Cash-strapped governments in Europe are looking to properties owned by the Roman Catholic Church as a source of revenue.

This troubles me in at least two ways. First of all, the more functions the government takes on, the greater its need for revenue. If, having exhausted its individual and commercial sources of revenue, the expanded and expansive government turns to properties and income streams connected with a church, it is fueling its growth at the expense of “civil society.” Government drains old communal institutions to support its programs. There’s just a whiff of totalitarianism in all this. Just a whiff.

Second, it seems pretty clear that the government will decide which functions are core religious functions and which aren’t. (Shades of the contraceptive mandate here!) For fiscal purposes, then, religion is whatever the government says it is. While there’s talk about the separation of church and state (especially where there are long-standing cooperative relationships, let alone subsidies), the effect, ultimately, is to subordinate the church to the state. Another glint of totalitarianism.

I’m glad that we have a First Amendment and a culture that values religious liberty in the United States. But we also have elites that wish us to become ever more like our European brethren and regard our religiosity as a retrograde tendency. And we have governments looking for ever more areas of responsibility and ever more sources of revenue. When the irresistible force comes, I hope and pray that the object is indeed immovable.

We know a lot more now than we did yesterday when I wrote my first response to the horrific events in Cairo and Benghazi. We know, for example, that Cairo embassy’s twitter post was issued before the violence unfolded in front of and on the embassy grounds. To be sure, we have to suspect that the author of the post meant to defuse or preempt a situation like the one that did in fact occur.

His pandering clearly failed.

We also know that the Cairo statement wasn’t cleared by the State Department in Washington, D.C., and that the author seems to have been freelancing against the wishes of his Foggy Bottom superiors. But as the infamous (in some circles, at least) Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler notes, there are significant structural and thematic similarities between the Cairo post and other statements issued by our diplomats on similar occasions. Still, there’s enough of a difference to justify Kessler’s conclusion that the Cairo statement is “perhaps the weakest” (by far, I’d add) of the three statements he finds, especially because, unlike the others, it fails to offer a fulsome articulation of our commitment to freedom of speech, association, and religion. The audience at which the post was directed certainly feels a grievance and might welcome our respect for that grievance (and take it as an affirmation of the grievance), but, from my point of view, what it especially has to hear, much more clearly, is why we cannot and they ought not, to draw the conclusions from that grievance that the post’s author knows they’re sorely tempted to draw. We may condemn the offensive speech, but we will not suppress it. In the name of freedom of speech and religion, we will tolerate utterances that some may find offensive.

In this connection, Bush Administration State Department spokesman Sean McCormack (quoted by Kessler) makes a statement (more…)

I’m still trying to come to terms with my feelings (mostly angry) regarding the vicious attacks on American diplomatic posts in Benghazi and Cairo. Like the author of the American embassy’s twitter feed, I certainly deplore gratuitous insults directed at any religion. But I would have more forthrightly articulated the connection between freedom of speech and religious freedom. The two are intimately connected, which means that, unlike some, we have to protect the rights of error, not only those of truth.

I don’t at the moment attribute to the host governments the opinions and actions of the protestors. How they handle the messes their lax security created, how they interact with the Obama Administration (which ought to do more than issue condemnations), will go a long way toward settling the matter for me. Will they hold the attackers accountable? Will they insist that an insult directed at “the truth” is deplorable, but not cause for violence and mayhem?

As for the protestors themselves, we shouldn’t mistake their motives or the challenge they pose. The choice of September 11th, the “Osama” chants at the American embassy in Cairo, and the desecration of an American flag (and its replacement with one that is associated with al Qaeda) all make their intentions clear enough. They certainly believe that only their truth has rights, and we benighted Americans should submit to it.  They continue to pose an existential threat, even if (for most of us) it’s less immediate than it was eleven years ago.

My prayers go out to the families of the murdered diplomats.

This article points to the ways in which current legal challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act rest upon assertions of traditional state authority to define marriage. Here, for example, is how New York, Vermont, and Connecticut put it in their amicus brief in Windsor v. U.S., a case in which Edie Windsor challenges the federal government’s authority to collect taxes on the estate her partner (they were married in Canada) left her.

• Since the founding of our Nation, the whole subject of domestic relations, including the determination of marital status, has been committed to state law and state policy judgments.

