In their book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George draw our attention to the question that matters most in the marriage debate—what marriage is—and make a reasonable and compassionate argument for marriage as a one-man one-woman union. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/7215/?utm_source=RTA+Snell+Marriage+Book+Review&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

Luis Tellez Public opinion, the methods and messaging of LGBT activists, and social reality all converge on a simple fact: marriage is worth fighting for and we can win. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/7192/?utm_source=RTA+Tellez+Marriage&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

By SHERIF GIRGIS, RYAN T. ANDERSON and ROBERT P. GEORGE The U.S. Supreme Court decides next week whether to hear challenges to laws defining marriage as the conjugal union of a man and a woman. It does so after two different electoral outcomes. In May, North Carolinians voted to amend their state constitution to protect the conjugal definition of marriage, a definition that 41 states retain. But on Nov. 6, voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington state endorsed a revisionist... Read more

Robert Benne Arguably Thanksgiving is a high holy day of American civil religion, a time when nearly all Americans gather to give thanks to the Almighty http://www.theird.org/issues/faith-in-the-public-square/the-american-civil-religiondestructive-useless-or-beneficial?erid=1726739&trid=adcb9b3d-aa70-40ff-b86e-d511e02bc274#.UKzs9Qs-Vhk.email Read more

George Weigel President Obama’s re-election and the prospect of a second Obama administration, freed from the constraints imposed by the necessity of running for re-election, have created a crisis for the Catholic Church in the United States. In the thought-world and vocabulary of the Bible, “crisis” has two meanings: the conventional sense (a grave threat) and a deeper sense (a great moment of opportunity). Both are applicable to the Church in America these next four years. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/11/the-crisis-of-a-second-obama-administration Read more

Matthew J. Franck In the spring of 1858, after an epic fight in the U.S. Congress, Kansas was denied entry into the Union as a new state. (It was eventually admitted in January 1861.) It’s a complicated story, unknown to most Americans today. But for some reason I have thought of this episode several times since last week’s election. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/11/13/our-lecompton-moment/ Read more

The writer once riled right-wingers with his research on the 1948 war and the Palestinian refugee problem, but his political views have changed. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/09/world/la-fg-israel-historian-qa-20121109 Read more

It turns out that there is no – none – evidence for the regular public reading of the Torah until the first century BCE to first century CE, and even then our information is very fragmentary. http://74.220.215.212/~mlsatlow/?p=466 Read more

One wonders whether Wheaton College believes that such programs befit a respectable teaching institution…. Burge’s comparison of himself with Jesus is preposterous and absurd. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3430/gary-burge-wheaton-college Read more

Charles Chaput The Reformation unintentionally undid the medieval synthesis of faith and reason. Now we romantically seek a spiritual life free from authority and tradition, or rationalistically seek truth as if human beings were autonomous and self-sufficient. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/6902/ Read more