Tag Archives: Topic: History

Middle East Forum: The lost history of Christians forced to convert to Islam—or die—is reemerging, figuratively and literally. According to the BBC: “Pope Francis has proclaimed the first saints of his pontificate in a ceremony [last Sunday] at the Vatican—a list which includes 800 victims of an atrocity carried out by Ottoman soldiers in 1480.They were beheaded in the southern Italian town of Otranto after refusing to convert to Islam.”

Michael W. Hannon at Public Discourse: Our arguments for limited government should recognize political community as an intrinsic good, not mistake it for a merely instrumental one.

Catholic World Report: A couple years ago my parents finally obtained the financial means to visit Ireland. They were able to spend three weeks in the homeland of our ancestors. They travelled the country and visited all the places associated with our ancestry—which, of course, included several pubs. They met wonderful and friendly people who were either distant relatives or knew the local histories associated with the people from whom we came.

Bangor Daily News: South Bristol Elementary School eighth-graders will launch their handmade skiffs next month without the traditional “blessing of the fleet” after a letter from Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State informed the school that student involvement with the historic maritime ceremony violated the First Amendment.

Edmond Sun: Speakers for the event will Blair on the topic of “What Did the Founders Think? The Biblical Foundation of Government,” while Dan Fisher, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Yukon and a state representative for District 60, will speak on “What Did the Founders Do? The Black Robed Regiment.” Erik Stanley, an attorney and senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, will speak on the topic “What Can We Do? The Rights of Christians and Pastors in 2013.”

Mercury News (AP): California education officials took the first step this week toward complying with a law that requires public schools to include prominent gay people and gay rights’ milestones in the curriculum, adopting a set of classroom material guidelines that prohibit “pejorative descriptions” based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Bradley Abramson at Townhall: In fact, it can mean anything one wants it to mean. And a constitution that can mean anything is a constitution that means nothing—a mere 17 years after it supposedly meant something.

Jordan Bloom at the American Conservative: In honor of F.A. Hayek’s birthday, let’s consider for a moment how he misread himself. In his essay “Why I Am Not A Conservative,” the economist and philosopher argued for a radical anti-state program, …

Fox News: A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway. Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other. We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.

Steve Deace at Townhall: Last week’s column on getting the state out of marriage prompted some follow-up questions, which in this week’s piece I will attempt to answer.

Mary Eberstadt’s new book is now available on Amazon.

Wendy McElroy at Future Freedom Foundation: Many would disagree with Bonhoeffer’s simple and uncompromising Christianity but even those with no religious belief can find a rolemodel in his behavior. He and his family definitely disprove the theory of a German character flaw. They should make us pause before blaming a nationality or a race for the triumph of totalitarianism and make us consider, instead, the dynamics of how that tyranny came to be. As long as we blame only the character of individuals or defined groups, we will learn little about the more general institutional character of totalitarianism itself.

Rod Dreher at The American Conservative: It seems that when people decide that historically normative Christianity is wrong about sex, they typically don’t find a church that endorses their liberal views. They quit going to church altogether. This raises a critically important question: is sex the linchpin of Christian cultural order? Is it really the case that to cast off Christian teaching on sex and sexuality is to remove the factor that gives—or gave—Christianity its power as a social force? . . . Our post-Christian culture, then, is an “anti-culture.” We are compelled by the logic of modernity and the myth of individual freedom to continue tearing away the last vestiges of the old order, convinced that true happiness and harmony will be ours once all limits have been nullified.

Robert P. George at WSJ: Sir Robert Edwards, the Nobel Prize-winning British “test tube baby” pioneer who died last week at age 87, devoted his career to developing in vitro fertilization as a technique to enable women afflicted with certain forms of infertility to conceive and bear children. As a result, there are millions of people in the world today—some now in their 30s—who otherwise would not have been born. According to Edwards’s admirers, their lives are his legacy.
Yet Edwards was, and remains, a controversial figure. His critics fall into three categories and are a most unlikely combination.

KairosFocus: At least, if we want to understand what is happening in our time as a radical and destructive secularist innovation, the homosexualisation of marriage under false colour of law, proceeds apace across the world like a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut in the name of “equality” and “rights.”

Susan Hanssen at Public Discourse: Our public debate about religious liberty is missing a clear definition of religion. The absence of that definition has generated confusion, frustration, shrill voices, and short tempers.

