And to the extent that conservative arguments about the culture war seem polarized between Saint Benedict and Constantine, between the monastery and the crusade, perhaps the synthesis, the change of fortune, will arrive when God sends America a Saint Paul. Read more» . . . Continue reading →
Civil Life
This Is An Important Film
What Killed Michael Brown? from ManOfSteeleProductions on Vimeo.
11th Circuit: A Ban On Therapy For An Unwanted Sexual Attraction Is Unconstitutional
We understand and appreciate that therapy is highly controversial. But the First Amendment has no carveout for controversial speech. We hold that the challenged ordinances violate the First Amendment because they are content-based regulations of speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny. …In . . . Continue reading →
Norway Criminalizes Private Speech Against Transgendered People—Turley Warns That It Could Happen In The USA
The most chilling fact is that European-style speech controls have become a core value in the Democratic Party. Once a party that fought for free speech, it has become the party demanding Internet censorship and hate speech laws. President-Elect Joe Biden has . . . Continue reading →
Angela Davis Is Not A Hero
A hardline Communist, Davis supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and relished being a guest of Fidel Castro in Cuba — where she went immediately following her acquittal. But her greatest love was for the Soviet Union and the Eastern . . . Continue reading →
SCOTUS: Exactly The Kind Of Discrimination Forbidden By The First Amendment
…The applicants have clearly established their entitlement to relief pending appellate review. They have shown that their First Amendment claims are likely to prevail, that denying them relief would lead to irreparable injury, and that granting relief would not harm the public . . . Continue reading →
Federal District Court Strikes Down KY Pandemic Restrictions On Private Religious Schools (Updated)
If social distancing is good enough for offices, colleges, and universities within the Commonwealth, it is good enough for religious private K–12 schools that benefit from constitutional protection. Continue reading
Your Neighbor Has Everything But Hope
“Day one. Day one. Four weeks. I can do it. Day one. Day one.” She wore a wool hat pulled down low over her forehead, and a giant mask, which covered everything but her eyes, and gloves. She moved to the furthest . . . Continue reading →
Trueman On A Source Of Political Correctness, Critical Theory, Screaming Yale Undergrads, And The Impulse To Destroy The Past
Perhaps pride of place in the intellectual pantheon of those who helped give a rationale for the rejection of history goes to Karl Marx. That might strike the reader as rather strange, given that Marx was himself steeped in history. His materialist . . . Continue reading →
Biden Administration To Restore “Dear Colleague Letter” Versus Christian Schools And Colleges?
Traditional Christian Ethics To Be Punished?
Language regarding accreditation of religious insti- tutions of higher education in the Higher Education Opportunity Act could be interpreted to require accrediting bodies to accredit religious institutions that discriminate or that do not meet science based curricula standards. Continue reading →
This Remarkable Address By Justice Alito Is True And Well Worth 30 Minutes Of Your Time
“The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance. But the Governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities. Claiming virtually unbounded power to restrict constitutional rights during the COVID–19 pandemic, he has issued a directive that severely limits attendance at religious services. A church, synagogue, or mosque, regardless of its size, may not admit more than 50 persons, but casinos and certain other favored facilities may admit 50% of their maximum occupancy—and in the case of gigantic Las Vegas casinos, this means that thousands of patrons are allowed.” Continue reading →
The Strange Persistence Of Theocracy In America
It is a deeply-held conviction among more than a few American Christians that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that it was such until relatively recently. Further, it is widely thought that if only there were a religious . . . Continue reading →
Whose Moral Panic, Which Censorious Moralism?
If the 1950s gave us Communists under every bed, 2020 has given us fascists in every boardroom. The cultural Left cannot abide so much as sharing the same 3.8 million square miles with “those people,” let alone the same workplace, or even . . . Continue reading →
Weiss: American Tolerant Pluralism Under Siege
The liberal worldview was one that recognized that there were things—indeed, the most important things—in life that were located outside of the realm of politics: friendships, art, music, family, love. This was a world in which Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg . . . Continue reading →
Doubts About Political Theology And The Church As A Lever Of Cultural Influence
Tish Harrison Warren, a priest in the ACNA (a denomination in the Anglican tradition), writes in Christianity Today, We have an impoverished and inadequate political theology. It took us generations to get here, and this one election, regardless of the results, will . . . Continue reading →
The Equality Act Is Back In Play: What It Means For Religious Liberty
The Equality Act adds the phrase “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)” to our nation’s civil rights laws that ban discrimination on the basis of race. This means the law would suddenly treat people as racists if they dare to dissent . . . Continue reading →
Fear And Power In Covidville
In the Watergate scandal two city-beat reporters for the Washington Post turned journalists into saviors. They saved us all from the evil Nixon. Covid-19 is a Watergate for hitherto obscure public health authorities. Mostly benched after WWII by vaccines and the wonders of modern medicine, the public health authorities have been like the Maytag Repairman, playing solitaire on their phones, until Covid.
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Federal Court Upholds The Right Of Religious Schools To Adhere To Their Stated Convictions Regarding Sex
Or Grace Does Not Obliterate Nature
…This action concerns the expulsion of two students from a seminary school for violating school policies against same-sex marriage and extramarital sexual activity. Plaintiffs claim violations of: (1) Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681, et seq. . . . Continue reading →
Brooks Describes The Problem But Does He Answer The Central Question: Why?
During most of the 20th century, through depression and wars, Americans expressed high faith in their institutions. In 1964, for example, 77 percent of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing most or all of the time. Then came the last two moral convulsions. In the late 1960s and ’70s, amid Vietnam and Watergate, trust institutions collapsed. By 1994, only one in five Americans said they trusted government to do the right thing. Then came the Iraq War and the financial crisis and the election of Donald Trump. Institutional trust levels remained pathetically low. Continue reading →
Stephens On The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is a thesis in search of evidence Continue reading →