Greg Forster

First off, apologies to Robert Miller for having gotten his point not quite right when I restated it in my post. At the risk of overanalyzing a topic that it is not really edifying to overanalyze (First Thoughts, your one stop shop for hotel porn!) I think it would be fruitful for me to offer . . . . Continue Reading »

Last week, after carrying the text of an open letter from Robert George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf calling upon the hotel industry to quit offering porn, Public Discourse ran a response from Robert Miller. Miller is in sympathy with the project, but offers three reasons why he thinks this is . . . . Continue Reading »

Today’s Slate carries a retrospective on Judith Wallerstein , who died last month, by her professional collaborator Sandra Blakeslee. Wallerstein was one of the first social scientists to study the impact of divorce on children. Blakeslee opens with a fascinating vignette on how Wallerstein . . . . Continue Reading »

About two weeks ago, I asked: if this is really a “culture war,” what does winning look like ? I was responding to Maggie Gallagher’s outstanding commentary on the recent unpleasantness. I wrote that I still supported the fight against the deinstitutionalization of marriage, but I . . . . Continue Reading »

Maggie Gallagher’s blog is called Culture War Victory Fund . But what would it mean to “win” the culture war? Her essay on David Blankenhorn shows how urgent it is for us to reexamine this question. I owe a lot to Maggie Gallagher. I’ve only met her once, and that was brief. . . . . Continue Reading »

Obviously we’ve all been thinking a lot lately about Tocqueville’s problem of the democratic state recognizing no other institutions as roughly coequal sources of social legitimacy and power. Society needs what Neuhaus and Berger called “mediating institutions” that preserve . . . . Continue Reading »

Matt Anderson has a bee in his bonnet. The apostles of the Third Way - you know the type - have lately been pushing yet another effort to recycle the idea that “conservatism” is dead among young evangelicals because they despise “culture war.” For two weeks, Matt has been . . . . Continue Reading »

An exchange in The Corner over the weekend between Kevin Williamson and Matthew Franck encapsulates how the dynamic between economic and social conservatives often becomes dysfunctional. Here’s how it went down: Williamson made fun of a post at the Atlantic that was breathlessly amazed Romney . . . . Continue Reading »

The Supreme Court declared in 2010 that public universities must permit religious student clubs to select leaders who share their faith. UNC-Greensboro is now getting around this by declaring that a Christian student club isn’t really religious . On what grounds? It isn’t affiliated . . . . Continue Reading »

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the government wants to classify pregnancy as a disease. It’s the logical consequence of the way our culture externalizes responsibility for sex. When I was a teenager, I was not yet a Christian but I was very pro-life. Among several . . . . Continue Reading »