There are legitimate theological arguments on both sides of our political divide, but they are not equally well received. In America, it seems, one man’s moral teacher is another’s Torquemada — the difference is usually determined by party registration — and the returns on overt religiosity are mixed at best. As president, George W. Bush was repeatedly and pejoratively labeled “theocrat” for acknowledging his faith, and even the slightest intimation that his religious belief informed his political vantage point was perceived by the Left as symptomatic of an almost treasonous disrespect for the separation of church and state…. ›› Read on National Review Online
It seems only last year that “Obamacare” was termed a pejorative word, one to be avoided by all serious people. Back then, so horrified by the moniker was perennial conservative favorite, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, that she took to the House floor to denounce those with the temerity to use it in debate: “Is it a violation of the House rule wherein members are not permitted to make disparaging references to the President of the United States?” Wasserman Schultz asked the chairman, brimming with indignation…. ›› Read on National Review Online
Announcing the results of his long-term “evolution” on the subject last week, President Obama revived the debate over gay marriage. In the widespread discussion, however, there is one question that’s rarely asked: How interested are gay couples in getting married? ›› Read on National Review Online
I have two pieces in National Review‘s May 28 print issue. “May Day with OWS” is about the “Free University” that the Occupy movement set up in Manhattan on May 1st, and “Back to Tomorrowland” is a Books, Arts & Manners essay that asks the question, “Who Was Walt Disney?”
In Quebec, the students are revolting. This is both surprising and utterly predictable: surprising because college students in French Canada have by far the best financial deal in the country and should thus be the last people to complain, predictable because the Québécois have a long history of being difficult and demonstrate adroitly that, even when surrounded, the French will be the French… ›› Read on National Review Online
In light of the May Day arrests of the Cuyahoga 5, the Occupy Wall Street–affiliated group of men who planned to blow up a bridge in Cleveland, Ohio, I called the Southern Poverty Law Center to find out of they had any plans to start tracking the Occupy movement. The first person I spoke to was so shocked by the question that she paused for a good 15 seconds before promising to put me in touch with a representative. This she eventually did, however, and after a game of cat-and-mouse — the person she’d found for me was busy “hosting an international conference on right-wing extremism,” natch — we managed to touch base and I to pose the question: “Do you have any plans to start tracking Occupy Wall Street after a hate group tried to blow up a bridge?” ›› Read on National Review Online
