Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter For the first time in more than 40 years, the President’s proposed federal budget calls for taxpayers to directly fund abortion. This is being done chiefly by eliminating the Hyde Amendment from spending proposals. The Hyde Amendment stipulates that Medicaid cannot pay for abortions and has been attached to federal spending legislation since 1976. This protection has been bipartisan. There have been battles. But, Congress — whether majority-Republican or majority-Democrat — has consistently applied the Hyde amendment and other related policies to federal…

Kerby Anderson You know things have gone from bad to worse when the co-founder of an Internet website is criticizing his own site as an enemy of democracy. I have been doing radio commentaries on the bias and inaccuracies in Wikipedia since 2008. But an interview with co-founder Larry Sanger illustrates why you shouldn’t depend on this Internet site for information. “Wikipedia is more one-sided than ever,” he explains. And he believes the site “has made itself into a kind…

Kerby Anderson Earlier this month I talked about a ruling from the IRS that denied tax-exempt status to the group Christians Engaged. The IRS argument was that the Bible teachings of the group aligned with views of Republicans. The IRS has reversed its decision, but the controversy surfaced some issues that need to be considered. When some members of Congress heard of the IRS decision to deny the request for tax-exempt status, they fired off a letter to the IRS…

Kerby Anderson Americans seem to be of two minds when polled about the current administration and the future of this country. For example, a Harvard/Harris poll reported a very high approval rating (59%) for President Biden and his administration. On the other hand, if you dig into the specifics you find that Americans are very concerned about some of the administration policies and the direction of this nation. Let’s look at two issues that both start with the letter “I.”…

Kerby Anderson Sometimes a political party can get way out front of the voting public and then pay a price at the ballot box. Matt Vespa reminds his readers that this happened to Republicans in a past election. But he focuses most of his commentary on what is happening in the Democratic party due to its “woke wing.” We have been through years of political correctness, speech codes, pronoun criticism, and critical race theory. Some leaders in the Democratic party…

Kerby Anderson We all know examples of Big Tech censorship, but most Americans seem unconcerned with the impact this is having on free speech and our society. Earlier this month, Donald Trump announced he was suing Big Tech. The announcement was greeted with either comments like “he deserved it” or else a resignation that this was inevitable. Christian author Eric Metaxas had his radio program thrown off YouTube for what was called “content restrictions.” As one commentator noted, this action…

Penna Dexter On day one of his administration, President Biden issued an executive order outlining planned steps to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The order requires all government agency heads to adapt their policies accordingly. The president’s order signaled the administration’s take on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.   Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act provides workplace protections “on the basis of sex.” In crafting the majority opinion in…

Kerby Anderson We often talk about worldviews, but do we know how they were formed through history? Professor Glenn Sunshine wrote a great book entitled Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home.It helps us see the influence of worldviews through history. He defines worldview as “the framework you use to interpret the world and your place in it.” He begins by discussing the worldview of Rome. By the end of the…

Kerby Anderson For decades, sociologists have documented the phenomenon of extended adolescence. This is where someone who is an adult still acts like a teenager. One classic example would be a 35-year-old who has part of their rent and bills covered by parents and continues to take college classes. Jean Twenge in her latest research on the trailing edge millennials (who she calls iGen) are extending this phenomenon even further. She documents that teenagers are becoming adults even later than…

Kerby Anderson Americans don’t know much about the Constitution, and it apparently is getting worse. Nine years ago, I wrote and recorded a commentary about constitutional illiteracy. Back then I quoted John Whitehead (Rutherford Institute) who testified before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning the rule of law. He provided some alarming statistics based upon a survey done about ten years ago. They found that only one in four Americans could name more than one of the freedoms…

Kerby Anderson Jean Twenge has been researching generational differences for a quarter-century. But she noticed in 2012 abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. Up until that time, there were gentle slopes of line graphs. Suddenly they became steep mountains and sheer cliffs. That year is when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent. Her article in The Atlantic asks the ominous question: “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The generation she is thinking about would be…