Wednesday, February 6, 2013
"The Pro-Life Movement at a Crossroads"
University of St. Thomas law prof Chuck Reid on where to from here for the pro-life movement. An interesting--and to some MOJ readers, no doubt, provocative--piece. Here.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
"Traditional Marriage Activist’s New Allies: Gays"
[from the NYT, 1/29/13]
David Blankenhorn, a traditional-marriage advocate and star witness in the Proposition 8 trial in California in 2010, shocked his allies with an Op-Ed article in The New York Times last June announcing that he was quitting the fight against same-sex marriage. “Instead of fighting gay marriage,” Mr. Blankenhorn wrote, “I’d like to help build new coalitions bringing together gays who want to strengthen marriage with straight people who want to do the same.”
He is about to find out how much support such a coalition can get.
On Thursday, Mr. Blankenhorn’s research group, the Institute for American Values in New York, plans to issue “A Call for a New Conversation on Marriage,” a tract renouncing the culture war that he was once part of, in favor of an unorthodox pro-marriage agenda. The proposed conversation will try to bring together gay men and lesbians who want to strengthen marriage with heterosexuals who want to do the same.
The document is signed by 74 well-known activists, writers and scholars, on the left and the right, including the conservative John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine; John Corvino, a gay philosopher; Robert N. Bellah, a sociologist; Caitlin Flanagan, a feminism skeptic; and Glenn C. Loury, an economist — once conservative, now less so.
[The rest of the article is here.]
Saturday, January 12, 2013
"Against Apocalypticism"
University of St. Thomas law prof Churck Reid has a very interesting post here--a post that bears both on aspects of contemporary Christianity and aspects of contemporary politics.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
"Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage" [link has been fixed]
That's the subtitle of a new book by Harvard legal historian Michael Klarman. The title: From the Closet to the Altar. Georgetown law prof David Cole has an interesting review of the book in the current issue of The New York Review of Books, here.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Recommended Reading: The Filibuster Controversy
Great piece on the filibuster controversy by University of St. Thomas law prof Charles Reid: very informative--and, to me, persuasive. Which means, alas, that Rick Garnett will disagree with it. :-)
You can read it here.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Fred Gedicks responds to John Breen
[Fred writes:]
John Breen, Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, recently criticized on the Mirror of Justice blog my ACS Issue Brief defending the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, and several of his points require a response.
[For Fred's response to John, click here.
I have found my highest, best use: facilitating to-and-fros, such as this one between Fred and John.]
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Apex Predators Eat Hostess Twinkies
by Charles Reid, University of St. Thomas School of Law
"Parasites," we are told, "parasites" have consumed their hostess -- to be exact, Hostess Brands, the company that chose bankruptcy last Friday over dealing with its union. And who are these dangerous parasites? The workers who labored hard and long, in the face of steadily declining wages and benefits. See Robert Tracinski, "The Parasite That Kills Its Hostess," Real Clear Markets, November 19, 2012.
Tracinski is merely parroting the company line in his blame-the-victim column. He has allies, of course, in the right-wing commentariat. Take Rush Limbaugh. He may be a tired-out brand name that has long outlived its shelf life, but he was on the air Friday seeing a dark conspiracy in all of this: "The Democrats are taking the long view here, they're playing the long game. The long game is wiping out the Republican Party, not saving 18,000 measly jobs."
Haven't we had enough of the class hatred? Isn't it time to stop with the takers versus the makers? This right-wing fantasy tale of rapacious unions swamping an honest, struggling corporation is as tiresome as it is untrue.
Let's consider some history.
[The rest of this informative post is here.]
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Charles Reid's Post-Election Reflection
Before the presidential election, I posted links to University of St. Thomas law professor Charles Reid's statement of reasons for supporting President Obama in the election, despite Professor Reid's pro-life position on abortion. Some MOJ readers may be interested in Reid's post-election reflection (here), which is focused on philosopher John Dewey. A brief excerpt:
"Properly qualified, we might do well to reflect on Dewey this November. He is the philosopher of the common good. One hopes that the racist dog-whistles and the naked appeals to class hatred (the 'takers' vs. the 'makers') that marked our ugly campaign season can be replaced with the understanding that we are 'in some metaphorical sense all brothers, [that] we are ... all in the same boat, traversing the same ocean.' (John Dewey, 'A Common Faith,' reprinted in John Dewey, 'The Later Works,' vol. IX, p. 56).
It was John Dewey's optimism that drove the 'can-do period of America's greatest public works, the 1950s and 1960s. It was his faith in democratic government and an engaged citizenry that breathed life into the great programs for social improvement represented by the New Deal and the Great Society. Following an election that feels much like a bitterly fought, hard-won vindication of those earlier transformative contests of 1932 and 1964, we might do well to reacquaint ourselves with this great American mind."
Monday, November 12, 2012
Rethinking the "Just War" [Updated]
Rethinking the 'Just War,' Part 1
By JEFF MCMAHAN
The "just war theory" has influenced the ethical
positions on violent conflict of both church and state for centuries.
But consensus on that theory has begun to erode.
Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 2
By JEFF MCMAHAN
Why the traditional version of the just war theory must be rejected.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
A Clash of Rights? Gay Marriage and the Free Exercise of Religion
Thursday, May 21, 2009
With New Hampshire considering legislation that would make it the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage, could religious individuals and institutions that oppose gay marriage be required to recognize or even solemnize these unions? Although churches and other religious organizations, including charities and schools, have typically been exempt from state and local laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, it remains unclear how these religious institutions might be affected by new laws that require equal treatment for same-sex marriages. Indeed, such concerns prompted New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) to say he would sign legislation legalizing gay marriage in that state only if lawmakers add provisions giving religious organizations the right not to recognize such marriages. Another possible flash point involves private individuals and businesses that, for religious reasons, do not want to provide wedding-related or other services to same-sex couples.
The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life turns to professors Robert W. Tuttle and Ira "Chip" Lupu of The George Washington University Law School to discuss how some states are trying to reconcile these and other potential conflicts between the legalization of gay marriage and the free exercise of religion.
Featuring:
Ira “Chip” Lupu, F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School
Robert W. Tuttle, David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and Religion, The George Washington University Law School
Interviewer:
David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life
[To read the Q & A, click here.]
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