• It is, and always has been, the role of the States to determine who is married and who is not.

While these arguments are deployed on behalf of states that regard DOMA’s federal “definition of marriage” as anathema and that employ very strong language to characterize those who don’t recognize same-sex marriage, it remains the case that they affirm each state’s authority to define marriage for itself. Those states that wish to adhere to a traditional definition of marriage are free to do so.

To be sure, I suspect that this affinity for federalism is more strategic than principled. I fear that these particular friends of the state authority to define marriage will soon insist that what Congress cannot do in defense of traditional marriage, the federal courts can do on behalf of “marriage equality,” with a warrant, perhaps, from the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

Traditional state authority in this arena may not survive the next Supreme Court appointment by a Democratic president. But we can always argue, citing these decisions, and the briefs giving rise to them, that this is a state matter, to be determined by the states, resting upon the kind of prudential and policy judgments state legislators are qualfiied to make.

…yet. But it could, if the recent Supreme Court health-care ruling is exploited a certain way. So says my friend Stanley Carlson-Thies, president of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance.

He is concerned, as are others, about the long-range consequences of NFIB v. Sebelius, which reaffirmed the power of Congress to use its power of taxation to influence individual behavior.

Of particular concern, the ruling opens the way to the adoption of measures such as limiting charity tax exemptions to groups that provide direct benefits to the poor and allowing tax deductions only for donors to those groups, proposals that have gained growing support in recent years among some members of Congress and other lawmakers.

This may have consequences for churches, which some people believe aren’t real charities.

And no one has yet mentioned what might happen to organizations that find themselves out of step with a potential consensus favoring same-sex marriage. Will churches that adhere to the traditional teaching regarding marriage at the very least lose their tax-exempt status? That this is a very real fear was one of the arguments in the very chilling Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty.

I’m not arguing that the Chief Justice had these considerations in mind when he wrote his decision, or that critics of the tax-exempt status of churches need the Court’s permission to walk down this path. But the Court’s reaffirmation of the non-revenue purposes to which the tax code can be put offers some cover to those who aspire to the role of “engineer of human souls.”

The current issue of Cathedral Age, the magazine of Washington’s National Cathedral, has interviews with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney addressing the subject of faith and public life. The questions are not hard and the answers mostly anodyne.  Here’s an example:

CA:  How do you view the role of faith in public life?

President Obama:  There are many ways to approach this question, but two clear aspects of the role of faith in public life come to mind immediately. First, faith has always provided a moral framework and vocabulary for this country to come to terms with its most pressing challenges. One of the great things about this nation is that it is a place where people from all walks of life can advocate on behalf of their faith and beliefs and be open about what drives and motivates them.

From slavery to the suffrage movement to civil rights, faith—and the moral obligations that derive from our faith—have always helped us to navigate some of our greatest moral challenges with a recognition that there’s something bigger than ourselves: we have obligations that extend beyond our own self-interest. We face big challenges in this country, and we’re coming to the point where we will decide if we’re truly in this together or if each individual ought just to fight for what serves them best. For me, and I think for many other Americans, faith tells us that there is something about this world that ties our interest to the welfare of a child who can’t get the health care they need, or a parent who can’t find work after the plant shut down, or a family going hungry.

Second, faith motivates people to do incredibly compassionate and good work that helps our nation thrive. Now, I’ve been familiar with this for a long time. One of my first jobs was as a community organizer where I was funded by a Catholic Church grant to help families on the South Side of Chicago who were struggling after the local steel plant closed. But I must say this has become even more real to me during my time as president. Through the letters I’ve read from individuals whose faith led them to serve in Joplin or Colorado Springs in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and the work of my faith-based office (which has done incredible work to strengthen partnerships between the federal government and faith-based non-profits to serve those in need), it is more apparent to me now than ever how integral faith is as a motivating factor for so much of what keeps our country moving forward.

Governor Romney:  We should acknowledge the Creator, as did the Founders—in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests.

