First Links — 2.1.12

Komen Drops Planned Parenthood Support Sarah Pulliam Bailey and Ted Olsen,  Christianity Today Steven Pinker’s Wrongness on Dignity Christopher Kaczor, Public Discourse Capitalism and the Hebrew Bible Aryeh Spero, Wall Street Journal Should the Church Have to Dispense Birth Control? . . . . Continue Reading »

Religious liberty and civil society

Controversy continues: Religious Liberty and Civil Society. Yuval Levin plausibly explains the origin of the current confusion over the definition of religious freedom in English-speaking democracies:The English common law tradition of religious toleration, which we inherited, has always had a . . . . Continue Reading »

Rights of Conscience

We seem to be in a season of judicial sanity. As Jeremy Tedesco, the lawyer who argued the case reports, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision that vindicated the claims of Julea Ward. Ward was a counseling grad student at Eastern Michigan University, and when she . . . . Continue Reading »

Neurodiversity and Relativism

There’s a relatively new movement in the communities of people who deal regularly with autism and related conditions that’s assigned themselves the term “neurodiversity” as a shorthand reference to their commitment to affirming atypical neurological conditions as equally . . . . Continue Reading »

Romney In Florida Tonight

The speech wasn’t as aggressively awful as his Iowa Caucus night speech, but his reworked stump speech still isn’t much good.  He is trying to run as human placebo.  He needs to kill a couple of lines that he has fallen in love with.  I’m talkinng about lines like: . . . . Continue Reading »

Has Anyone Seen the Coriolanus Film Yet?

Those of you in the big markets, do go out and see this new adaption, by Ralph Fiennes, of the classic Shakespearean presentation of republican manliness and its tragic pitfalls. Here’s a brief Christian meditation on the film. And here are my somewhat pessimistic expectations for it that I . . . . Continue Reading »