We are witnessing a global crisis in religious freedom, wherein roughly three-quarters of the world’s people live in nations where religion is highly or very highly restricted. China presents a particularly troubling case. The assault on religion currently taking place under President Xi Jinping . . . . Continue Reading »
Two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, conservative religious voters who supported him despite reports of his personal immorality appear to have been vindicated. Religious freedom has turned out to be, as candidate Trump promised, one of President Trump’s chief priorities. And he has . . . . Continue Reading »
liberal politesse R. R. Reno’s point in “The Civility Trap” (March) is well-taken: Nobody on the wrong side of contemporary liberalism, either to its right or left, would likely disagree that the expectation of civility masks exercises in raw power. Manners aren’t simply politic, in other . . . . Continue Reading »
You may have seen the news on March 5, when the State of Colorado Civil Rights Commission decided to drop the action it had taken against Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado. This was not the original allegation of discrimination that the Commission had received in . . . . Continue Reading »
The Catholic Church in the West is full of corruption—financial, sexual, and spiritual. We are forced to face this hard reality, not the least because the weak pontificate of Pope Francis offers so little of substance. The corruption that afflicts us does not arise from overpowering lusts. Our . . . . Continue Reading »
Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence by alex berenson free press, 272 pages, $26 The smoking of marijuana, with its careful preparation of the elements and the solemn passing around of the shared joint, was the unholy communion of the counterculture . . . . Continue Reading »
For much of my life, I believed in open borders. Aside from violent criminals, I could think of no person who had entered this country illegally or overstayed a visa who deserved to be sent away. But in fact, I had thought little about the matter. I simply meant well, and I knew that all . . . . Continue Reading »
In the early 1880s, Henry James set out to write “a very American tale.” The result was The Bostonians, serialized in a magazine in 1885 and then published in a single volume in 1886. The novel features activist meetings, conversations sprinkled with references to the cause of women’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement by david k. johnson columbia, 328 pages, $32 How did the gay liberation movement, so radical in the Stonewall days, come to make peace with corporate America? Conventional wisdom has it that after Stonewall, corporate and consumerist . . . . Continue Reading »
Our founding fathers are rarely praised as fountains of mirth. As a child, I read and reread The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln until the book disintegrated. Can you imagine such a volume for Washington or any of his confreres? Benjamin Franklin is the exception. He is remembered as the . . . . Continue Reading »
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