It’s hard, on this level of generality, to disagree with either answer. Surely, (more…)

Early this year, in a course in cross-cultural psychology at the University of Central Florida, some Christian students bore witness to their faith in a way to which the professor objected. I doubt that their expressions were mature and winsome, but I also doubt that I would have reacted in the way the professor did in a subsequent email to students:

Students in my class who openly proclaimed that Christianity is the most valid religion, as some of you did last class, portrayed precisely what religious bigotry is. Bigots—racial bigot or religious bigots—never question their prejudices and bigotry. They are convinced their beliefs are correct. For the Christians in my class who argued the validity of Christianity last week, I suppose I should thank you for demonstrating to the rest of the class what religious arrogance and bigotry looks like. It seems to have not even occurred to you (I’m directing this comment to those students who manifested such bigotry), as I tried to point out in class tonight, how such bigotry is perceived and experienced by the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the non-believers, and so on, in class, to have to sit and endure the tyranny of the masses (the dominant group, that is, which in this case, are Christians).

Here is what, for want of a better term, I’ll label his presupposition:

Critical thinkers are open to having their cherished beliefs challenged, and must learn how to “defend” their views based on evidence or logic, rather than simply “pounding their chest” and merely proclaiming that their views are “valid.” One characteristic of the critical, independent thinker is being able to recognize fantasy versus reality; to recognize the difference between personal beliefs which are nothing more than personal beliefs, versus views that are grounded in evidence, or which have no evidence.

Here’s my question: when he defines the critical thinker as he does, is he doing anything more than pounding his chest and proclaiming that his view is valid? Is there evidence for the view that only evidence (presumably of a certain sort, i.e., “empirical” or measurable evidence) matters? Or does that view itself rest on a foundation other than the evidence it claims as the only valid foundation of a view?

I don’t expect a professor of psychology at a state university to be fully conversant in the rich literature–both contemporary and historical–on faith and learning. I just expect him to be a model of the humility that he rightly demands of his students and that he be slower to level charges of bigotry.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has just published a major study on charitable giving. The study tends to reaffirm a commonplace–that religious people (or at least people who live in regions where religion plays a larger role in people’s lives) are more generous. Thus folks in the more religious South give more than folks in less religious New England (5.2% vs. 4%).  That religion accounts for the lion’s share of that difference is clear, for by itself religious giving accounts for 4.3% of Southern income, as opposed to only 2.6% of New Englanders’ income.

In an article on this study in the Huffington Post, prominent sociologist Alan Wolfe is paraphrased and quoted to the following effect:

[I]t’s wrong to link a state’s religious makeup with its generosity. People in less religious states are giving in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute superior benefits, Wolfe said. And the distribution is based purely on need, rather than religious affiliation or other variables, said Wolfe, also head of the college’s Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life.

Wolfe said people in less religious states “view the tax money they’re paying not as something that’s forced upon them, but as a recognition that they belong with everyone else, that they’re citizens in the common good. … I think people here believe that when they pay their taxes, they’re being altruistic.”

I wonder if Wolfe has any actual evidence for his account of people’s opinions regarding their taxes. I especially wonder if–given the distribution of the tax burden–there’s much connection at all between the level of taxes people pay and the kind of support for a higher tax burden that he alleges.

But even if I were to grant his dubious claim that people in high tax states actually “altruisitically” support that level of taxation, I would challenge his claim that the government distribution of  benefits is “equitable,” based purely upon need. Is Wolfe so naive as to believe that those who are politically connected (campaign donors, public employees’ unions) don’t get more than their “fair share” of public money?

Our system of government arguably encourages that kind of behavior. One alternative would be to have a philosopher-king like Professor Wolfe distribute benefits in accordance with his disinterested view of what’s right.  Another would be to encourage a plurality of different sources of giving, each addressing the needs brought home to it by those who appeal to their sense of what’s just or appropriate. I know which I would choose.

The study described in this article found that among the residential college students queried, “egalitarian sexual conservatism” was the modal position. Fully 48% of the respondents disapproved equally of men and women who engaged in the collegiate “hook-up” culture. By contrast, only 27% were “egalitarian sexual libertarians.” Another 25% held some version of a double standard, with 12% losing more respect for women who frequently hooked up and 13% losing more respect for men who did so. The last bastions of the traditional double standard are male athletes and fraternity brothers, but even there only 38% winked at the guys and frowned at the girls. The libertarian avant garde can be found among gay and lesbian students.

The authors seem to be more interested in the erosion of the double standard, of which they (as feminists) disapprove. As a father of two teenagers, I’m hoping and praying that the ranks of egalitarian sexual conservatives are growing. I realize that this isn’t the same as “fidelity in marriage, chastity in singlehood” that a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away a mainline Protestant denomination held as a standard for ordination, but it’s better than many contemporary alternatives.

