Recent Viewpoints

On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the historic marriage case in which the institution’s very definition will be decided for the nation. In June, the Court will issue its decision, the repercussions of which will affect laws and practices in every state. The stakes are so high, it causes me to tremble. Marriage is God’s design, but, sadly, that will not be an acceptable argument for it in Court. Because marriage…

Not so long ago, the biggest problem in the job market was that there weren’t jobs for the American worker. Now many employers are complaining that they are unable to fill many jobs. In other words, the job market is weak in many areas, but tight in various job sectors. Stephen Moore provides one estimate that there are 30,000-35,000 trucker jobs that could be filled if workers would take these jobs. Domino’s Pizza says that the franchises around the country…

Atheists cannot live consistently with their worldview because it contradicts what we know about the world. That is just one of the key principles in the new book by Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Secularism, and other God Substitutes. She develops five principles from Romans 1 that provide a guidebook on how to evaluate other worldviews while also making a convincing case for Christianity. One of the stories she tells in her book and told on my…

Today is Tax Day. But a more important date is Tax Freedom Day. That is the day when your tax burden is lifted. It is calculated by dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the official government tally of all income earned in each year. Put another way, it is when you are no longer working for the government but are now working for yourself and your family. This year Tax Freedom Day arrived…

A few weeks ago, the editors of the Wall Street Journal wrote about “The New Intolerance.” They argued that “Indiana isn’t targeting gays. Liberals are targeting religion.” The Indiana law was merely a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act that passed overwhelmingly in 1993 and was signed by President Clinton. Indiana actually needed such a law because “neither its laws nor courts unambiguously protected religious liberty. Amish horse-drawn buggies could be required to abide by local traffic regulations….

Sometimes events covered by the press create a perception that is far from reality. That is certainly the case with the press coverage of the political events in Indiana. Reading the newspapers and watching TV coverage, you would think that that the whole nation is disturbed by the fact that the legislature passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was subsequently signed by the governor. Recent polls show a much different picture. Let’s start with the poll I mentioned last…

Legislators in Indiana began well when they passed their Religious Freedom Restoration Act a couple of weeks ago. Like the federal RFRA and RFRA’s in 19 other states, this law protects religious freedom by providing people the right to go to court and challenge a demand to violate their faith in some way. Under RFRA, if society insists on violating someone’s religious liberty, that person or entity can ask for proof that there’s a compelling government interest in doing so….

Psychiatrist Lyle Rossiter wrote an article entitled, “Following the Rules.” He has noticed among his clients and among Americans in general an unwillingness to follow basic rules in various arenas. As he points out, there are consequences for breaking the rules in those five areas. “In the care of our bodies we have to obey the rules of physics, chemistry, and biology.” When we break these rules we get fat, we get sick, and we can even die. Moreover the…

Are Americans ready to embrace socialism? A Rasmussen poll does show that a mere majority (53 percent) say capitalism is better than socialism. And one in five (20 percent) say that socialism is better than capitalism. America may not be ready to reject capitalism for socialism, but this poll does show less enthusiasm than in the past. If you look at adults under the age of 30 in the poll, you find they are essentially evenly divided. More than a…

Each month Iran gets closer to a nuclear weapon. This is not only bad news for Israel but also for America. We might think that one nuclear bomb wouldn’t pose much of a threat to the United States. Recently on my radio program, a guest explained that Iran has not only been working on nuclear materials but has also developed a rocket and tested whether it could explode a nuclear weapon in the upper atmosphere. That poses a threat to…

Over the next few years, I think we will begin to hear the word “nullification” more and more. So let’s look at what it means, and why it isn’t a good strategy to limit the continuous expansion of the federal government. Some politicians and citizens have been arguing that states could use the Tenth Amendment to “nullify” any federal law that exceeds the powers delegated to the federal government in the Constitution. This might work in some cases, where a…