The Logic of Contraceptive Rights

Dissenting opinions in the Hobby Lobby case and the editorials penned in reaction to the Wheaton injunction fixate on reproductive rights. Specifically, many argue that women have an incontrovertible right to the full breadth of contraceptive care, including IUDs and the morning after pill (everything approved by the FDA). To assert a right, though, is not to establish it—and these assertions cannot withstand scrutiny. Continue Reading »

Our Slippery Slopes

Most of my arguments with defenders of the legalization same-sex marriages have been friendly ones. I have some strong views on the subject, based on my adherence to what I believe is the Bible’s teachings on the subject. But I also care deeply about preserving a pluralistic social order, where individuals and groups have the opportunity to live out their deepest convictions—however disagreeable to people like me—within a framework of a shared commitment to the common good. So, many of my arguments on this particular subject have been efforts on my part to get clear about what the expansion of the concept of marriage to include same-sex unions will mean for the social fabric. Continue Reading »

Diogenes and the Delphic Oracle

The first century orator Dio Chrysostom narrates a conversation between the famous Cynic Diogenes and a pilgrim on his way to visit the oracle at Delphi. Delayed in his journey because of a runaway slave, the pilgrim runs into Diogenes who then engages him in a lengthy discussion that focuses on the . . . . Continue Reading »

Freedoms At Odds

In the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, argument on the issue has raged with heightened vehemence. Buzzwords abound in the debate—equality, imposition, right, discrimination—and the equivocation at work makes the fallout increasingly polemical. One term that has shared in the general collapse of meaning is “freedom” or “liberty.” Continue Reading »