My apologies for being late to this iteration of the conversation. The charms of my parent’s home, my sister’s pontoon boat, and my lovely little grand-niece (is that the proper term?) have distracted me over the past few days.

Here’s only one of the latest salvos fired by those who seem to wish to excommunicate Mr. Ryan:

Ryan has set himself up as a distinctively Catholic candidate who is making a major effort to ensure that his policy decisions are in accord with the will of the Almighty as explained by the teachings of his Church. That’s a high bar to set and, to Ryan’s credit, he has not shrunk away from answering specific questions about how he sees that happening….

But a “faithful Catholic” is also supposed to follow the guidance of the Bishops. In the Catholic hierarchy, unless the Pope or the Vatican speaking in the Pope’s name has weighed in, the Bishops are the designated authentic explainers of the official line….

So if Ryan claims to be speaking in the name of his Church and the Bishops continue to have sharp and specific disagreements with much of what Ryan is saying, aren’t the Bishops morally and theologically obligated to shoot Ryan down again? And with greater specificity?

This is wrong in so many ways I don’t know exactly where to begin. But the best place, it seems to me, is at Ryan’s Georgetown speech, (more…)

I’ve heard so much about the WinShape Foundation’s “anti-gay” contributions that I decided to do a little checking.  Here’s what I learned, beginning from the Equality Matters site, which tells us the following:

WinShape Gave Over $1.9 Million To Anti-Gay Groups. In 2010, WinShape donated $1,974,380 to a number of anti-gay groups:

• Marriage & Family Foundation: $1,188,380
• Fellowship Of Christian Athletes: $480,000
• National Christian Foundation: $247,500
• New Mexico Christian Foundation: $54,000
• Exodus International: $1,000
• Family Research Council: $1,000
• Georgia Family Council: $2,500

Please note that the most frequently mentioned contributions–to the Family Research Council and Exodus International–amount to roughly 0.1% of the foundation’s gifts.

The largest gift went to the Marriage and Family Foundation, which seems to be a Cathy family charity. This becomes sinister through a bit of innuendo tying the foundation to the Marriage CoMission, which has been “supported by anti-gay activists.” From where I sit, the Marriage CoMission looks like an organization devoted to helping couples have successful marriages. (more…)

Mark Juergensmeyer is a distinguished sociologist of religion, but if this piece is an example of his reasoning, I don’t for the life of me know why. Here’s the core of the argument:

It is fair to call [Wisconsin mass murderer Wade Michael] Page a Christian terrorist since the evidence indicates that he thought he was defending the purity of white Christian society against the evils of multiculturalism that allow non-white non-Christians an equal role in America society. Like the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, and the Norwegian militant, Anders Breivik, Page thought he was killing to save white Christian society.

Though there is no evidence that Page was a pious Christian, that is true of many religious terrorists. If the hard-talking, swaggering al Qaeda militants can be called Muslim terrorists, certainly Page can be called a Christian terrorist.

There’s plenty of evidence linking Page to white supremacism, but, as Juergensmeyer concedes, none pointing to his Christian piety.

Every orthodox Christian teaching with which I’m familiar condemns racism and white supremacism.  Consider, for example, this, from St. Augustine: (more…)

My wife and I will have lunch at Chick-fil-A today.  It’s not an uncommon experience in our family, since our son works there. (For the record, he and his sister are on a mission trip this week, working with immigrant kids, so they won’t be joining us. Also, for the record, my son is a Boy Scout, so he’s about as politically incorrect as it’s possible for a teenager to be.)

But I’m not writing this to announce our family’s fast food preferences or habits. Rather, I’m writing to suggest something about the limits of markets, disagreeing ever so slightly and subtly with my friend Jordan Ballor. Here’s what he says:

One of the great virtues of the free market system is that the customers get to decide what they value and why….

So if you don’t care one way or another about this issue, or don’t care about your service provider’s position (or lack thereof) and are “hungry for a chicken sandwich,” you, like Parler, will “eat at Chick-fil-A.” Such action just tells us that you don’t care to consider such things in making your decision to engage in a particular economic exchange.

