Free Republic

Conservatives have failed to see that arguments do not matter. My whole career in the classroom has been guided by one principle. Namely, that it is my job is to introduce young people to the goodness, the beauty, and the wisdom of excellent works of literature, art, and human thought, without regard to any political use to which knowledge of these works might be put. I detest when literature is wrenched away from its essence, which is to delight us in its teaching us about ourselves and the world, and is commandeered for one or another kind of gain. It...

Jesus reached out to harlots. He did not reach out to their harlotry. Jesus reached out to hypocrites, often with a rhetorical fist to capture their attention. He did not reach out to their hypocrisy. He reached out to tax collectors, those half-traitors to their nation. He did not reach out to their treachery.I am imagining a parade down Main Street of Anyville.It’s the typical American parade. Some people are tootling on flutes, braying out almost-G on the trumpet, or banging the big bass drum. A group of high school girls in short skirts dance and twirl their batons....

A few weeks ago, a Catholic priest caused quite a stir in one of our local diocesan high schools. He spoke the truth about sex. Pause here to sigh, and to wish that our heresies were more interesting.Some of the parents and students objected. They did not say, “The priest presented the truth in a way that made it less likely that the audience would accept it. We are worried that the Church’s teachings did not appear in the best light. We need to do some considerable work right now, lest the students go on to reject what they...

The moral structure of pedophilia is simply this: the welfare of children is subordinate to the sexual gratification of adults. Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coordinator for the Penn State football team, established a charity called The Second Mile, for boys, mostly fatherless, who were living in troubled homes. It is not clear that he did so initially to lure boys into a trap. But that is what eventually happened, according to the testimony of the men who recalled with shame and disgust their initiation into sodomy. Raymond Lahey, former Catholic bishop of Antigonish, was apprehended in the Ottawa airport and...

"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it." If only! I'm sure that many of you have heard some form of that quip by Santayana, and I daresay that in an unguarded moment I may have actually used it in class, as if the study of history were mainly justified by its prophylactic utility. That's not fair to Santayana, who meant no such thing, but it is how the quip is commonly understood. If you don't know your history, then you are likely to step on the same landmines that your ignorant forebears stepped on, and then think...