James Taranto at WSJ: The New York Times has finally produced a second news story on the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell–almost a month after its other story, which briefly recapped the trial’s first day. Like the Times’s first story, which we cited in yesterday’s column, this one appears deep inside the paper (on page A12)

Robert R. Reilly at MercatorNet: Since how we perceive reality is at stake in this struggle, the question inevitably rises: what is the nature of this reality? Is it good for us as human beings? Is it according to our Nature? Each side in the debate claims that what they are defending or advancing is according to Nature. Opponents of same-sex marriage say that it is against Nature; proponents say that it is natural and that, therefore, they have a “right” to it. Yet the realities to which each side points are not just different but opposed: each negates the other. What does the word Nature really mean in this context? The words may be the same, but their meanings are directly contradictory, depending on the context. Therefore, it is vitally important to understand the broader contexts in which they are used and the larger views of reality of which they are a part since the status and meaning of Nature will be decisive in the outcome.

Brett Harvey and Joel Oster at the Federalist Society: Tension between the Supreme Court’s holding in Marsh and the dictum in Allegheny has created confusion in the lower courts regarding the proper standard(s) to use when evaluating legislative prayer practices. Central to the confusion is the government’s role in regulating the content of legislative prayers. For courts that apply the endorsement test to the context surrounding a legislative prayer practice, distinguishing between private expression and government expression is critical to the viability of the practice. For courts that apply a historical analysis, as in Marsh, the content of the prayer does not define the analysis absent evidence of government exploitation, irrespective of its classification as government or private expression. The First Amendment is a shield against a government-imposed civil orthodoxy. Legislative prayer is a historic tradition practiced across the country at every level of government. The circuits are irreconcilably conflicted about the application of fundamental, constitutional principles. The current disputes provide the Supreme Court with an opportunity to resolve these conflicts and provide clarity to the law.

Diane Rufino at Beaufort Observer: What exactly do we mean by “Our Christian Heritage”? We certainly don’t refer to it as a way to suggest that Christianity be the official religion of the United States. We have the First Amendment to protect us from the establishment of any one religion, so that our religious conscience is free from the coercion or criticism of other religions (or non-religion) and no one is forced to support an offensive religion with their tax dollars . . . Michael and Jana Novak, “Washington’s Providence,” Alliance Defending Freedom. Referenced at: http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/Faith-and-Justice/5-3/Opinion

Gatestone Institute: Given the long history of Muslim Brotherhood activity in this country, its declared objective to “destroy the Western civilization from within,” and the extensive evidence of successful influence operations at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it is urgent that we recognize this clear and present danger that threatens not only our Republic but the values of Western civilization.

Education News: One of the UK’s leading Islamic organisations has warned that plans to revise the school history curriculum risk ignoring the Muslim contribution to western civilisation – an omission that will only foster alienation.The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which claims to represent more than 500 Islamic organisations, is calling for “everyone who cares about the education of British schoolchildren” to lobby the Department for Education (DfE) as the end of the consultation period on the plans looms.

C. Wayne Mayhall at Christian Research Institute: Christianity claims that suicide is atheism exemplified—simultaneously denying the true God and putting oneself in His place. Most people probably are unable to organize their thoughts well enough to navigate the complex metaphysical maze of theological reasoning before killing themselves, but, in their violent deaths, they nonetheless put themselves in the place of God as master of life and death

Bradley Abramson at Townhall: In the American Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers proclaimed that we are endowed by our Creator with the unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, we have long forgotten what our Founders meant by that now iconic phrase—“the pursuit of happiness”—and, as a consequence, we are now in jeopardy of losing the very liberty our Founders purchased for us at the risk of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

NPR: Margaret Thatcher, who as British prime minister in the 1980s became known as the “Iron Lady” for her tough economic policies, her partnership with President Reagan in standing up to communism and the short war with Argentina over the Falklands, has died.

Ross Douthat at NY Times: The notion that nobody would have entertained what Drum later calls the “esoteric” idea that marriage has an essential link to the way that human beings procreate if desperate social conservatives hadn’t grasped at it is apparently quite a popular view, judging by the fact that other writers raised it on Twitter over the weekend, and its popularity testifies to the way that the gay marriage debate has encouraged a strange historical amnesia about the origins of marriage law.

NY Times Editorial: This may seem like ancient history. But there is a danger now that overblown fears of a backlash based on a false reading of politics before and after Roe v. Wade could lead the Supreme Court to shy from doing as it should — enforcing equal protection by declaring same-sex marriage a constitutionally protected right in every state.