But that doesn’t mean it is inherently wrong, or worse, indicative of an unchristian worldview, to take into account such things if you are moved by conscience to do so. This is, after all, why many people are motivated to buy fair trade or organic goods, or take into account any other number of subjective considerations in their valuation of a good or service. This is the same motive that is behind much of the impetus to pursue socially responsible investing (SRI).

In Jordan’s view, the free market enables consumers to base their preferences on whatever considerations they wish, to value what they wish to value in whichever way they wish to value it.  If I wish to express my political or cultural support for my son’s employer, not just my appreciation of its product, I can do so. (more…)

Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s ringing endorsement of the traditional family has caused quite a stir.  More than a few of my Gen X and Millennial former students have vowed (on Facebook) never to darken the doors of their erstwhile favorite chicken restaurant again. I can’t help but wonder if they’re so scrupulous about the political views of the owners of all the businesses they patronize.  (For the record, I doubt it.  Also for the record, so far as market behavior is concerned, the consumer is sovereign and can make his or her decision on the basis of any information–or misinformation–he or she chooses.  Of course, I’d prefer information to misinformation, but markets are imperfect.)

But various politicians–among them, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno–have also jumped into the breach on behalf of their offended constituents. To be sure, like their constituents, they’re entitled to say whatever they want. And they can even refuse as individuals to patronize Chick-fil-A.  But when they make the move from voicing their opinions to denying a building permit, business license, or contract on the basis of Dan Cathy’s views, they have, as Eugene Volokh observes, run afoul of the First Amendment, which doesn’t permit viewpoint discrimination.

Does Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel really want to spend his city’s scarce resources defending this aldermanic act against a plaintiff with strong convictions, deep pockets, and a solid First Amendment claim?

My advice to the political leaders out there: Use this as a proverbial “teachable moment” about toleration and the limits of government.  My advice to the aggrieved proponents of same-sex marriage: politicians with the courtier spirit displayed by Mayor Menino and Alderman Moreno are not your best friends.  They’ll pander to anyone loud enough and powerful enough.

President Obama’s remarks last week about the dependence of American businesspeople have provoked quite a bit of controversy.  In case you’re living in a bubble, here’s what the President said:

“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me because  they want to give something back,” the president said. “If you’ve been  successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so  smart. There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I  worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a  whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There  was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this  unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody  invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “The Internet didn’t get invented on  its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies  could make money off the Internet.”

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, “you know what, there’s some things we do better together.” That’s how we funded the GI Bill, that’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet, that’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president, because I still believe in that idea: You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

As Yuval Levin points out, the President is in part arguing with a hyperlibertarian straw man who rejects any role for government whatsoever.  Au contraire, Levin avers, Obama’s opponents concede that there are certain things government does well: (more…)

O.K., I’ll admit it up front.  I haven’t yet read the decision, so I’m going entirely by what I’ve read about decision, which amounts mainly to half-digested reactions.  My first thoughts are subject to massive revision, after I’ve had the time to read and think.

Nevertheless, here goes nothing….

First, according to this Court, it seems that the federal government’s taxing and spending authority is more extensive than its authority under the commerce clause.  The mandate was upheld as a tax, not as a regulation of interstate commerce.  Those who want to expand the reach of government–and they are legion–now have to phrase it in these terms.  Since we have (for better or worse, more often than not the latter) used the tax code to offer all sorts of incentives and penalties for behavior, this isn’t necessarily anything new.  I would have preferred a narrower reading of the taxing and spending authority, but that would probably have required a much greater judicial “revolution” than any majority on the current Court would have been willing to countenance. (more…)

What was it that Cicero said? There is nothing so absurd that Peter Singer hasn’t said it? Something like that.

The Princeton philosophy professor’s latest effusion offers an extraordinarily limited conception of religious freedom. Taking up controversies in the Netherlands over restrictions on kosher and halal butchering, and in the U.S over the contraceptive mandate, Singer tells the pious, in effect, to get over it and subordinate their consciences to the wishes of the majority. If there isn’t an explicit religious requirement that Jews and Muslims must eat meat, that Catholics must operate universities and hospitals, then they can remain free to practice their religion in the privacy of their own homes, temples, mosques, and churches.

