Category: Cultural Revolutions

The 1.67 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) has voted to redefine marriage from “between a woman and a man” to “between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.”  Last year’s General Assembly approved the change, which was confirmed by a majority of local presbyteries this year.  It confirms a trajectory starting with the church’s...

On May 22, the Irish people voted by a large majority to permit marriages between two men or two women.  Of the two million people who voted—a 60-percent turnout—62 percent supported same-sex “marriage.”  It had been a very one-sided contest, with all the major political parties urging their supporters to vote yes. Only 22 years...

No one could accuse  M. Stanton Evans, who lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at age 80 on March 3, of becoming a professional conservative.  He was a trailblazing conservative, having been there, for instance, when William F. Buckley, Jr., launched Young Americans for Freedom at his estate in Sharon.  Indeed, Stan was more than...

In March, France was given a good spanking by the European Committee on Social Rights (ECSR).  The issue under litigation was France’s brutishness in allowing the corporal punishment of children.  The mission of the ECSR is to judge whether the signatories to the European Social Charter are in conformity with all of the charter’s provisions. ...

Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely night dreaming of a song, but mostly I don’t.  Mostly I don’t, because the nightingale doesn’t tell his fairy tale unless he hopped a ride on the Cunard or the White Star Line.  No, the real problem is what does happen every day or night, and Jon...

Harvard’s Cass Sunstein recently complained that conservatives’ slippery-slope arguments about the left’s latest push to codify and enforce radical equality are intellectually “lazy.”  Sunstein and his followers give the example of conservative opposition to gay marriage, which often includes the observation that “the Supreme Court shouldn’t force states to recognize same-sex marriages because, if it...

The families of nine of the 26 people killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit.  The killings were carried out by Adam Lanza, a mentally disturbed 20-year-old living with his mother, Nancy.  On the morning of the incident, Lanza shot his mother while she slept, took various unsecured...

“My tradition is not to remark on cases where there still may be an investigation,” declared President Obama as he upstaged New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio on December 3, speaking from the White House Tribal Nations Conference.  His statement was not difficult to evaluate for its truth content, but remarkable—even from him—for its revelation of...

The ruckus over Ebola would be funny if the stakes weren’t so high.  Here’s a disease that presents a lethal threat to the general public, but rather than addressing its danger on purely medical grounds, our officials and commentators are subjecting it to political calculation. Rush Limbaugh, for one, knows precisely who’s responsible for the...

That characteristic feature of our age, the impressively feckless adolescent indulged by a craven and cynical media, reared its head this past October 15 in the rural community of Randle, Washington.  For reasons known only to themselves, the authorities at the 188-student White Pass High School invited their charges to attend class that particular morning...

The U.S. Supreme Court decision Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, issued last spring, upheld a 2006 citizen-approved ballot initiative in Michigan to amend the state constitution to ban reverse discrimination in public employment, contracting, and education, including at the University of Michigan.  The ruling ends a quarter-century battle that began when David Jaye,...

Since his election to the Senate in 1984, Mitch McConnell has been the bête noir of Kentucky progressives.  Like Halley’s comet, the slogan “Ditch Mitch” has appeared again and again, and McConnell’s adversaries have made a recurring cathartic ritual of venting hatred upon him.  Time after time, Mitch has come out on top, forcing even...

With Obama completing the displacement of the American people and the Republicans trying to start a war to detract attention from their uselessness and to revive their collapsed grassroots support, a poor observer barely has time and attention to note the civilizational degradation taking place in Lexington in the old and once-honored Commonwealth of Virginia....

Rick Perry, believe me, is no more going to prison than I’m going to bounce into his office one fine day to sign him up for an Obama fundraising dinner (an occasion prospectively disadvantageous to the health and well-being of both statesmen, should they meet in the receiving line). The ins and the outs of...

Alabama Republican congressman Mo Brooks generated outrage among the usual suspects in early August by telling radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham that the Obama administration’s push for amnesty for illegal immigrants is “a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party.  And the way in which they’re launching this war...

“Congratulations!  It’s a boy!” Does that sound like hate speech to you?  No?  Well, obviously, you’re a cisgender bigot. That’s how Slate’s C.S. Milloy sees it . . . Wait, you don’t know what a “cis” is?  What’s wrong with you? In today’s gender-studies-enriched society, a “cis” is a “you,” or “your wife,” or all...

I begin with a confession. Whenever I receive a new number of The Chesterton Review, I groan inwardly and, from time to time, outwardly.  Let me hasten to add that said groan is not a sign of tedium or disappointment—far from it.  But opening those pages means that once again, despite myself, I will be...

