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The Right to Be Yourself?

If authentic naming or identifying is a strictly private, self-governed enterprise, what is there that is truly public? If my public persona is entirely under my control, and if I can die to my old self and rise to my new self any time I choose and in whatever manner I choose, and if indeed I am not to be burdened by my old “dead” name, as the Dean of Law says, in what sense is my persona public? Continue Reading »

Experiments in Matrimony

Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy, and the Future of Marriageby stephen macedoprinceton, 320 pages, $29.95 Before the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the law of most states restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples. Now that the Court has held that the Constitution . . . . Continue Reading »

Sex and the Married Missileer

At Minot Air Force base in Minot, North Dakota, a wife kisses her husband goodbye, knowing that he will be spending the night alone in close quarters with a fit, talented, professional woman officer. He will dress next to her, sleep where she slept, smell how she smells. Although their job can . . . . Continue Reading »

The Death of the Goddess

It has been thousands of years since goddesses have been so much on people’s minds, at least in the West. What has brought them back with a vengeance (often literally so) is the feminist movement. “Earth-centered, immanent, and immediate, the Goddess of modern neopaganism serves as a refuge . . . . Continue Reading »

Naming Good and Evil

Eighty-one years ago, G. K. Chesterton wrote a book entitled What’s Wrong with the World. His answer to that question was that, while there is general agreement as to what is wrong with the world, the real problem is that we cannot agree on what would be right. This absence of public . . . . Continue Reading »

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