It’s that simple, he says. Professor Singer is quite comfortable deciding what the exercise of religion means, what genuine religious obligations are, for all the world’s faiths. We’re free so long as he says we are. In other instances, we should bend our knees before the preferences of the majority.

There’s nothing so absurd…

Increasingly, the name of the game is, according to David Gibson, “Golden Rule” Christianity: love your neighbor as yourself. This is what President Obama cited in explaining his support for same-sex marriage.

Of course, the gloss both Gibson and Obama give on this injunction is contestable. For them, respecting someone means endorsing or tolerating their choices and demands. (I recognize the difference between endorsement and toleration, but equivocate here because they equivocate.)

But cannot loving one’s neighbor as oneself also require that we hold them accountable for their sins and bear witness to them about the truth? In this context, by the way, toleration doesn’t require endorsement. It simply recognizes that in some instances the way to correct sin or error is not through punishment, but rather through admonition.

I’m tempted to argue that the position the President has taken represents the triumph of John Locke, who defined toleration as “the chief chracteristic mark of the true Church.” Locke meant in the first instance (more…)

Davidson College’s Board of Trustees is considering whether the institution’s requirement that its president be a Presbyterian should be upheld or abandoned.  The considerations advanced are familiar: the supposed tension between excellence and an increasingly limited pool of eligible applicants; how the historic relationship contributes to present identity; and so on.

Davidson’s case is unusual and interesting because it seems to be one of the few mainline Presbyterian-affiliated colleges to have continued to uphold this requirement, while being perhaps the most academically prestigious of them all.  An hypothesis: if there are “academic” difficulties in continuing to uphold this requirement, might it not have more to do with the diminution of the PCUSA than with anything else?  A pool that was once probably large enough to provide an ample number of qualified prospects is indeed shrinking.

There is of course another issue, not really addressed by the article.  If one defines “excellence” in purely secular terms, then it almost goes without saying that using denominational affiliation as a filter will have a cost in terms of quality.  But why must one define excellence in purely secular terms?

In Davidson’s case, that ship has probably already sailed.  But there remain plenty of denominationally-affiliated colleges and universities where the ship is sitll in the port (or perhaps hasn’t even been built yet).  There is plenty of evidence that intellectual rigor and fidelity are not inconsistent with one another.  Secularism and fundamentalism aren’t the only two options.

By now, almost everyone has heard or read that Vanderbilt University adopted an “all comers” policy for its student groups that has the effect of forcing some religious groups to choose between the benefits that attend recognition (access to university facilities and funding) and fidelity to their mission.

The Tennessee state legislature–which provides a non-negligble amount of financial support for the University–struck back, demnding that Vanderbilt either rescind its all-comers policy or apply it even-handedly to all groups (including those most sacrosanct of student organizations, fraternities and sororities).

But Tennessee’s governor Bill Haslam has announced that he will veto this bill.

“It is counter-intuitive to make campus organizations open their membership and leadership positions to anyone and everyone, even when potential members philosophically disagree with the core values and beliefs of the organization,” Haslam said in a prepared statement.

“Although I disagree with Vanderbilt’s policy, as someone who strongly believes in limited government, I think it is inappropriate for government to mandate the policies of a private institution.”

David French isn’t buying Haslam’s argument: (more…)

You don’t have to look too hard to find someone writing about the future of American higher education.  Everyone recognizes that “change” is in the air, but many don’t have much “hope.”

For another site, I wrote about a couple of proposals, which (taken together) amount to a call for the higher ed equivalent of Obamacare.  If you want to reflect some more on the politics of this, you could do worse than going here and here.  To those students and colleagues who would welcome an even larger federal role in higher education, I say: be careful what you wish for.  Someday (perhaps soon), the Republicans will be in charge.

Contributing in predictable ways to this political moment are those who look for ways to make what goes on inside those ivy-covered walls more appealing to an increasingly skeptical public.  The best example of the conventional wisdom I’ve seen was recommended to me (on Facebook) by my own institution’s public relations office.  This President of a small liberal arts college seems to want to turn his institution into a miniature urban service university:

What must such a re-imagining entail? Among the things we must pursue:

We must continue to champion “high impact practices” such as internships, independent study, community service, off-campus employment and study abroad experiences designed to deepen civic engagement.

We must connect with the communities in which we live and be a resource to solving community challenges. We must lead the way in creating sustainable communities, respectful of the environment and connected to local tradesmen and businesses.

