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Pillar

Sexuality & Family

The second pillar of a decent society is the institution of the family, which is built upon the comprehensive sexual union of man and woman. No other institution can top the family’s ability to transmit what is pivotal—character formation, values, virtues, and enduring love—to each new generation.

Passing Social Conservative Values from One Generation to the Next: A Q&A with Nathanael Blake 

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Public Discourse

The New Dignity: Gnostic, Elitist, Self-Destructive Will-to-Power

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In a world with no clear origin, no purposeful end, and no intrinsic meaning, human dignity is founded on nothing more than a self-creating will to power that is, in the last analysis, self-destructive.
Public Discourse

The American Dream in Crisis: It’s Time for a New Moynihan Moment

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The American Dream is in crisis because the American family is in crisis. We must commit to a national—not purely governmental—effort to promote strong families.
Public Discourse

Rights Through Obligations: The Case of Free Speech

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Some rights are grounded in the need for agents to fulfill their perceived responsibilities, including their obligation to pursue knowledge. This obligation, along with the communal nature of inquiry, supports a right to free speech that acquires particular stringency in those communities where inquiry is most essential.
Public Discourse

Rending the Rainbow Veil: How to Make Your Church a Safe Space for Christians with Same-Sex Attraction

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Church communities should strive to be safe spaces where those with same-sex attraction can take refuge, openly sharing their experiences. We must affirm their dignity as children of God and lovingly refuse to encourage any behavior that is contrary to their good.
Public Discourse

Birth Certificates, Fatherhood, and Same-Sex Marriage: Sotomayor v. Sotomayor

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Which Justice Sotomayor will show up in the next landmark family-law case: the Sotomayor who affirms the “precious” rights and duties of biological parents? Or the Sotomayor who insists on full "marriage equality"?
Public Discourse

Recovering Lincoln’s Teaching on the Limits to the Courts–and Giving the News to David Blankenhorn

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History clearly demonstrates that the legislative branch can legitimately act to counter the rulings of the judicial branch. This is as true for marriage as it was for slavery.
Public Discourse

Faith and Fragile Families

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Two teenage alcoholics were about to split but, by the grace of God, hung on. The result: a sanctifying, generous, and gracious marriage with fifteen children and countless important lessons.
Public Discourse

The Case for Private Property: A (New) Natural Law Analysis

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At a time when debates about economic inequality occupy significant attention in the public square, Adam MacLeod offers a fresh way forward for thinking about private property and its contribution to the common good by rooting property rights in a robust account of freedom and human flourishing.
Public Discourse

Jews, Marriage, and Religious Freedom

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The same traits and tendencies that make Orthodox Jews appear uninvolved in political battles have also helped them preserve the belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
Public Discourse

Celebrating the Remarkable Intellectual Achievements of John Finnis

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A superb collection of essays engages, challenges, and praises the work of the formidable John Finnis. Always acute in mental power, Finnis is also at turns witty and profound.
Public Discourse

To Whom Do Children Belong? A Defense of Parental Authority

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Parents have unique authority over their children because they bear non-transferable obligations toward their children. The state must respect the right of parents to fulfill their duties toward their children. The second in a two-part series.
Public Discourse

To Whom Do Children Belong? How Same-Sex Marriage Threatens Parental Rights

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Same-sex marriage further encourages the state to encroach on the domain of that indispensable pre-political community, the family. The first in a two-part series.
Public Discourse

It’s Time to Get Serious about Infidelity

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Being forced to pretend that infidelity is harmless is an insult to the millions of infidelity victims who suffer under our discriminatory no-fault divorce laws.
Public Discourse

Did The Supreme Court Take Tennessee Courts Out of the Marriage Business?

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For a trial judge, the jurisdictional implications of the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision are not matters of idle speculation. They are pressing practical questions with grave consequences.
Public Discourse

The Limits of Consent

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Consent only has value when it is used to make decisions based on knowledge of what is truly good for us as human beings.
Public Discourse

Ashley Madison and the Problem of Liberal Sexual Ethics

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Liberal attempts to defend adultery demonstrate the internal inconsistency and shallowness of contemporary sexual ethics.
Public Discourse

The Inequality Act: Weaponizing Same-Sex Marriage

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If enacted, the deceptively titled Equality Act would punish dissenters, giving no quarter to Americans who continue to believe that marriage and sexual relations are reserved to the union of one man and one woman.
Public Discourse

What’s Driving the Marriage Divide?

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Although economic factors certainly play a role in the growing gap in marriage rates between higher income, college-educated Americans and those with lower levels of education and income, the impact of changing cultural mores should not be underestimated.
Public Discourse

Complementarity: Lessons from the Adams Family

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As the history of the Adams family attests, the proper education of the young American requires both father and mother, grandfathers and grandmothers.
Public Discourse

Why the “Catholic” “Pro-Life” Case for the Bomb Fails

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No one who claims to be pro-life can say that women, children, the elderly, and indeed, the unborn of a nation may be legitimately targeted with death for the sake of the consequences, however beneficial.
Public Discourse

“Shut Up, Bigot!”: The Intolerance of Tolerance

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Conservatives are called bigots because those who embrace the new sexual mores are beholden to the new tolerance as a plausibility structure. Postmodern liberals cannot comprehend the idea that one could simultaneously reject a belief and accept the person who holds it.
Public Discourse

A Call for a Unified Party

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The recent Obergefell decision should serve as a wake-up call to conservatives. In particular, conservatives should rethink the Republican Party platform and work to refocus the GOP around the broad theme of “nature.”
Public Discourse

On the Dangers of Thanking God for the Atom Bomb

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There are often great temptations to violate the absolute norms against intentional killing and against lying. On the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs over Japan, we should remember what is at stake in such decisions and how agents constitute themselves in their choosing.
Public Discourse

Conservatives and Transgenderism: A Response to Jennifer Gruenke

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Adopting a gender persona is not given. It is something that is developed in response to one’s given sexual identity, which provides a sort of vocation—not a fully determinate life plan, but a structure nonetheless.

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