In his dissent in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court decision invalidating the federal definition of marriage as natural marriage, Justice Scalia rightly identified as particularly outrageous the Court’s assertion that the purpose of the definition was a “‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages.” The assertion is ignorant and bigoted to … Read more
A feature film now in theaters tells the story of children devastated by divorce and the story of middle-aged adolescents living almost exclusively for themselves. The Way Way Back is the story of teen-age Duncan, who spends part of a summer at a beach house with his mother Pam, her boyfriend Trent and her boyfriend’s … Read more
During the same month that U. S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was issuing his opinion that the Defense of Marriage Act “humiliated tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples,” Russia’s House of Parliament voted unanimously to ban the adoption of Russian children by same-sex couples from abroad. The House also … Read more
Not long after I published my recent column about Robert McCarty and the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministries (NFCYM), I started receiving emails from concerned and in some cases very well informed parents. One of the emails included screen shots from Facebook postings of one of McCarty’s senior employees. On Facebook this fellow celebrates … Read more
Emotional abuse can be as bad as physical abuse. Any young person who’s heard the words, “I wish you were never born,” understands that adults can inflict tremendous damage on their dependents without leaving the slightest bruise. One of the worst parts of abuse is society’s refusal to see the injustice. Emotional abuse is particularly … Read more
In today’s “liberal” culture, as religious observance declines, the moral tide goes out, seemingly beyond the drop off. The Supreme Court decision of June 26 concerning DOMA is the most recent in an effort to “liberalize” traditionally held moral norms that owe their original establishment to the faith convictions of a once (and mostly) Christian … Read more
Of all God’s creatures, those most amiable must include koalas, pandas, dolphins and penguins, only the last two of which are aquatic. If one goes with most evolutionists, penguins used to fly and flying would have made it easier to escape their chief enemy the leopard seal, but their ability to swim made flying too … Read more
A couple of months back, I received a phone call from one of my sisters, reminding me of a wedding reception that she and everyone else in the family would be flying down to Florida to attend. A nephew had just gotten married in New York, and everyone was eager to celebrate the union. Was … Read more
We continue to reel from the blows dealt by the Culture of Death. The attack on life, and particularly on the family, that institution which is the incubator and nourisher of life, continues relentlessly. Our states and our courts have now given the name of “marriage” to a fundamentally unnatural and barren relationship that was … Read more
Sixty-five years ago Richard Weaver wrote about the destruction caused by the triumph of nominalism, the denial of the reality of transcendentals such as the good, beautiful, and true. He wanted to reverse it, and insisted on the importance of the right to private property, calling it “the last metaphysical right.” The point was to … Read more
Of all the misconceived nonsense in the recent Windsor v. United States ruling, perhaps the most egregious was Justice Anthony Kennedy’s insinuation that “the children made me do it.” Windsor declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because it defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. Why was DOMA a problem for … 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
The mainstream American right has remained almost entirely silent about the recent suicide of the French historian, Dominique Venner. The reasons for this, I do not know—perhaps it is a squeamishness about the symbolism of his final act, or a lack of understanding of it. Perhaps it is a refusal to see what the people … Read more
Many should be aware of the massacres and massive human rights violations visited upon the Catholic Church during the French Revolution, especially in the Vendée, but there is another more recent period in French history in which the Church was violently oppressed that has received far less attention. Historian Jean Sévillia’s Quand les catholiques étaient … Read more
The standard Catholic critique of gay sexuality has failed to persuade. This is due to an insistence on the part of many ecclesiastical authorities to focus narrowly on homosexuality alone rather than present the comprehensive understanding of human sexuality found in official Church teaching. We see the failed results of their approach in Catholics who … Read more
In responding to a recent post of mine criticizing our liberal culture for its hostility toward the traditional family, a commenter wrote: “I don’t know a single liberal who … doesn’t value (and participate in) both traditional and non-traditional families.” I think it is important to examine this liberal response to conservative criticism, not because … Read more
On May 2, 2013, Rhode Island, the most Catholic of these United States, joined the rest of New England in declaring that the sky is green and the grass is blue—or, rather, that a man can marry a man, and a woman can marry a woman, which amounts to the same thing. The two main … Read more
As June approaches, get ready for the official celebration of “Gay Pride Month” by US embassies abroad. If sodomy and same-sex marriage are constitutional rights, what is their relationship to American foreign policy? Despite the tremendous controversy regarding these issues within the United States, the Obama administration has gone ahead and placed them at the … Read more
As someone who tries to live a healthy, organic lifestyle, I have noticed more and more that in our culture today one is allowed to say things about people’s eating and fitness habits that you would never get away with saying when it comes to their sexual habits. Take diabetes, for example. Diabetes is a … Read more
The world was transfixed in early 2013 as three meteors broke through the deceptive calm of outer space. Thanks to the media, for a few weeks, people were confronted with the remote, but unsettling, possibility that the ultimate horror might come true—a killing fire, raining down from the sky. Actually, humanity has been confronted by … Read more