Matthew Schmitz

Lest the president feel bad about my criticisms of his gay marriage stance , I hasten to add that I think he’s gotten too much flak for his youthful musing on T.S. Eliot. The young future president wrote to his then-girlfriend: I haven’t read “The Waste Land” for a year . . . . . . . Continue Reading »

President Obama has come out in support of gay marriage today in an interview with ABC news . Well, that’s not quite right. He actually was in support of it back in 1996  before his position then “evolved” toward opposition. Today the dissembling ended, which may be good for . . . . Continue Reading »

A man in North Carolina spent each month of last year trying out a new religion. Laughable religious tourism? Not so, says Peter Berger: “his story is emblematic of American religious pluralism and instructive for understanding the latter.” Berger continues: In the pluralistic situation . . . . Continue Reading »

Will outlawing abortion increase maternal mortality resulting from clandestine abortions? A study by a professor of family medicine at the University of Chile (the country has tight pro-life laws) suggests that the answer is no: From a public health view, restrictive laws are hypothesized to cause . . . . Continue Reading »

Democrats like cognac and Republicans enjoy light beers, Thomas B. Edsall reports: Who would have guessed that the most Democratic drink by a long shot is Cognac, or that such lite beers as Amstel Lite, Michelob Ultra, Miller Lite and Sam Adams Light tilt so far to the political right, while Bud, . . . . Continue Reading »

Ross Douthat on the Obama campaign’s telling “Julia” slideshow: The liberalism of “the Life of Julia” doesn’t envision government spending the way an older liberalism did — as a backstop for otherwise self-sufficient working families, providing insurance . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter Berger reports that more religious citizens are—-counter t0 many assumptions—- actually less likely to support the death penalty: Support for the death penalty correlates negatively with degree of religious involvement – 65% in favor among those who attend services weekly or . . . . Continue Reading »

Unlike Greg Forster , I find Matt Franck’s worries about the reshaping of our foreign policy to promote a very particular and controversial gay-rights agenda wholly understandable. The bending of American foreign policy to prosecute the culture war abroad has been taking place for some time, . . . . Continue Reading »

Matthew Milliner offers readers an invigorating walk through New York that encompasses the political, artistic, and religious. It begins at an apartment in the East Village: As I walked into my hospitable friend’s East Village apartment, I was greeted by three handsome volumes of Lenin . . . . Continue Reading »

John McWhorter, writing in the New York Times , defends the new, casual modes of communication: In an earlier America, then, one could hear speeches like William Jennings Bryan’s floridly oratorical, carefully written “ Cross of Gold” speech given at the Democratic National . . . . Continue Reading »