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Pornography and Civil Rights

From First Thoughts

Andrew Sullivan used to make the “conservative” case for re-defining marriage, arguing that recognizing same-sex sexual partnerships as marriages would spread traditional norms of monogamy and sexual fidelity where promiscuity and “open” partnerships tended to . . . . Continue Reading »

A Letter to the Hotel Industry

From First Thoughts

Last week, I joined Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, one of our nation’s most brilliant public intellectuals and a leading scholar and teacher of the Islamic tradition, in a letter to the chief executive officers of America’s largest hotel chains asking them to stop offering pornography in . . . . Continue Reading »

Defend Religious Liberty for Muslims

From First Thoughts

Religious liberty scholar and advocate Douglas Laycock has offered both praise for and criticism of the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ statement on religious freedom, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.”  Speaking of the document’s examples of contemporary threats to religious . . . . Continue Reading »

The Constitution Doesn’t Settle the Marriage Debate

From Web Exclusives

A key question, perhaps the key question, this Court is being called on to address is whether the Constitution of the United States chooses between competing moral understandings of the nature, value, and social purposes of marriage, thus settling the question of how marriage is to be defined. On reflection, I believe your honor will see that it does not. Rather, the Constitution leaves the matter, as it leaves most matters of substantive law where choices between competing moral understandings must be made, for resolution in the forums of democratic deliberation and decision-making, including, in the case of federal law, the Congress of the United States… . Continue Reading »