Doug Mainwaring Once I began thinking, reasoning, and examining my life, an extraordinary thing happened: I couldn’t stop. Reason led me to acknowledge natural law, which led me to begin rejecting some of my former ways of thinking and acting. Reason then led me to recognize God. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/03/14510/ Read more

Still naïve, I thought, “I just tapped into the latent pro-life movement at Harvard Law School.” How foolish. The first form I looked at simply said, “Go die, you fascist.” The next said something like, “Go die, you f***ing fascist.” http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2015/02/19/how-political-correctness-improved-my-life/2/   Read more

When a university’s administration, knowing that “same-sex marriages” are in a Catholic understanding not truly marriages at all, nonetheless gives without legal coercion many signs and solid tokens of approving such commitments to non-marital sex acts, everyone can readily infer that the university actually does not regard any kind of sex acts between adults as grave matter, provided that these acts are consensual and, perhaps, linked to some notion of commitment. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14522/ Read more

Matthew Franck God is the one most radically free being, the Being that is the ground of all being, the One who is subject to no necessity but is instead responsible for all that is necessity to others. For us to be made in His image means this: that we are rational beings with free will. In this consists our equality. From this come our rights. http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/02/natural-rights-the-imago-dei-and-the-moral-economy-of-sex Read more

For some people, scientific research on the subject of same-sex parenting is irrelevant. A new volume is meant for those who still approach the topic of parenting and sexuality with open minds. According to the best data, average life outcomes for children raised by parents in same-sex relationships tend to resemble those of children raised by single and divorced parents. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14465/ Read more

“People of the Land”: A Twenty-first Century Case for Christian Zionism This is the title of a one-day conference at Georgetown University on Friday, April 17. As far as we know, this is the first academic conference that makes a case for Christian Zionism.  Usually, academics bash the concept as exegetically impossible and theologically illegitimate. This conference will be innovative in two ways: (more…) Read more

Robert Benne Our newspaper carried for many years a celebrated local columnist who identified himself as a “semi-hysterical” reporter. He used an amusing ploy when some minor disaster overtook him, such as his dog eating his newly written column. Then, he said, he was shocked into writing like Ernest Hemingway. He proceeded to write in macho sentences, short and crisp, for the rest of the column. (more…) Read more

Published research employing the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), the ECLS (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study), the US Census (ACS), the Canadian Census, and now the NHIS all reveal a comparable basic narrative, namely, that children who grow up with a married mother and father fare best. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14417/ Read more

Does BDS really want to teach students that Israel needs pressure to be a better state – or that Israel does not deserve to exist? http://philosproject.org/protesting-israel/ Read more

I like Eve Tushnet. She is a faithful Catholic who is also lesbian. (more…) Read more