Scott Hahn is a prolific Biblical scholar with a huge fan-base among orthodox Catholics. He doesn’t need my help promoting his new book, The First Society: The Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of Social Order. But I need some help from him. I need his help convincing my pro-marriage policy-wonk friends that our defense … 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
Serious Catholics and political conservatives since the 1950s have strongly criticized the Supreme Court for making public policy and acting as a kind of “super-legislature” to further a leftist socio-political agenda, instead of interpreting the law and judging. We have seen such judicial lawmaking on pornography, abortion, legislative reapportionment, sodomy laws, and the list could … Read more
“The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.” —President Barack Obama, June 26, 2013 “I will tell you that I don’t believe … Read more
Nobody knows how the Supreme Court will ultimately rule on the two cases concerning so-called same-sex “marriage,” the California Proposition 8 case and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) case, on which the high court recently heard two days of testimony. However, some of the comments made by several justices in the course of the … Read more
Listening to arguments by Theodore Olson, the lawyer challenging Proposition 8, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said this: “You’re asking for us to go into uncharted waters, and you can play with that metaphor. There’s a wonderful destination or there’s a cliff.” Last month the United States Supreme Court heard two cases challenging the oldest … Read more
Many years ago I sat with Justice Scalia at a Catholic prayer breakfast in New York City. As we ate, a waiter approached, leaned into Scalia and handed him a FedEx package. This was suspicious since FedEx does not deliver on Sunday. Scalia said, “Must be a bomb” and tossed it unopened into the middle … Read more
Liberal activists respect neither natural law nor positive law. What God and the people have joined together, they feel perfectly free to put asunder. Marriage, by their lights, is a purely human institution that they can make and remake at will. This unholy cause has been on display during Holy Week at the Supreme Court, … Read more
Next week, the Supreme Court will begin its consideration of two cases, one concerning the Defense of Marriage Act and the other California’s Proposition 8 Amendment, which may settle in the near-term the questions concerning the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Both the Marriage Act and Proposition 8 define marriage as being between a man and … Read more
In May 2012, Newsweek crowned Barack Obama “the first gay president” for his war on marriage. A halo appeared above his head in the cover photo. The magazine was applauding him not only for his defiance of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) but for his “evolution” in favor of gay marriage, a stance no … Read more
During his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, Judge Robert Bork said one of his attractions to the court was that it would be an “intellectual feast.” There is certainly a feast going over the impending Supreme Court consideration of same-sex marriage. A mountain of friend-of-the-court briefs has landed in the hands of the Supreme … Read more
But the fact that silenced and marginalized church-goers actually constitute a majority only makes the process by which they are denied their full democratic liberties all the more insidious. For those in doubt as to how this process works, California has provided a prime illustration: through a costly and bruising electoral fight, defenders of natural … Read more