Author’s preface: I am a gay man who is opposed to same-sex marriage. Readers can view my speech on this topic given earlier this year at the Celebration of Marriage Rally here and read my essay “I’m Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage.” A recent article in the Daily Beast, “Pennsylvania. Oregon. Is Gay Marriage Unstoppable?” began … Read more
On June 28, 1776, the first draft of our nation’s Declaration of Independence was introduced to the general session of the Second Continental Congress. The 28th was a Friday, and so the founding fathers tabled the draft until the following Monday, July 1st, when they took it up again for debate. A resolution for independence … Read more
How would you feel if your boss came into your office one day and asked if you are supportive of the “LGBT community”? Maybe you are sympathetic to gays who face discrimination but you do not support the overall agenda. Maybe you are a faithful Catholic who accepts the teaching of the Church on homosexuality, … Read more
The issues that now put Catholics in opposition to secular public thought are too basic to ignore. The Church accepts God as our reference point, and views freedom to develop our relation to Him and act by reference to it as basic to our good and our dignity. In contrast, secular society has made our … Read more
The other night I saw a trailer on TV for the new Robo Cop movie. “Meet the Future,” said the accompanying caption. And, if the trailer is to be believed, the future will be a high-tech world where police don futuristic armor and ride futuristic motorcycles. The idea that the future will be like nothing … Read more
Is there such a thing as bad religion? Or is religion by its very nature a good thing? Throughout most of history, most people wouldn’t have hesitated to label some religions as bad. The Romans condemned the child-sacrificing religion of the Carthaginians, Christians condemned the Aztec religion for its human sacrifice, and Catholics condemned Arians … Read more
Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishaq is 27 years old. She is eight months pregnant. Last week, she was sentenced to be beaten and then executed in the Sudan. Her crime is marriage: Ms. Ishaq married a Christian, which violates the law of her nation because it makes her a Muslim apostate. Mariam Ishaq has never been … Read more
The number of subjects we cannot talk about in public discourse are rapidly multiplying. The older notion of “free speech” as a search for the truth through reasonable argument is being replaced. We no longer want to hear speech if it “offends” someone’s feelings or self-defined identity. We would rather “just get along” than to … Read more
After decades of well-documented dissent on many Catholic college campuses over Church teachings on abortion, contraception, and same sex marriage, a new front in the Catholic culture wars has opened on Catholic K-12 campuses as increasing numbers of gay and lesbian teachers and administrators at these schools are lobbying for the right to marry their … Read more
As any number of observers have pointed out, multiculturalism is the Trojan Horse by which militant Islam entered the West. The spread of the more extreme manifestations of Islam only became possible when the West capitulated to the doctrine that assimilation to Western values was no longer desirable and criticism of Islamic practices no longer … Read more
“Say too little and people will be killed; say too much and people will be killed.” I don’t remember the source of the quotation, but it succinctly captures the dilemma that world leaders face in deciding how to respond to Islamic violence. Catholic leaders face the same dilemma. When Muslims murder in the name of … Read more
We’ve been hearing a lot about Jim Crow lately, so perhaps it would be worthwhile to recall the history behind the Jim Crow legislation. This will enable us to more accurately decide whether Arizona’s recently proposed SB 1062 (which was vetoed last week by Republican governor Jan Brewer) is relevantly similar to the Jim Crow … Read more
GLAAD is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation. The OIC is the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, a 56-state organization which constitutes the largest voting bloc in the UN. At first glance, the two groups would not seem to have much in common—particularly when one considers the general antipathy toward homosexuals in the Muslim … Read more
I haven’t seen Philomena but I’ve noticed it’s been getting a lot of attention: many TV ads, awards nominations, numerous interviews with the stars, with the book’s author, and with the real-life Philomena Lee. Then I read some reviews of the film and realized why the media was giving it so much play. It’s about … Read more
In his 2005 book, The West’s Last Chance, Tony Blankley noted that there is a “natural human instinct to forget the distant past and to assume that the more or less benign trends of the recent past will continue.” Nevertheless, observed Blankley, “shocking divergences from the status quo have defined the path of history.” But … Read more
Like many Americans, I didn’t know much about Islam before the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. And, to tell the truth, even after 9/11 I wasn’t inclined to look too deeply into the matter. The events of 9/11, disturbing as they were, were not quite enough to overcome a certain inertia in me. … Read more
Much attention has been paid to Pope Francis’ observations about economic life in Evangelii Gaudium. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to the pope’s remarks about Islam in the same document, even though they may turn out to be of much greater consequence. One sentence in particular needs to be called into question. When … Read more
After six years and hundreds of celebratory confections, it wasn’t the economy, the stiff competition, financing, or any of the other usual road bumps of building a new business that caused Sweet Cakes by Melissa—a husband-and-wife bakery in Portland, Oregon area—to close its doors at the end of the summer. Instead, it was the nationwide … Read more
“The Church—I repeat once again—is not a relief organization, an enterprise nor an NGO (Non-Government Organization), but a community of people, animated by the Holy Spirit, who have lived and are living the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ and want to share their experience of deep joy, the message of salvation that the … Read more
The Roman Catholic Church in China has been persecuted by the Chinese communists for some six decades — essentially since the nation fell to communism in 1949. As faithful Marxists, Beijing’s despots perceived any allegiance to God or the Church as a threat to their domination, and they acted accordingly. So much of the Church was forced to go underground.