Matthew J. Franck

While I am glancing at the Wall Street Journal , as I did in my last post just below, there was a piece of some passing interest on the congressional politics of gun control in yesterday’s issue. The author was Rep. Mike Thompson of California’s Fifth District, who described . . . . Continue Reading »

In addition to Joe Carter’s lament this morning on the subject of women in combat, see (if you can, it’s behind a paywall) this piece by Iraq war veteran Ryan Smith in today’s Wall Street Journal .  His description of modern combat’s reality—-that the ancient . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m still scratching my head over a story that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times . Ace reporter Ethan Bronner, who has covered legal matters among others for many years, went out to Palo Alto for the kickoff ceremonies of a new law school clinic at Stanford Law School, the . . . . Continue Reading »

My friends Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George, authors of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense , will discuss their book next Tuesday, January 8, at 12:30 p.m. at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.  The event will be hosted by Jennifer Marshall, director of . . . . Continue Reading »

Twenty-five years ago, on July 1, 1987, President Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, to replace the retiring Justice Lewis Powell. One hundred fourteen days later, on October 23, 1987, the U.S. Senate declined to give its consent to his appointment, by a vote of forty-two . . . . Continue Reading »

Tonight on (I expect) many PBS stations you can see a documentary called ” First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty .” (It’s on from 8:00 to 9:30 p.m. on Philadelphia’s WHYY; check local listings.) I am not endorsing the program, since I want to see it first, but I am . . . . Continue Reading »

Anna Williams says (in her post ” Christians and LGBT Bullying “) that she was left uneasy by Austin Ruse’s post last week on the not-exactly-impoverished population of gays and lesbians in the U.S. This, I think, might have been prompted as much by a commenter’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Today at Public Discourse , Carson Holloway finds a glimmer of hope for the remnants of conscience, and the recognition of what is naturally right and good, in the use of the word “slut” by a California high-school ” Fantasy Slut League ” that has made the news recently. . . . . Continue Reading »

The estimable R.R. Reno’s wit is as dry as his martinis, so it is hard for me to know how seriously he meant the proposal in his “On the Square” essay ” Martinis and Taxes ” today, for a federal wealth tax.  His friend, however, led him astray by invoking the . . . . Continue Reading »

I am happy to be on the steering committee for an ambitious new undertaking at the Religious Freedom Project of Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, on “Christianity and Freedom: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” The . . . . Continue Reading »