Catholicism, Labor Unions, and the Courts
On February 26th, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME. The legal question in the case is whether, under the First Amendment, the government can compel public employees to pay...
View ArticleForcing Pro-Life Pregnancy Care Centers to Advertise for Abortion is Unjust...
Can the state compel an organization to proclaim a message that is the very antithesis of its mission? On March 20, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that poses this question....
View ArticleThe New McCarthyism: Religion, Marriage, and Judicial Nominations
Imagine an orthodox Jewish woman being interviewed on a Jewish radio program speaking about the Torah and its condemnation of same-sex sexual activity. The woman expresses her agreement with the Torah...
View ArticleCalifornia's New Sexual Orientation Bill Is Bad, but It Wouldn't Ban Books
Social conservatives last week elevated a skirmish in the culture war with misdirected heavy-artillery fire. It was an understandable error by people of good will, who have well-grounded concerns about...
View ArticleLearning to Live with Same-Sex Marriage?
“Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.” So said...
View ArticleWhose Conscience? What Protections? Conscience Provisions in Healthcare and...
Nurse Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo had worked for five years at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City when the demand came one morning in 2009 for her to assist at a late-term abortion. She balked. Cathy was...
View ArticleAnti-Discrimination “Equality” Law Exemptions Do Not Lead to Fairness for...
In recent years, almost all Western nations have adopted anti-discrimination equality legislation. At first glance, this seems like a good idea. After all, who could be against equality? As the United...
View ArticleSaint John Henry Newman and Freedom of Conscience: Countering a Modern Apostasy
John Henry Newman’s teachings provide a proper grounding for freedom of conscience and for the Catholic Church’s duty to defend the truth, both to its members and to society in general. In both of...
View ArticleSpeech and Conscience in Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life
Sprechen Verboten (Speaking is forbidden). Stenciled on the interior wall of a Nazi prison yard, these two words loom over Franz Jägerstätter, the protagonist of Terrence Malick’s latest film, A Hidden...
View ArticleMoral Guidance on Prioritizing Care During a Pandemic
As our society struggles to come to terms with the COVID-19 pandemic, for which our resources to treat the ill may well prove inadequate, difficult and heart-wrenching decisions may have to be made by...
View ArticleThe Role of the United States in the Revitalization of the International...
It has been six years since ISIS perpetrated a genocide against Yazidis, Christians, Shiites, and other groups, inflicting mass violence and killing thousands simply because of their beliefs. Despite...
View ArticleHow Trump Has Transformed the GOP—and Why Conservatives Should Vote for Him...
This week, Public Discourse is running a symposium on the 2020 presidential election. We’ll hear from authors with a wide variety of perspectives on the difficult prudential question of how social...
View ArticleThe Threat to Life and Liberty from the United Nations’ Abuse of Human Rights
To the surprise of no one, liberal critics of the Trump administration strongly criticized the recent report of the US State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights. Considering the Commission’s...
View ArticleSuing for Peace in the Wedding Vendor Wars
Andrew Koppelman is climbing out of the trenches. In his new book, Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty? (observe the question mark), he requests a cease-fire in the conflict between LGBT-identity claims...
View ArticleUncluttering the Ground between the Trenches
Yesterday I discussed Andrew Koppelman’s proposal for achieving peace in the entrenched conflict between LGBT identity claims and civil liberties such as religious freedom and private property....
View ArticleWhen Conscience Is Attacked, the Ground Beneath Us Shakes
Many say the Canadian election last month achieved nothing, that the country is back to where it was before. There’s a lot of truth to this statement. The new seating map for Canada’s Parliament is...
View ArticleReclaiming the Judging in Judgment: A Response to Christopher Wolfe
Christopher Wolfe’s recent article in Public Discourse argues that Employment Division v. Smith should be upheld by the Supreme Court, despite a recent decision that questioned Smith’s endurance. In...
View ArticleCan Catholics Object to COVID-19 Vaccines on Religious Freedom Grounds?
Last week, the Supreme Court declined to grant religious exemptions to Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers. This decision has intensified debate about whether people of faith...
View ArticleCatholic Bishops Fail in Defending Conscience
American commercial, military, governmental, and even ecclesiastical establishments have for months enforced mandates to penalize conscientious objectors to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. All these vaccines...
View ArticleConscience, Virtue, and Moral Concerns about COVID Vaccines
Conscience claims enjoy great prominence in the modern era. For example, in 2020 the Little Sisters of the Poor sought and attained legal exemptions from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate...
View ArticleMinimalist Religious Freedom as a Self-Inflicted Wound
To be honest, writing a critical review of Phillip Muñoz’s American Liberty and the American Founding was a painful task. It was painful in part because I sincerely admire Muñoz and his scholarship,...
View ArticleColorado’s Anti-Discrimination Law: Justifying Harms to Religious Minorities...
In early December, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis and petitioner Lorie Smith, thus hearing a reprise of many of the arguments from its 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop...
View ArticleBusiness Owners Have Rights, Too
If you choose to serve others, do you forfeit your property rights? Most people who serve the public using their own talents and resources, either for profit or charitable motivations, believe that...
View ArticleDisintegrating Conscience in a Fragmented Age
What is a conscience? What does it mean to say that one ought to follow it or not offend another’s? Those familiar with the New Testament often think of that passage in 1 Corinthians (10:25–29) in...
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