We must recommit to “citizenship” as a foundation of the academy and model citizenship by addressing the real problems of our state, national and global communities.

We must bring the world to our campuses and ensure that our students have opportunities to learn through their engagement with the world.

There’s nothing in his little essay about inducting students into the Great Conversation, about leisure, or about quiet contemplation.  It’s all busyness.  Oh, for an Irish monastery!

Today, Rep. Paul Ryan delivered a speech at Georgetown University, an institution some of whose faculty had recently criticized him.

Here’s the crux of the letter (signed by roughly 90 faculty–I recognize a few of the names, including E.J. Dionne, Jr., and note only that precious few political scientists and economists are among the signatories):

[W]e would be remiss in our duty to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few. As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has wisely noted in several letters to Congress – “a just framework for future budgets cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons.” Catholic bishops recently wrote that “the House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.”

In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.

Leaving aside for a moment the canard about Ayn Rand, which Ryan dismisses as an “urban legend,” the question is how any government program or budget can embody the “Gospel values of compassion and love.”  I’d like to highlight a few of the points that Ryan makes that could be taken as a response. (more…)

A few days ago, our friends at National Review Online editorialized against the so-called “People’s Rights Amendment,” which is an attempt to overturn the Supreme Court’s holding in the Citizens United case, a holding that is anathema to the President and many of his supporters.  Matt Franck has found for us the text of the amendment, which he rightly characterizes as “the worst idea the left has had in many a moon,” though, to be sure, it has lots of competition.

Let me join the chorus by making explicit a consideration that I think is implicit in the objections raised thus far.  Amog the associations that would be denied any sort of constitutional status by this proposed amendment are churches.  It’s hard to see how my individual freedom of religion could mean anything significant apart from my ability to congregate with others called to corporate worship.  Now, I know that corporate bodies of worshippers are subject now to all sorts of incidental governmental regulations, that the freedom of religion is not (and ought not to be) absolute.

But imagine a world in which once I step outside the privacy of my closet, my corporate religious behavior is entirely subject to government regulation.  Imagine, for example, how Hosanna-Tabor would have been decided.

Actually, it doesn’t require much of an imagination.  All we have to do is look at Vanderbilt University …and China.

Well, alright, I am perhaps exaggerating.  It’s quite likely that voters would display enough good sense not to prmit governments to exercise that sort of  comprehensive regulatory power.  We should rely more on a vigilant citizenry than on a court whose membership depends upon the whims of presidents and whose opinions are all too often attuned  to cosmopolitan (and secular) elites.  But the first act of vigilance is to prevent the enactment of a measure whose (perhaps unintended) consequences are potentially so far-reaching.

Paul Ryan has famously (or infamously?)  claimed that the budget he proposed for the next fiscal year is a product of his encounter with Roman Catholic social teaching.

The bishop who heads the USCCB committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development disagrees:

 As pastors and teachers, we remind Congress that these are economic, political and moral choices with human consequences. Prior to the House considering the budget resolution, the bishops offered several moral criteria to guide these difficult budget decisions:

1. Every budget decision should be assessed by whether it protects or threatens human life and dignity.

2. A central moral measure of any budget proposal is how it affects “the least of these” (Matthew 25). The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first.

3. Government and other institutions have a shared responsibility to promote the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and families who struggle to live in dignity in difficult economic times.

Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices. Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.

Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen and Acton Institute President Rev. Robert Sirico have come to Ryan’s defense.  Here’s Thiessen: (more…)

Much ink has been spilled (if that’s still an intelligible expression in this digital age) about the likely evangelical resistance to voting for Mitt Romney.  But, to my mind, the recent Pew poll paints a different picture.  Here’s what we learn:

• Protestants favor Romney over Obama 51-43.
• White non-Hispanic evangelicals favor Romney over Obama 73-20.
• White non-Hispanic mainline Protestants favor Romney over Obama 50-42.
• Weekly church attenders favor Romney over Obama 56-38.
• White non-Hispanic evangelical weekly attenders favor Romney over Obama 80-16.

In other words, the most religiously observant white evangelicals are more likely–indeed, significantly more likely– than their less observant brethren to say they’re going to vote for Romney. (Evangelicals who attend less than once a week favor Romney over Obama 58-31.)

Need I say more?