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This Insights eNewsletter was sent to subscribers on January 8, 2013.

eNewsletter Subject: The State Giveth and the State Taketh Away

Each day most Westerners face the State’s growing hostility to religion and morality. The modern State sees itself as a universal authority, like God, only better. Increasing clashes with those still in touch with reality are inevitable.

The problem caught my attention again yesterday in French education. See my latest On the Culture essay: Divinizing the State: A Blind and Dangerous Pedagogy. Preliminary comments in Sound Off! reveal an even broader trend.

Indeed, the modern State does have a propensity to give and take, as it sees fit, in nearly every realm of life. Thus, for example, another Federal district court in the United States has halted enforcement of the Health and Human Services Mandate for contraception, sterilization and abortion. But at the same time, the U. S. Supreme Court has refused to interfere with federal funding for embryonic research.

When the State is regarded as a sort of God, confusion reigns. A somewhat quaint indication of this, torn from an earlier age, is represented by Prince Charles’ fears concerning a bill to end the ban on royals marrying Catholics in the UK. If a royal marries a Catholic, the Church says the children should be raised Catholic. But a Catholic child would be barred from the throne, playing havoc with the line of succession....

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