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May 2014

May 10, 2014

The Unexpected Consequences of Laws and Lies

Two of my recent posts at The American Conservative turned out to be about unintended consequences....

January 2014

January 15, 2014

Churches Should Be Leery of Patriotism

In the most recent issue of First Things, one paragraph in Grant Kaplan's essay "Celibacy as...

January 09, 2014

Don’t Rely on the State to Legitimize your Faith

Germany's state-run schools all include religious education. In most districts, students can pick from Catholic,...

August 2013

August 05, 2013

Legal Shortcuts So Sharp You’ll Cut Yourself

Sorry for the absence, readers! We've been short-staffed due to plague at work. This week...

June 2013

June 08, 2013

Sex Ed is Obviously Meant to Teach…

Last Friday, I was on Sheila Liaugminas's Relevant Radio show ("A Closer Look") with a...

November 2012

November 09, 2012

If only I could throw dinner parties for semi-fictional characters…

I've been reading Hillary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety, and I'll admit I don't like...

October 2012

October 25, 2012

Why Won’t Candidates Run on This Life Issue?

This week, as part of Election Month at Patheos, the prompt for bloggers is: What...

October 11, 2012

The Generic God of the Stump Speech

Patheos bloggers are roundtabling on issues of faith and politics in the run-up to the...

September 2012

September 30, 2012

Who Can Blaspheme?

Today is International Blasphemy Rights Day, spearheaded by the Center for Inquiry. It's pretty much...

July 2012

July 03, 2012

Baby and Mommy and Mommy and Daddy

Rod Dreher is upset about a bill in California that would allow a child to...

June 2012

June 30, 2012

You Got Your State in My Church! Well, You Got Your Church in My State!

Over in the Pagan Channel here at Patheos, I found an interesting religious liberty case....

June 08, 2012

Is there something rotten in the state of Denmark?

In my Catholic blog folder, I found a link to an Telegraph article that said...

May 2012

May 17, 2012

My Radical Homosexual Agenda for the Military

Mark Shea is in agreement with Rod Dreher that Obama and the Dems are mounting...

March 2012

March 31, 2012

Is Civil Marriage a Right?

Last week the European Court of Human Rights ruled that same-sex marriage is not a...

March 28, 2012

Romney’s a Priest? What does that mean?

Via the Daily Dish, I found an article by Howard P. Kainz, that argues that...

February 2012

February 28, 2012

The Other Contraception Mandate Fight

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. I'm one of...

February 21, 2012

Fancy a spot of Sharia law?

I've returned from AAAS (jet lag and all) and I'd like to take a crack...

December 2011

December 14, 2011

Church and State: Two Disputedly-Valued Things that Go Terribly Together

Ok, here comes part two of my reply to Mark Shea's post about New Atheism's...

December 13, 2011

Tis the Season for Church-State Lawsuits!

I think Mark Shea meant to give me a compliment, but if you read his...

October 2011

October 10, 2011

Retronymic Marriage

Temporary marriage (no, not that kind) has been all over the news since some Mexico...

September 2011

September 09, 2011

The Idiotic Interfaith 9/11 Backlash

I know I promised a scifi vs fantasy post next, but I’m delaying it for...

September 03, 2011

Sneaky Critiques

With so many reasons to oppose Rick Santorum's candidacy, I'm disappointed at the justification offered by one...

August 2011

August 16, 2011

The Merits of the WTC Cross Suit

My last post about American Atheists's lawsuit over the World Trade Center cross has bifurcated...

August 09, 2011

Serve a Paper and Sue Me

I wasn't planning to post about the the suit American Atheists has filed to prevent...

June 2011

June 30, 2011

My New Favorite Pope…

...is Clement XI! Why, you ask? Simply put, he is responsible for my favorite...

June 14, 2011

Why and How They Hate Us

Last week's post "Trying to Love My Enemies" ended up generating a comment thread that...

December 2010

December 10, 2010

Covenant marriage isn’t suited to Christians

This post is part of a series on covenant marriage. For Catholics and theologically conservative...

September 2010

September 08, 2010

Poking my nose into Justin Martyr’s gay marriage debate

Reading over Justin Martyr’s debate over the morality of gay marriage with Larry of Rust...

August 2010

August 10, 2010

Restricting Rhetoric, Mosques, and Gays

This post is part of a series on the politics and philosophy that underlie the...