lies within New Atheism

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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.
Public Discourse

Taking (Conscience) Rights Seriously

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As a pluralistic liberal democracy, we should craft our laws so that individuals will never be unnecessarily coerced into violating their consciences.
Public Discourse

Early Religious Freedom in America

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The Founders’ nuanced views of religion and politics prevent us from reading modern concerns about the separation of church and state into their words.
Public Discourse

Cruelty Well Used: Machiavelli, Walker, and Romney?

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Machiavelli’s advice to princes holds important lessons for Mitt Romney if he is elected president.
Public Discourse

What’s Behind the HHS Mandate?

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The HHS mandate illustrates three liberal ideological commitments that treat religious freedom as an afterthought.
Public Discourse

Why Birtherism Won’t Die

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Birtherism survives as an unreasonable surrogate for the public discussion that the left has stifled.
Public Discourse

Good Religion: In Defense of Ross Douthat

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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.
Public Discourse

Marriage in Islam

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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.
Public Discourse

Self-Government and Judicial Review

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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.
Public Discourse

The Audacity of Faith

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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.
Public Discourse

A Constitutional and Wise Way to Protect the Unborn: A Response to Paul Linton

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We should pass Unborn Child Protection Acts and begin the conversation about the pain of the unborn.
Public Discourse

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act: Unconstitutional and Unwise

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The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act does not deserve the support of the public because it is unconstitutional and represents poor public policy.
Public Discourse

Explaining Obama’s Evolution

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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.
Public Discourse

The President’s Still Contorted Position on Same-Sex Marriage

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Given the legal principles involved in recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages, it’s hard to see any coherence in President Obama’s statement.
Public Discourse

Catholic Social Teaching and the Ryan Budget

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Paul Ryan’s budget plan does not violate principles of Catholic social teaching; it is one prudent application of them.
Public Discourse

Obama, Marriage, and the “Anti-Gay” Theme

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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.
Public Discourse

In the Courthouse was the Word

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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.

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