Ramesh Ponnuru at Bloomberg: There’s a story Americans have learned about the Supreme Court, a story that affects the way we view high-profile cases like the ones about same-sex marriage that it heard last week. In this story, the Supreme Court has played a crucial, maybe the crucial, role in our country’s progress toward ever greater freedom and justice. Brown v. Board of Education — the 1954 decision that outlawed separate-but-equal public schools — is central to that story, the shining example of how the court has broadened our constitutional guarantees.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: The nature of constitutional law is such that when I litigate or file briefs on religious liberty issues, I survey and cite to the Supreme Court’s decisions and religious liberty historical facts in this country going back to when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were first adopted. Doing so recently, it vividly struck me that in all of American history religious liberty has never been as gravely threatened as it is today, especially for Christians. One need only look at the cases being litigated by public-interest law firms, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Institute, Becket Fund, and Liberty Counsel.

David Stokes at Townhall: Evangelicals, those who take the Bible and their faith seriously, need to be reminded that when it comes to issues like gay marriage – even abortion – there is not really any middle ground with those on the left, even the so-called Christian left.

Darwin, Grant R., Originalism and Same-Sex Marriage (February 15, 2013). University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change, Vol. 17.1, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2239782 Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has repeatedly asserted that same-sex marriage is an easy …

Charles J. Chaput at Public Discourse: America’s founding documents assume an implicitly religious anthropology–an idea of human nature, nature’s God, and natural rights–that many of our leaders no longer share. Adapted from testimony submitted to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Florida Baptist Witness: Alan Sears, president of Alliance Defending Freedom—a Christian legal group—applauded the election. “We join millions in congratulating Francis I on his selection as pope,” Sears said. “He is a leader who has stood strongly for the values of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, marriage, and the family, often under very trying circumstances. We appreciate his many strong statements over the years on the protection of marriage and the unborn and trust he will continue to be a powerful voice on the deep importance of these issues.”

AsiaNews.it: The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I will attend Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass. The Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office informed AsiaNews about the decision, noting that this is the first time such an event occurs since the Catholic-Orthodox split in 1054, an important sign for Christian unity.

Damon W. Root at Reason: Many of his critics may be too ignorant to know it, but Thomas’ writings are steeped in African-American history and grapple repeatedly with the long shadow cast by slavery and Jim Crow. He may not be a modern liberal, but there is no question that Clarence Thomas is part of a civil rights tradition that started with Frederick Douglass.

Rory Gray at Speak Up Movement: Expressions of sincere thanks and appreciation for Pope Benedict XVI’s leadership in the religious freedom arena are both necessary and appropriate. But perhaps the best tribute to Pope Benedict XVI’s public ministry is to heed his moving words describing religious freedom as “an essential element of a constitutional state,” a right that “cannot be denied without at the same time encroaching on all fundamental rights and freedoms, since it is their synthesis and keystone. It is the litmus test for the respect of all the other human rights.” Alliance Defending Freedom works every day to uphold religious freedom in all of its forms. And we invite you to join us in this effort, so valiantly championed by Pope Benedict XVI.

Sacramento Bee: “A democracy is only as strong as you make it, and you can’t make it strong unless you know its history,” he told high school students Wednesday at the federal courthouse.

Steve Aden at Constituting America: During the founding era, Alexander Hamilton had written Federalist 78, to assure those wary of a strong federal judiciary that “[T]he judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution,” because it holds neither the power of the sword, as the Executive (Presidential) Branch does, nor the power of the purse strings, as the Legislative Branch (Congress) does. “It may truly be said to have neither force nor will,” Hamilton said, “but merely judgment.”

The Concord Monitor interviews former Justice David Souter: Warner: But you do not think as some believe – Justice (Antonin) Scalia being one – that you can stick to what he calls the fair reading of the text, which he says is basically what a reasonable reader would understand the text meant at the time of its adoption? Souter: No, you cannot stick to that. I gave a speech a couple years ago in which I gave an example of why simply reading doesn’t do it. That is, if you look at the text of the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech and so on,” no law sounds pretty tough. But in fact everybody recognizes – conservatives, liberals – there are some laws that Congress can make that in a practical sense do limit the freedom of speech.

Alan Sears on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss his September 16, 2012 article in the American Thinker titled: The New Definition of Freedom. | MP3 audio 25:28 mins

Casey Mattox at Townhall: There is a 43-year-old woman, born in Texas, who should be dead right now. In fact, she should have never been born. Forty years ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Texas law that prevented Jane Roe from ending the life of her unborn daughter was unconstitutional.

Heather Gebelin Hacker at Speak Up Movement: Finally, it is extremely alarming that some of America’s most respected public institutions of higher education are graduating students who are essentially illiterate in important aspects of America’s history and heritage, which can only have negative impacts on how these graduates, our next generation, view our country, as well as the values they hold.