On February 14, Judge Amanda Wright Allen struck down Virginia’s marriage law as unconstitutional.  She began her opinion by quoting from a poetic commemorative address, then followed by incorrectly claiming that the phrase “all men are created equal” is found in the Constitution.  Thirty years ago, this would have earned Judge Wright the ire of...

Thor, in Norse mythology, is a pagan god wielding mjölnir, his magic hammer.  His devotees include heathens, pagans, and followers of Ásatrú, a neopagan belief system.  “Thor’s hammer” may now be etched on the headstones of American soldiers killed in the line of duty, following a little-publicized decision by the Obama administration’s Department of Veterans...

As the New Year rolled in, lines formed at Colorado pot shops.  Some customers seeking to secure their first legal purchase of Mary Jane had to wait several hours.  Once they made it into the shops they were struck by sticker shock: Top-shelf marijuana (not Mexican ragweed) was going for $400 per ounce.  Of course,...

I don’t blame you for not being up on the very latest from Broadway, that gayest of entertainment venues.  And I’ll admit that I’m not about to enrich your cultural life by bringing you up to speed.  Unfortunately, however, this has broader implications. I write of Kinky Boots, the current Tony-winning Broadway smash about a...

Like some of you, I’ve been on the receiving end of an e-mail bombardment from friends who have expressed their shock and dismay over the recent shutdown of the U.S. federal government and the entire political and legislative impasse between the White House and congressional Republicans. I’ve been told by my British, French, and Chinese...

When Nidal Hasan arrived at the Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas after receiving his death sentence on August 28, he was wearing an Islamic beard.  The Koran is sketchy on the exact requirements for facial hair, but many imams, past and present, have argued that shaving the face is haram.  (Whereas trimming the mustache...

The confusions of our day are so many and so inherent that we have no time or attention to spare for empty issues or nonproblems.  The remarkable situation of President Barack Obama is one that deserves some restraint in judgment, for we may soon find that certain difficulties are part of the deal, not individual...

In a 1992 episode of the TV show Cheers, the slow-witted bartender Woody is distressed to find out on his honeymoon that he has just entered a “mixed marriage.”  He belongs to the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), and his bride is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  Among Woody’s concerns is...

It is not a stretch, perhaps, to regard the Senate vote of over two thirds (68-32) in favor of a mass amnesty of illegal immigrants as signaling the eclipse of the historic American people, those brave and liberty-loving folk who created the United States out of a continental wilderness.  The bill has the Orwellian title...

The NAACP of North Carolina has seen to it that the moribund century-old teachings of theological liberals are still given voice in state politics. Although few people in the 21st century specifically invoke Walter Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel, it is very much alive and well in North Carolina with “Moral Monday.”  A creation of the North...

The Defense of Marriage Act is history—a development that should have surprised no one.  I’m tempted to say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” but the fact that passing DOMA in the first place was one of the most disastrously stupid moves the Republican Party has made over the past 20 years does not change the...

A Stalinist show trial was held on May 21 by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.  Their aim was to investigate “how individual and corporate taxpayers are shifting billions of dollars offshore to avoid U.S. taxes.”  In the dock that day, Apple CEO Tim Cook found...

Gil Santana had it all: He was the model conservative for the new millennium.  Gil was born and reared in Southern California, naturally, and his given name evoked the rich diversity of the state that had once symbolized the American dream: Kim Kwame Kaplan Santana, each part representing one fourth of his Korean, African, Jewish,...

Although Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and other hawks have urged the United States to put “boots on the ground in Syria,” the Obama administration thus far seems determined to resist such calls.  Indeed, the White House has rejected lobbying efforts even to establish a no-fly zone to impede Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s military campaign against...

Right-wing extremists are a threat to the peace and safety of good Americans.  Hateful gun-toting Southerners are riled up again and want to invade Massachusetts and New York and deprive people of their rights to abortion and atheism.  So one must conclude from a recent piece in The New Yorker and an article on Patheos,...

Right before our eyes, we’ve witnessed a profound change in the way that American society treats the institution of marriage. Forget about the law—state or federal.  This is a cultural shift, and we need to be aware of the way that the shift occurred. We can forget about the law, because one way or another,...

I suppose there’s no point in writing in advance about “comprehensive immigration reform,” since by the time this magazine reaches your hands the point may be moot.  The Gang of Eight may well have tossed Congress the perfect bipartisan plan, and President Obama may have run down Pennsylvania Avenue, pen in hand and surrounded by...

The House of Representatives, at 10:57 p.m. on January 1, passed the Fiscal Cliff bill, with Republicans voting 2 to 1 against it.  Speaker Boehner’s negotiations with President Obama had been a disaster.  The President’s only concession was his definition of rich, which he raised from $200,000–$250,000 per year to $400,000–$450,000.  Other than that, nothing—no...