A Bishop Enters the Framing Shop …

From First Thoughts

Sorry if that sounds like the beginning of a shaggy dog story.  In the study of political communication, one of the most fruitful concepts employed by scholars in the last two decades has been “framing theory,” which concerns the way in which a story, a person, a decision, an . . . . Continue Reading »

Witherspoon Institute Summer Seminars

From First Thoughts

The Witherspoon Institute’s Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution, which I direct, is offering two seminars this summer for early-career faculty, and for graduate and law students. Church and State: Religion in the Young American Republic This seminar, held on the campus of the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Church of Joan Vennocchi

From First Thoughts

Even such liberal stalwarts as E.J. Dionne and Michael Sean Winters can be heard to complain about the Obama administration’s HHS mandate that all employers—including all religious institutions but the most narrowly defined ones—include fully paid coverage for contraceptives . . . . Continue Reading »

Obama HHS Goes for Broke

From First Thoughts

With exquisite timing—two days before the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade , and three days before the March for Life descends on Washington—the Obama administration’s secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has released a long-awaited statement confirming her . . . . Continue Reading »

Liberty or License?

From First Thoughts

If, like me, you read Theodore Boutrous’s defense, yesterday in the Wall Street Journal , of the proposition that the FCC should cease and desist from enforcing any notions of decency in broadcast television, and you wondered what exactly could compel a person to make such vacuous arguments, . . . . Continue Reading »