Daniel K. Williams at Public Discourse: Actually, Roe did not introduce legal abortion to the United States; it did something even worse. Prior to Roe, legal abortion existed, but so did a large, vigorous pro-life movement, and that movement was beginning to win the public debate on abortion. Roe deprived the pro-life movement of its legal victories and allowed abortion to become more available to poor and minority women. It subverted the democratic process and led to a partisan polarization that only grew worse with time. Perhaps worst of all, it nullified the pro-life movement’s constitutional arguments and enshrined in case law a constitutional interpretation that deprived the unborn of any constitutional rights.

Alan Sears at the Alliance Defending Freedom Blog: This week, as you and your family join other believers across America in pausing to remember, and to grieve, the 40th year since one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history, we do so differently perhaps, than we ever have before … with real, tangible hope that the end of this terrible, open season on children in the womb is coming, at last, to an end.

William Federer at The Moral Liberal: Did Jefferson intend to outlaw the acknowledgment of God and limit students, teachers, coaches, schools, organizations, and communities from public religious expression?

LifeNews: The United States marks 40 years of legalized abortion in all fifty states at any time for any reason throughout pregnancy on January 22nd, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Since that time, there have been approximately 55,772,015 abortions that have destroyed the lives of unborn children.

Charles J. Cooper at Washington Times: A case now before the U.S. Supreme Court could clarify a 200-year-old mistake by the great Chief Justice John Marshall. Standard Fire v. Knowles concerns judicial forum shopping and the interpretation of the Class Action Fairness Act, but it also reinvigorates a long-running debate about federal court jurisdiction.

Ryan T. Anderson at Witherspoon Institute: Witness to the truth matters for its own sake, but persistent, winsome witness also tends to bear good fruit, even if it takes 40 years and counting.

Lawrence M. Vance at Future of Freedom Foundation: According to Planned Parenthood’s latest report, the organization received $542.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements,” including “payments from Medicaid managed care plans.” Yet the report also states that Planned Parenthood performed 333,964 abortions in 2011. But Planned Parenthood could not have received a dime of taxpayer money unless Republicans in the House — who play the pro-life card at every election — voted for the funding. They were, after all, in the majority.

Benjamin Wiker at Catholic World Report: Why the affirmation of religious liberty can lead, ironically, to its extinction at the hands of the secular state.

Angelo M. Codevilla at The American Spectator (7/16/2010): The only serious opposition to this arrogant Ruling Party is coming not from feckless Republicans but from what might be called the Country Party — and its vision is revolutionary. Our special Summer Issue cover story.

Gary Bauer at Human Events: More and more political analysts and weak-kneed politicians are advising the historically pro-life Republican Party to abandon its pro-life stance for political gain. My first response is that if you cannot trust a party on the value of defending human life, how can you trust it on issues like marginal tax rates. Still, consider this: A common but bogus attack on the GOP is that it rejects science. Notice I said bogus. Isn’t it ironic that just as science is proving the humanity of the unborn child some in the party of Lincoln are tempted to abandon the most defenseless Americans of all?

Gary Bauer at Human Events: For many Christians in America, 2012 will be remembered as a year of intensifying attacks on the right to practice their faith according to their consciences.

Louis Michael Seidman at the New York Times: In the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text. Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.

Casey Mattox at Townhall: What might have been? If Robert Bork had been confirmed, perhaps this column would have appeared in this space. | also posted at Life News

Molly Worthen at the New York Times: Alan Sears, president of the legal advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom, sees an unprecedented threat to religious liberty in the harsh fines facing employers who refuse to cover contraception in their insurance programs. “It is a death penalty. It is a radical change,” he told me. “It’s one thing when you’re debating about public space, but it’s another when you say, if you don’t surrender your conscience, you’re out of business.” . . . These legal efforts are less an attempt to redefine religious liberty than a campaign to preserve Christians’ historic right to police the boundary between secular principles and religious beliefs. Only now that conservative Christians have less control over organs of public power, they cannot rely on the political process. Now that the “nones” are declaring themselves, and more Americans — including many Christians — see birth control as a medical necessity rather than a sin, Mr. Sears sees a stark course of action for the Catholic and evangelical business owners he represents: “Litigation is all that our clients have.” Their problem, however, is more fundamental than legal precedent. Their problem is that America’s Christian consensus is fragmenting. We are left groping for something far messier: an evolving, this-worldly, compromise.

