Matthew Hennessey

Over the years, the American political left has excelled at using the vocabulary of rights”human and civil”to bolster and advance its policy objectives. Conservatives would do well to copy them. Building on the successes of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, progressives and Democrats have successfully cloaked their policy platform in rights-based language. In this way the battle over voter ID laws was transformed into a crusade against the resurgence of Jim Crow-era racialism… . Continue Reading »

“It’s a free country.” You used to hear that a lot. Mind if I have the last piece of pie? “It’s a free country.” Mind if I smoke? “It’s a free country.” Too bad it has receded from everyday lingo, replaced by the ubiquitous, meaningless, “Whatever.” Something has been lost. “It’s a free country” was more than just whatever, it was, “Yeah, I mind. But I ain’t gonna stop you.” Isn’t that where the rubber hits the road in a truly free society? … Continue Reading »

When I was a kid, it took twenty-four hours to get the results from a simple strep- test. Now it takes minutes. People used to get chickenpox. Now they have a vaccine for it. Usually, medical innovation is a good thing. But as the parent of a little girl with Down syndrome, I find news that geneticists are close to perfecting a noninvasive prenatal test that can map almost all of an unborn baby’s DNA sequence deeply troubling. This test will not be used to make your throat feel better or your leg stop itching. It will be used to abort babies. Lots of them… . Continue Reading »

The public relations staff of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) must think themselves very clever. Earlier this month, in an effort to grab the attention of Americans preparing to celebrate Memorial Day, the animal rights group “barbequed” a topless woman in downtown Houston on a fake grill adorned with the slogan, “Meat Is Murder.” … Continue Reading »

Shmuley Boteach, the Orthodox Jewish rabbi and author of bestselling books, is perhaps best known as a friend and adviser to the late “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. He is also currently a Republican candidate for Congress in Bergen County, New Jersey. This is all to say that he is a man”a religious man, at that”with a voice in the public square… . Continue Reading »

If I was Rick Santorum, this is the moment I would choose to endorse Mitt Romney for president. Why? Because Romney has just done something both highly presidential and deeply moral on the issue most associated with the former Pennsylvania senator’s run for the White House: life. In response to last week’s news that the blind Chinese lawyer and human rights activist Chen Guangcheng had escaped house arrest and been taken in by U.S. diplomatic staff in Beijing, Romney issued this statement … Continue Reading »

The family has been planning to take advantage of our little patch of suburbia to plant a small flower and vegetable garden, something we never dreamed of doing during the 10+ years we lived in New York City. But the nice weather caught us unprepared. The man at the hardware store told my wife that the unseasonably high temperatures meant that all recommended planting schedules should be advanced by one month. We thought we had a little more time to get our acts together. Such is life… . Continue Reading »

My wife homeschools our seven-year-old daughter, so I read with sympathy David Mills’ piece in the January issue of First Things on the suspicion he encounters when discussing publicly the homeschooling of his two children. Opting out of the public education system feels a bit like jumping off a moving train. As you tumble down the side of the embankment and struggle to gain your footing, passengers on the still-moving train crane their necks and crowd to the windows to stare at you with wide eyes and slack jaws…. Continue Reading »

I hear the word a lot. Less than I used to, but more than I’d prefer. The word is “retarded.” To many it remains a humorous synonym for words like “uncoordinated” or “stupid.” I probably hear it more than most because I’m really attuned to it. When I was a kid, it was common for boys to tease each other with the word “gay.” But that was ultimately declared unspeakable by polite society. We forced it out of our vocabularies… . Continue Reading »

This week marks the thirty-first anniversary of John Lennon’s death”as good a time as any to analyze our enduring fascination with the former Beatle’s peculiar religiosity and his lasting impact on our cultural imagination. We should begin at the beginning, or very near it. In August 1966, as a mop-topped 26-year-old, Lennon told a British reporter that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” … Continue Reading »