Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Marriage: A New Podcast

by Mark Bauerlein

A First Things podcast featuring two signers of the Marriage Statement.
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9 Feb 2015 0

Who Invented the Horrible Idea of Women as Breeders?

by Ulrich L. Lehner

The notion that women are rabbitlike “breeders” who should produce as many children as possible is harmful and false—as is the common assumption that this idea originated in Christian circles. In fact, it has secular origins in the eighteenth century Enlightenment. Continue Reading »

24 Jan 2015 0

Marriage Pledge is Not an Imperative of Conscience

by R. R. Reno

Last week, I wrote in favor of the Marriage Pledge and suggested that signing a government-provided document designating Spouse A and Spouse B is contrary to conscience. Ed Peters has rightly criticized me. There is nothing intrinsically evil about politically correct euphemisms in government documents, including ones pertaining to marriage. And thus there’s no complicity with evil when a pastor, priest, or laymen sign such documents.  Continue Reading »

24 Nov 2014 0

The Role of Government Marriage?

by R. R. Reno

Ryan Anderson and others (including Doug Wilson) wonder how I can support the Marriage Pledge. It asks pastors and priests to refrain from signing government provided marriage certificates, but allows and even encourages the newly wed couple to march down to the courthouse to get the government contract. Continue Reading »

21 Nov 2014 0

Responding to Sullivan on the Marriage Pledge

by R. R. Reno

The Marriage Pledge is not spiteful, as Andrew Sullivan suggests. Nor is it an act of aggression designed to destroy the “middle ground” Sullivan would like us to agree to occupy as members of a liberal society. On the contrary, it is an effort by Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz to encourage the Church to act in a way that is true to the meaning of marriage. Continue Reading »

20 Nov 2014 0

The Domestic Church

by Nathaniel Peters

Here’s something shocking that the bishops said about marriage—not the bishops in the Synod in Rome right now, but the Fathers of Vatican II. In Gaudium et Spes, they said that the task of being a father or mother is a munus, a Latin word that means service, gift, duty, and office. Continue Reading »

16 Oct 2014 0

Catholicism, Sex, and Marriage

by R. R. Reno

The Extraordinary Synod on the Family issued an interim “relatio” yesterday. This is a document meant to sum up the current state of discussion among the gathered bishops. George Weigel has written a definitive refutation of the media’s spin, which, predictably, interprets every sane (and commonplace) pastoral observation about the need for the Church to welcome sinners and accompany them in their efforts to seek sanctity as a sea change in Catholic teaching on sex and marriage. Continue Reading »

14 Oct 2014 0

Education or Advocacy?

by Mark Bauerlein

Catholic University has cancelled a screening of the film Milk, a biopic of Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician murdered in 1978 by an angry office-seeker. Because Milk was the first outspokenly gay elected official in California, he is a martyr to the cause of gay rights, and the film (with Sean Penn) emphasizes Milk’s struggle against homophobia. Continue Reading »

3 Oct 2014 0

Richard Posner’s Delusions

by R. R. Reno

The Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals put out its ruling on same-sex marriage yesterday. A unanimous three-judge panel declared that Wisconsin and Indiana’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriage (misdescribed by the press as a “ban”) is unconstitutional. Continue Reading »

5 Sep 2014 0

How Arguments (Do Not) Function

by Matthew J. Franck

N.T. Wright compared same-sex marriage advocates to Nazis and Communists? No. Continue Reading »

18 Jun 2014 0