Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter As the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch, columnist Dahlia Lithwick wrote a piece in SLATE complaining about the judge’s deference toward religious liberty in his rulings. Ms. Lithwick, an attorney by training, wrote that, “His record reflects a pattern of systematically privileging the rights of religious believers over those of religious minorities and nonbelievers.” She cited his opinion in Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th…

Kerby Anderson America is turning more into a secular society. But this post-Christian nation has not turned into a kinder, more tolerant place to live. Peter Beinart, writing in The Atlantic, reminds us that a vast majority of Americans still believe in God, but they are fleeing organized religion in increasing numbers. The percentage of people with no religious affiliation jumped from 6 percent in 1992 to 22 percent in 2014. Among Millennials, the figure is 35 percent. Many secular…

Kerby Anderson Political correctness and the demand for tolerance can actually be harmful to many people, especially to women. Jennifer Hartline laments that female-only public places are vanishing as the promotion of “gender identity” and “transgenderism” are being promoted in our society. She recounts a story from a self-described progressive mother who wrote about a man who walked into a crowded women’s restroom at Disneyland. “He just stood off to the side and leaned against the wall.” Many of the…

Kerby Anderson Are we winning or losing the war with ISIS? That is a question Joel Rosenberg asks in a Fox News op-ed. He was on my radio program recently to talk about his latest fiction book, Without Warning. The previous president always seemed to minimize the threat of ISIS. He assured us early on that it was merely a “JV squad.” Even as he left office, he insisted that the tide had turned and that the U.S. was winning…

Kerby Anderson Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider. It is also facing the real possibility that it will lose it annual taxpayer funding of a half of billion dollars each year. Students for Life have come up with a creative campaign to focus attention on the destruction that Planned Parenthood leaves in its wake. They want to collect 329,999 baby socks to illustrate the number of abortions Planned Parenthood performed in 2015. Recently I had Kristan Hawkins on…

Kerby Anderson The popularity of the latest Disney movie, Beauty and the Beast, has once again caused Christians to reconsider whether they want to watch and support the cinematic features of the Walt Disney Company. Even critics acknowledge there are positive elements in every one of the Disney films, but many of them have one or more scenes that are troubling. Some have called for a boycott of the latest Disney film. Others have asked, “Is it Time to Kiss…

Penna Dexter When President Trump rescinded his predecessor’s school shower and bathroom edict, the matter landed right where it belongs, in the laps of the states. And my home state of Texas is leading on the issue. On February 22, President Trump reversed Obama guidelines issued last May that specified that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms that match their gender identity. That Obama directive meant biological boys would be allowed into intimate spaces meant for…

Kerby Anderson Anyone listening to the confirmation hearings for the Secretary of Education would think that America’s public school system was in great shape. In fact, the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus even warned that the new secretary “will have an incredibly harmful impact on public education and on black communities nationwide.” Most people don’t agree with that assessment. The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune criticized the secretary’s critics. “Instead of lauding DeVos for trying to break a…

Kerby Anderson Our nation’s intelligence gathering is in the news, so I read with interest a transcript of a speech Herbert Meyer did for a Hillsdale College leadership seminar. He served as a special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and was the Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. Meyer reminds us that: “From the end of World War II until 1982, every president’s objective had been not to lose the Cold War.” When President Ronald Reagan…

Kerby Anderson What is driving the protests by the millennial generation both on campus and in the streets? There are a number of theories. Evan Morrison has this observation: “If you were to come across someone who cried in the streets, who saw the world in terms of black and white and made death threats against strangers, who cowered in a special room and made public displays of naked self-harm and blood letting, you might conclude that they were suffering…

Kerby Anderson Earlier this month, a mob on campus shut down the lecture and attacked a professor. The protest I am talking about took place at Middlebury College but could have taken the place at the University of California at Berkeley or at the University of Missouri or a number of other campuses. Conservative author Charles Murray was scheduled to deliver a talk and then be interviewed by politically progressive professor Allison Stanger. Students in the room shouted him down….