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Religion and Public Life With Mark Silk

My pro-family argument for accelerating same-sex marriage has run into some flak from Touchstone‘s Jordan Ballor, who thinks I’ve committed a non sequitur. The burden of his argument: It’s true that we need to connect the natural telos of marriage to child-rearing rather than some ephemeral or hormonal understanding of pseudo-romantic love. But that would seem to…

Sure, the usual First Amendment purists think there’s something wrong with Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear’s plan to help solve his state’s unemployment woes by giving big tax breaks to support the construction of a Noah’s Ark Theme Park. Personally, I think he’s on to something. Something big. In these hard times, when imminent divided government…

Ross Douthat today is touting a new study from the University of Virginia bemoaning the decline of marriage in Middle America. OMG, the educated elite is now more committed to family values and religion than Sarah Palin’s flyover majority–i.e. they go to church more, get married more, and divorced less. What’s the country coming to?…

OMG, Politico is reporting, in a front-of-the-site, top of the page story by Ben Smith and Brian Tau: “Obama’s stimulus pours millions into faith-based groups.” And some of those groups were pleased at the manna from heaven! Who knew? Thanks for toting it up, Politico. But let’s see what all that pouring has amounted to.…

Inasmuch as I previously singled out evangelical chaplains as responsible for the intensity of resistance to doing away with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, it seems only fair to note the comparable opposition of the Catholic-in-charge, Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services USA. To be sure, Broglio does not threaten to withhold priestly services from…

Lest you think the pope’s condom comments aren’t continuing to explode conservative Catholic heads, check out Sandro Magister’s latest post, “Friendly Fire on Benedict XVI. And a Condom’s to Blame.” In particular, consider this juicy scolding from Luke Gormally, Ordinary Member, Pontifical Academy for Life and Director Emeritus, The Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics, London,…

The Defense Department’s superb report on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell includes an interesting contrast between the racial integration of the U.S. military in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the current homosexual integration. Then, when the military was out in front of the rest of the country, the chaplaincy corps was strongly supportive of…

Rod Dreher, late of this site, put in an appearance yesterday in his old newspaper by way of a review essay on Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s hot new book, American Grace: How Religion Unites and Divides Us. (Curiously, Dreher is identified only as a former Dallas Morning News columnist, with no mention of his…

David Gibson has a fine wrap-up of the Great Condom Freak-out in today’s NYT Week in Review. His key point is that by justifying the use of condoms in certain cases as the lesser of evils, Pope Benedict has embraced the traditional Catholic approach to moral reasoning (casuistry) that he used to oppose. No wonder…

The Puritans had many good qualities, but a commitment to religious tolerance was not exactly their forte. Particularly obnoxious to them were the Quakers, whose understanding of an “inner light” in all people ran seriously afoul of Calvinist ideas of original sin. Quakers were therefore banned from all the New England colonies except Rhode Island,…
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