It’s no secret that liberals adore Pope Francis. The more secular the “progressive,” the greater the reverence for the new man in the Vatican. Liberals—which includes liberal Catholics and Protestants as well as secularists—see the pontiff as the long-awaited liberator of the reactionary Roman Catholic Church. And yet, if you think about it, there aren’t … Read more
For many years now, I have pondered the use of the word “gender.” Before I began my work on same-sex attraction and wrote the book One Man, One Woman, I spent 9 years studying “gender” and wrote a book on the subject (The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality). Originally, “sex” was an inclusive term, which referred … Read more
Over the last three weeks, MIT professor and Affordable Care Act (ACA) architect Jonathan Gruber has gone from being an academic, known mostly in policy circles, to the face of political dishonesty and manipulation. Gruber, who helped create and sell the ACA to the American people, has been caught on tape admitting—on multiple occasions—that the … Read more
President Barack Obama’s reaction to the shellacking he and his policies received from the American people in the midterm elections surprised no one in its stubborn petulance. Along with some eye rolling and clearly perfunctory statements about how he would “cooperate” with the new Republican majority, President Obama made clear that he sees himself as … Read more
I got scolded good and proper at the Vatican conference on man-woman complementarity this week. In an article for Breitbart News I named some of the participants in the conference. I asked around and no one knew there was an embargo on the identities of the participants. Indeed attendees were busy emailing and Facebooking the … Read more
As my readers will have heard, the recently re-elected mayor of Houston, Annise Parker, tried to subpoena the sermons and e-mailed messages of various Christian clergymen in the city in early October only to reverse course following public outrage. Miss Parker is a lesbian living in a pseudogamous relationship with another woman. The clergymen had … Read more
I begin with two questions. Here is a statement by a person whose name is familiar to Catholics as that of a dedicated pro-abortionist, Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advice Service: “Viewing these cases as potential criminal offences will do nothing for the health of women and their babies. There is a … Read more
Recent months have witnessed an emerging debate among some American conservatives, especially religiously informed conservatives and, even more specifically, Catholic conservatives. This debate concerns how they can (and, in some cases, whether they should even attempt to) engage in a public square that seems ever more rooted in modern liberal presuppositions and preoccupations. At the … Read more
One of the big unexamined assumptions of our time is that Islam is a diverse religion which offers as many different flavors of the faith as Baskin-Robbins serves up in ice cream. Just recently, Nicholas Kristof penned a column for the New York Times titled “The Diversity of Islam,” and a week after that, author … Read more
Brian Camenker is a rabble-rouser from Massachusetts who founded something contentiously called MassResistance, a state-based pro-family group that takes perhaps the most aggressive stance in the country against the homosexual agenda. In a recent column published on his website, Camenker offers no quarter to the national pro-family groups that he says have botched the fight … Read more
The Republicans trounced the Democrats in Tuesday’s elections. The GOP took the Senate, picked up three governorships in deeply Democrat states, staged several high-level upsets, and came close to victories in races that were supposed to be Democratic blowouts, such as the still-undecided Senate election between Mark Warner and Ed Gillespie in Virginia. Next comes … Read more
Two incidents involving basic constitutional freedoms—not closely associated with one another in the media or by those involved—highlight the growing power of sexual radicalism in our society. Radical sexual ideology in a broad sense has not generally been recognized as a political phenomenon worthy of attention. But we can see in these developments—both of which … Read more
I am guessing I am not alone in being tired of politics and, especially, politicians this election cycle. Often, perhaps more often than not, I am tired of politics. It is just so gritty and manipulative, so low and utilitarian. Give me just one Socrates for every thousand politicians. Though I am not proud of … Read more
For more than 1500 years the Church was a major influence on Western politics. That is how it should be. Ultimate standards matter, and if the Church doesn’t explain what they are and how to apply them someone else will. It’s not an improvement when her authority gives way to that of journalists, advertisers, TV … Read more
Coming up on another Election Day, I notice my neighbors and friends getting a little competitive. They’re not political activists. They’re political apathists. For some, an election is a can’t miss opportunity to broadcast their general contempt and hatred for America’s political scene. It’s actually become a bit of a joke at this point, since … Read more
President Obama’s remarks on October 31 to Rhode Island College were pro-women, at least according to some. He spoke of the need for equal pay for equal work, for increased career opportunities for women and improved leave policies for working parents who needed to take care of a sick child. All of these promises, no … Read more
Property restitution is an indispensable step to right the wrongs of the past and, thus, to legitimize one’s system as free and just; hence a democracy. The Republic of Turkey projects itself as a modern democracy, a state that has successfully fused secular and religious elements and aspires not only to represent the Muslim world … Read more
Ever since 9/11 there has been much talk about reforming Islam so that it can be more in step with the modern world. What would a reformed Islam look like? One doesn’t have to look far for an answer. In a sense the Islamic reformation has already come and gone. It began in the colonial … Read more
I have written in this column about how in these times when our traditional liberties and even such natural rights as religious freedom are under siege, we need to look to executive power—exercised in the right way—to help us. In recent months we have seen striking examples of how noted state governors in varying ways … Read more
Nine years as chaplain of an 800 bed state mental hospital taught me that one can be mentally ill and highly intelligent. Talking with the patients often was more interesting than talking with their psychiatrists. Mad men are not mindless. They just do not distinguish between delusion and fact. Chesterton summed this up by aphorism: “The madman … Read more