Spiegel Online: Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

Kevin Seamus Hasson at the Wall Street Journal: Does it sometimes seem as if the Christmas wars—namely the battle between secularists and believers over how and where Christmas and Hanukkah (not to mention other faiths’ holidays) should be recognized—have been around forever? If so, you’re not far off. The opening shots of the war, at least in America, were fired in Plymouth Colony itself. And after nearly 400 years, it’s past time we learned our lesson and ceased hostilities.

National Review Bench memos reports.

AP: Republican Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina will become the seventh black person to serve in the United State Senate and the first from the South since Reconstruction.

Ryan Anderson at Ricochet: Same-sex relationships weren’t on anyone’s radar. (It may be hard to remember, but until just recently same-sex marriage was inconceivable to almost everyone.) The marriage movement leaders’ concern, like that of today’s leading conservative scholars and activists, was much broader . . . The question of whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships didn’t take center stage until 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court claimed to find a constitutional right to it.

Boston Globe (AP): A full-scale replica of Noah’s Ark has opened its doors to the public in the Netherlands.

AP: More than 2,000 people are gathering at Pearl Harbor on Friday to mark the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack that killed thousands of people and launched the United States into World War II.

Eric Black at the MinnPost: One belief important to the myth that binds us is this: That when the Supreme Court exercises its role as final decider on important public issues, it does so modestly, on a non-partisan, non-ideological basis and only when necessary to protect the Constitution from clear excesses committed by the political branches. Preserving that belief can be a tall order, and that perception is at a low ebb.

Human Events: In the Name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

William Becker, Jr. at American Thinker: When Tuesday (11/19/2012), United States District Court Judge Audrey B Collins delivered a 28-page ruling denying my client the right to continue a 59-year-old tradition of exhibiting Nativity scenes along Ocean Boulevard in the City of Santa Monica this Christmas season, another dagger plunged into the heart of America’s twilight customs and traditions. The sneered-at “war on Christmas” was effectively lost for good.

For all these reasons, conservatives would be ill-advised to abandon support for conjugal marriage even if it hadn’t won more support than Mitt Romney in every state where marriage was on the ballot. They certainly shouldn’t be duped into surrender by the circular argument that they’ve already lost. The ash-heap of history is filled with “inevitabilities.” Conservatives—triumphant against once-unstoppable social tides like Marxism—should know this best. “History” has no mind. The future isn’t fixed. It’s chosen. The Supreme Court should let the people choose; and we should choose marriage, conjugal marriage.

Glenn Stanton at National Review Online: And only a few decades ago in certain developed Western nations did it become an identity — something someone was. And this was only after the American Psychiatric Association stopped classifying same-sex attraction as a mental disorder in 1973. Don’t think for a moment that this was done as a result of the careful scientific deliberation of the association. It is commonly known they acquiesced to the rambunctious and constant protest of gay activists. And this brings us to where we are today with the issue: People are just born that way, so accept it. Mark Steyn explains the implications of this social evolution: One can object to and even criminalize an act; one is obligated to be sympathetic toward a condition; but once it’s a fully fledged 24/7 identity, like being Hispanic or Inuit, anything less than wholehearted acceptance gets you marked down as a bigot.

Justin Dyer at Public Discourse: Adam Freedman’s stark proposal in The Naked Constitution that we strip our founding document of its modern and academic glosses shows us that we need to take structural reforms to our Constitution seriously.

Washington Post: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States,” Rubio told GQ. “I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that.”

Alan Sears at the Alliance Defending Freedom: The occupant of the White House isn’t the only thing that hasn’t changed in the last two weeks. Many friends of Alliance Defending Freedom have expressed grave concern about how our work will continue, in the wake of President Barak Obama’s re-election. Although this ministry is committed to being apolitical, there is no denying that this administration has been the most openly and aggressively hostile in American history to religious freedom, to preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and to the protection of life in the womb.

Alan Sears appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 8:26 mins

Anthony Esolen at Public Discourse: The Anti-Federalists’ early fear about Congress’s taxing power—that it would result in a tax on humans’ very existence—are now realized in the Supreme Court’s upholding of Obamacare.

ABA Journal: Stevens is proposing an amendment to the supremacy clause to make clear that the federal government can use state officials to carry out national policies, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports.

Alan Sears at the Washington Times: The U.S. Supreme Court will be challenged to uphold Lincoln’s principle as it decides whether to hear four cases challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and one case challenging California’s Proposition 8, which affirmed marriage as between one man and one woman through a direct vote of the people. What is being weighed in the balance is a fundamental understanding of the role of the judiciary and that of the American people. The Supreme Court should review these cases and rule that the matter should be left for Americans, not the judiciary, to decide.