Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson The first year of the Trump administration has been a good year for religious liberty. That is what Kelly Shackelford (First Liberty Institute) documents in a recent column that appeared in National Review. He talks about five major actions by the president that have defended religious liberty. First, and perhaps the most lasting, are the judicial appointments by the president. That certainly includes Justice Gorsuch, but it also includes many other judges that will have a strong adherence…

Kerby Anderson The recent vote on an abortion ban after 20 weeks and a recent column illustrate how extreme the Democratic position has become on the issue of abortion. The Senate voted down the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. One Democratic senator tweeted that, “If women made up 51% of Congress, do you think we would still be fighting to protect a woman’s right to choose?” Actually a Gallup poll shows that vast majority of Americans (including most women) believe…

Kerby Anderson Last week, I talked about the decision by the Department of Health and Human Services to create the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division. Because of some of the controversy surrounding it, I wanted to revisit the topic. The division was created to protect doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers “from being coerced into participating in activities that violate their consciences.” That would include such medical procedures as abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide. The editors at the New York…

Penna Dexter As January — Sanctity of Human Life Month — drew to a close, the US Senate failed again in its effort to curtail late-term abortions. The bill is The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. It bans abortions after the five-month mark in a woman’s pregnancy. Research shows an unborn child is fully capable of feeling pain at this stage. Abortions done at 20 weeks gestation and later require that the abortionist tear the baby apart before extraction. The…

Kerby Anderson Over the last few weeks, President Trump has been touting his economic successes. In Davos, Switzerland he proclaimed, “America is open for business, and we are competitive once again.” He went on to remind those who gathered for the conference that “There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest, and to grow in the United States.” At the State of the Union speech he said, “We have created 2.4 million new jobs, including…

Kerby Anderson The contemporary issues of abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, transgenderism, and the hookup culture seem very different. But they all illustrate in different ways a secular hostility to the human body. That is the premise of the new book by Nancy Pearcey with the title Love Thy Body. She was on my radio program recently to explain how each of these issues go back to a flawed perspective of our bodies. Supporters of abortion say that the fetus is not…

Kerby Anderson Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the creation of a new division within its Office of Civil Rights. There will now be a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division. The division will protect doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers “from being coerced into participating in activities that violate their consciences, such as abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide.” The proposed rules will empower the division to enforce multiple statutes that have been passed by Congress and…

Kerby Anderson With another set of elections on the horizon, it is time to consider how to clean up the voter rolls. As I’ve mentioned in previous commentaries, we do have a problem. A report that came out in September found that there are 248 counties in this country that have more names on their voter rolls than the total number of people of voting age in those counties at the time of the 2016 election. Last month, the Supreme…

Kerby Anderson It was inevitable that the tragic case of the Turpin’s thirteen starving children found in filthy conditions would be used to question the value of homeschooling. Of course, this was abuse. And the abuse of the children happened because the laws in California concerning home schools allowed them to “hide in plain sight.” The vast majority of home schooling parents are doing a great job. But it is worth taking a look at the rules and regulations so…

Penna Dexter Capping off a dramatic seven-day hearing last month, a Michigan judge delivered a 175-year prison sentence to former USA gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, for sexual abuse of patients. Nassar, a physician at Michigan State University, was also the team doctor for the school’s gymnastics club. Testimonies from 156 of Nassar’s victims and 169 victim impact statements, revealed that for some of the gymnasts, the abuse began when they were children and continued for years. How could this…

Kerby Anderson The Environmental Protection Agency has unveiled an online tool that is supposed to help local officials see the dangers of climate change in their community. The Climate Change Adaptation Resource Center provides a map that warns of the danger of climate change to each of the eight regions of the United States. These dire warnings were too much for Dr. William M. Briggs, who has been questioning many of the claims of climate change activists. In his column,…