Senator Rob Portman (R–OH) announced this morning that he now supports the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. He was clear, however, that the Supreme Court should not impose this redefinition. http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/15/portman-right-on-the-court-wrong-on-marriage/?utm_source=RTA+Portman&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

The first Jesuit pope? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. Bergoglio is an old-school Jesuit, formed by classic Ignatian spirituality and deeply committed to an intelligent, sophisticated appropriation and proclamation of the full symphony of Catholic truth — qualities not notable for their prevalence among members of the Society of Jesus in the early 21st century. I suspect there were not all that many champagne corks flying last night in those Jesuit residences throughout the world where the Catholic... Read more

Good public policy can meet the needs of all Americans without redefining marriage. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9583/?utm_source=RTA+Beach+Anderson+Marriage+and+Tax&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

Is there a greater gesture of intellectual contempt than the notion that a tweet constitutes an adequate intervention in a serious discussion? But when Thomas Nagel’s formidable book Mind and Cosmos recently appeared, in which he has the impudence to suggest that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false,” and to offer thoughtful reasons to believe that the non-material dimensions of life—consciousness, reason, moral value, subjective experience—cannot be reduced to, or explained as having evolved tidily from,... Read more

When intellectual arguments against abortion fail to persuade, recourse must be had to images and strategies that awake what David Hume considered our “moral sense.” http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/7927/?utm_source=RTA+Seagrave+Moral+Sense&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

The author who understood so little about the emotional life still speaks eloquently to millions of us 50 years after his death, writes A.N. Wilson. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/10/the-odd-story-of-c-s-lewis-an-extremely-odd-man.html Read more

The Supreme Court first put marriage on its track of decline forty-one years ago, when it ruled that states could not limit the sale of contraceptives to married couples. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9427/?utm_source=Copy+of+RTA+Mainwaring+SSM&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

Eugene Korn • “When I was young I admired clever people. Now that I am old I admire kind people,” Abraham Joshua Heschel once told a group of senior citizens. (more…) Read more

I thought he was dead, but no. Garry Wills has a new book out, and he’s making the rounds on TV talk shows. The new Wills is the old Wills, which means the liberal Catholic who is angry at the Church. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/02/gary-wills-sigh Read more

I wholeheartedly support civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, but I am opposed to same-sex marriage. Because activists have made marriage, rather than civil unions, their goal, I am viewed by many as a self-loathing, traitorous gay. So be it. I prefer to think of myself as a reasoning, intellectually honest human being. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9432/?utm_source=RTA+Mainwaring+SSM&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more