Social Issues

Did Marriage Dodge a Bullet Today?

Featured image This morning the U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of orders, including a long list of cases in which certiorari was denied. This means that the Court will not hear those cases, and the rulings from the courts of appeal will stand. Among the cases the Court declined to hear were those from three circuits that have found a constitutional right to gay marriage. This means that gay marriage will »

Why Would Anyone Send His Daughter to College?

Featured image President Obama has announced another of his useless initiatives, the only purpose of which is to distract attention from the comprehensive failures of his administration. This one is intended to reduce sexual assault on college campuses. It is claimed that one in five women on college campuses is sexually assaulted–an absurd statistic if by “sexually assaulted” you mean sexually assaulted. Nevertheless, interested persons (politicians who want to talk about something »

On Penn State, Ray Rice, Bruce Levenson, and sanctimony [UPDATED]

Featured image Sports may or may not breed discipline, but these days they certainly breed disciplinarians, too many of whom wear suits and sit behind desks. Three new developments remind us of this. The first development is a good one. The NCAA has announced that it will lift sanctions against Penn State. It imposed the sanctions in the aftermath of revelations that former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky molested children »

My Opinions on Ray Rice

Featured image Why not? It seems to be all that anyone is talking about. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have weighed in, along with every sports columnist, talk show host and water cooler pundit in the country. So I might as well give it a go. Here are my opinions on the Ray Rice flap, in no particular order. Feel free to correct me in the comments. 1) I hate these ritual »

Time to Pull the Plug on Planned Parenthood

Featured image Planned Parenthood has subsisted on government grants and misguided private largesse for too long. It has sunk to an ACORN-like level of corruption. But this is the last straw: a Planned Parenthood staffer in Portland instructs a 15-year-old girl in the niceties of bondage, and worse. You have to see it to believe it: This is actually one of several such Planned Parenthood videos. Is bondage advice part of PP’s »

Left’s Reaction to Hobby Lobby: Let’s Go Crazy! [Updated]

Featured image Virtually no liberals have read the Hobby Lobby decision or have any idea what the Supreme Court actually ruled, but that hasn’t prevented them from making fools of themselves. Since the Court issued its ruling yesterday morning, it has been wall-to-wall hysteria on the Left. This video montage, compiled at Grabien, is an entertaining look at the Left’s response to Hobby Lobby. Get out the popcorn: MSNBC was hardly any »

Liberal fascism revisited

Featured image The hearing of the Hobby Lobby case by the Supreme Court this week inspired Kevin Williamson to meditate on the deeper currents running through it. Williamson’s NRO column is “The right not to be implicated” and I commend it to your attention. Williamson notes the dramatic revision of public orthodoxy that moves us “from forbidden to compulsory in record time, and vice versa.” He invites us to consider the case »

Erin Gay Bragh?

Featured image New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade bills itself as the oldest and largest such event in the world–indeed, it predates the American Revolution. The parade is sponsored privately, by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The parade draws around 200,000 participants and one to two million spectators every year, and has always been a festive occasion. This year, however, news coverage of the parade has been dominated by the gay »

Today’s Skirmish in the Democrats’ War On Women’s Brains

Featured image I’m afraid this may become a daily occurrence. Today’s kerfuffle involves Mike Huckabee, who gave a talk to the National Republican Committee in which he criticized Democrats for treating women like idiots. This is the relevant excerpt: I think it’s time for Republicans to no longer accept listening to Democrats talk about a war on women. Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have »

The Democrats’ Parallel Universe, Abortion Edition

Featured image House Republicans are advancing legislation to prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions. H.R. 7 currently has at least 164 sponsors; you can read the text of the “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” here. As legislation goes, it isn’t particularly controversial, as polls consistently show that most Americans (in this CNN poll, 61%) oppose public funding of abortions. But that doesn’t stop the Democratic Party from twisting the act beyond recognition »

Are Americans Becoming More Socially Conservative?

Featured image Rasmussen Reports says we are: Fewer voters now identify themselves as “socially liberal” than they have in the past. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 29% of Likely U.S. Voters now consider themselves liberal on social issues such as abortion, public prayer and church-state topics. That’s the lowest number of self-identified social liberals since early last year. Just as many (30%) consider themselves moderate on such »

Polygamy: It’s Coming

Featured image In Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court, reversing its own then-recent holding in Bowers v. Hardwick, ruled that laws against homosexual sodomy are unconstitutional–even though the Constitution says nothing about sex, let alone sodomy–on the ground that the right of privacy (also never mentioned in the Constitution) protects all consensual, private sexual contact between adults. Lawrence immediately was seen as a milestone in the campaign for gay marriage. Some »

Where social conservatism and economic conservatism converge

Featured image In response to my post below called Education, Immigration, and Diversity, one of my favorite readers writes: You hit a bunch of nails squarely on the head, most of which are routinely overlooked or disallowed from the discussion. As you know, economic and political questions are often, at root, moral and behavioral in nature. A foundational premise of economics is that “Money is like fertilizer: whatever you throw resources at, »

Chris Christie’s “Berlin Wall” for sexual orientation

Featured image Nicholas Frankovich at NRO writes: Bradley Manning wants to change his sex, and the bien-pensants of the Left honor his decision, changing the gender of the pronouns they use to refer to him. Meanwhile, John Doe wants to change his sexual orientation, but that’s different: They rush to save him from the horror of his self-hatred and psychological self-punishment, as they see it. Hence the bill that Governor Chris Christie »

My Relative the World-Famous Surfer Girl, With a Surprise Ending

Featured image The most glamorous member of my extended family is probably Lakey Peterson, who at age 18 is one of the most famous surfers in the world. Starting at age 16 or 17, she has toured the globe, sponsored by Nike, competing on the international surfing circuit. Lakey’s mother Susan is a Hinderaker; she was an all-America swimmer at USC. So Lakey is my kids’ third cousin. Tonight we watched an »

When Did the Sports Pages Get More Liberal Than the News?

Featured image Most of us read a newspaper’s sports pages for a respite from the generally depressing news of the day, and there was once a time when we could even expect a conservative outlook from most sports reporters. But those days are long gone. For some reason, today’s sportswriters are, if anything, farther to the left than their brethren in the news room. Moreover, some of the most obnoxious, far-left news »

Who Cares About Unemployment When We’ve Got Gay Marriage?

Featured image Today the Minnesota Senate passed a bill authorizing gay marriage which will be signed into law by our governor, Mark Dayton. That is the context for this text, which my oldest daughter sent me a few minutes ago: If I had a dollar for every #time4marriage hashtag on my feed I’d be rich. Someone should start a #time4jobs trend, seeing as there are approx. twice as many unemployed Americans as »