Italy Moves to Ban the Burqa

From First Thoughts

Via Mark DeGirolami at Mirror of Justice, I see that Italy is contemplating a ban of veils worn by Muslim women: An Italian parliamentary commission on Tuesday approved a draft law banning women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public. The draft passed by the constitutional affairs . . . . Continue Reading »

First Links 8.2.11

From First Thoughts

Obama Contraceptive Decision Assaults Conscience National Catholic Register , Joan Frawley Desmond An Open Letter to the HHS on Conscience Protection America , John Garvey Review of Alan Jacobs’  The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction City Journal , Brian Patrick Eha Life and . . . . Continue Reading »

First Links 8.1.11

From First Thoughts

Is Islam Compatible with Capitalism? City Journal , Guy Sorman Stinger: James O’Keefe’s Greatest Hits The New York Times , Zev Chafets God’s Fatherhood after Feminism Millinerd , Matthew Milliner A Case for Government Front Porch Republic , Wilson Carey McWilliams The Norwegian . . . . Continue Reading »

Capital and Moral Capital

From First Thoughts

As Rusty Reno recently observed  in these pages, the poorest have been hit the hardest by the rise of out-of-wedlock birth, cohabitation, divorce, and remarriage. But Harold James , an economic historian at Princeton University and senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, notes in his . . . . Continue Reading »

Chaput in First Things

From First Thoughts

New on the site today is an article by Charles J. Chaput, the newly designated leader of Philadelphia’s Catholics. If you haven’t seen it already, you can read it here . It’s a follow-up to an article last week on the same topic, which you can find here . I’ve . . . . Continue Reading »

re: Death and Budgets

From First Thoughts

David Brooks’ column today on life and death is thought-provoking but ambiguous at several important points. It’s not clear whether, along with Dudley Clendinen , Brooks denies the value of life with diminished capacities or whether he simply thinks patients should sometimes choose to . . . . Continue Reading »

Race and Same-Sex Marriage

From First Thoughts

Last week Joe highlighted Matt Franck’s Public Discourse article ” Is Sex Just Like Race? ” Matt was responding to the law professor who claims that the Catholic University of America is practicing segregation by returning to single-sex dormitories. But readers should also take . . . . Continue Reading »

A New Movement for Marriage

From Web Exclusives

The approval of same-sex civil marriage by the New York state legislature did not bring on the end of the world, or of history. It did not even mark, as Michael Potemra claimed in a post at National Review, “the end of the long road” for those who advocated it. The path to same-sex civil marriage still must go through many more states that are far less susceptible to the emotional bullying of the SSM lobby than was New York, and it is by no means certain that advocates will ever reach their destination. More importantly, it is far from clear”even to them”what that destination is… . Continue Reading »

National Review’s Marriage Editorial

From First Thoughts

Many of my friends have been disappointed with the response to the NY marriage vote at some conservative outlets, and I can hardly blame them. It’s difficult to imagine a similar response if one of the other legs of the conservative “stool” suffered such a setback. That said, . . . . Continue Reading »

Chastity and the Cosmo Girl

From First Thoughts

CosmoGirl magazine was founded in 1999 in order to advance female empowerment (and, of course, sell ad space) by promoting a sexually assertive femininity that was stripped of scruple. Well, CosmoGirl folded in 2008, less than a decade after its founding, and in today’s column , David Mills . . . . Continue Reading »