Kim Davis is an innocent victim both of cowardice of churchmen and the smug eagerness of certain priests to put her in her place. First, a few largely uncontested facts: it was Vatican personnel who invited Davis to meet the pope in Washington DC. Neither Kim Davis nor anyone connected to her requested the meeting. … Read more
Besides doing something about certain lawless decisions made by our black-robed masters, something must also be done about how we came to such a place where they can cast their gaze across the fruited plain and whatever catches their fancy becomes the law of the land, indeed higher than the Constitution. Roe was bad enough, … Read more
I understand spin. Spin is not lying. It is capturing the narrative. If your side does not capture the narrative, the other side will. The other side most likely will have the media on their side so capturing the narrative is so much easier for them. Still, you must try. Therefore, I fully understand the … Read more
Two years ago I began to notice regular columns in First Things from those who identified as homosexual, chaste and supportive of Church teaching on marriage and human sexuality. It became immediately clear there was a movement afoot, one that I hadn’t noticed nor had anyone else outside of a small bubble, but that it … Read more
As I wrote recently, I do not believe Scott Lively has had any serious impact on the laws in Russia or Uganda with regard to those countries’ laws on homosexuality. I have argued that he is a “monster” created by the LGBT movement for their own purposes—to raise money and frighten their base. In reality … Read more
Gay activists frighten each other telling stories about the monsters prowling about in the dark, waiting down lonely paths, behind bushes and trees, ready to pounce, to slay them and then to gnaw on their bones. Chief among the midnight monsters they whisper about is a man named Scott Lively. You’ve never heard of Scott … Read more
Nostalgia lurks always in the near corners of the human imagination. It often takes very little to bring it to life; a sunny day, the wind blowing the grass, a taste of food, a smell, a picture. They all bring us back to sweet and sweeter times, childhood, courting, weddings, childbirth. These are all nostalgic … Read more
The New Homophiles were largely silent post-Obergefell and the few published responses were disappointing for anyone who believes the same-sex “marriage” decision was anything more than ho-hum. The New Homophiles are a school of writers who identify as same-sex attracted but still remain faithful to Church teaching on sexual ethics and are otherwise known as … Read more
A colleague of mine at Breitbart News said recently in response to some social conservative tactic that disappointed him, “This is why you [social conservatives] are losing.” He really believes that. He believes we are losing. Like many conservatives, my colleague cares about the social conservative issues, but cares more deeply about the other two … Read more
A few weeks ago Stefano Gennarini of C-Fam sent a series of respectful questions to Monsignor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo about the inclusion of abortion advocates Ban Ki-Moon and Jeffrey Sachs at a Vatican conference on so-called climate change. Sanchez Sorondo heads the Pontifical Academy of Science, the organizer of the conference. Sanchez Sorondo’s response was … Read more
Imagine you are an 18-year-old boy who has been initiated into the world of gay sex. Starry-eyed, you were expecting candlelight and roses. Instead, your 35-year-old muscle-head mentor passes you around to his friends and to strangers. Imagine you are an older gay man who did find romance but also found it empty and your … Read more
Lester Feder is a reporter for left-wing BuzzFeed. A pretty fair reporter, Feder is nonetheless a partisan for LGBT causes; still he gives our side a fair and accurate shake. He called me recently wanting to know about American influences in the current Irish debate over faux vs. true marriage. His narrative is that Americans … Read more
It is inevitable that advocates for the Sexual Revolution will say all we need is a bit more of it. More orgasms. More sex-ed. More abortion. More contraception. Less guilt. More freedom, man. But they will never acknowledge that their revolution has been tried and found wanting, wanting being a fairly benign way of saying … Read more
We have won the argument over marriage. We have won 34 statewide elections where traditional marriage was on the ballot. We did this even though the polls showed us losing most of them, perhaps all of them, prior to the vote. We won even in liberal states like California. We won even during Democratic primaries … Read more
Just once wouldn’t you like to see some gay guy ask a Muslim baker to make a sheet cake with an image of Mohammed—Peace Be Upon Him? Gay guys are awfully brave when they bully meek Christian bakers with the full force of the federal and state governments behind them. But let them belly up … Read more
A man I know was a top executive at a major American media company, one of the biggest and most influential in the world. A young man came into his office one day asking to display a rainbow sticker with the words “safe space.” This was a decade ago and this man, a faithful Catholic, … Read more
At a super-secret conservative confab last week a long-time friend and ally said that after 30 years of giving lectures and speeches to conservative groups there was only one event where he could show his true colors, and it wasn’t the one we were attending. I asked him what colors he could not show at … Read more
Influential Catholics—many of them supporters of Barack Obama—are advancing a proposition that may have the result of sullying the reputations of Catholic conservatives and those Catholics arguing for a robust market economy. They couch their arguments in Catholic Social Teaching; the common good, political community, love for the poor, subsidiarity. They compare this over against … Read more
There is a movement well underway to convince faithful Catholics they do not have a political home in the Republican Party. The effort is comprised of former political conservatives who now believe they are more Catholic than anybody else and therefore have cast a pox on both political parties, which is just another way for … Read more
Word is now circulating around the Catholic world that conservative hero Gary Sinise, along with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, both publicly professed faithful Catholics, cancelled their appearances at a Legatus Summit at the last minute under pressure from the LGBT crowd. Legatus is the organization of Catholic CEOs founded by pizza billionaire Tom Monaghan … Read more