America's Future Foundation

Learn why school choice is winning and why it matters in this new video from the folks at Reason.tv:

AFF’s February roundtable put together panelists on both sides of the gay marriage debate and asked them to contend with the question, “What is the role of the federal government in marriage?”

Jason Kuznicki, Cato Institute research fellow and editor of Cato Unbound, nicely articulated a strict constitutional answer to this question, pointing out that nowhere in the Constitution is the word marriage mentioned. Therefore, Kuznicki argues, the federal government has no role whatsoever in marriage, gay or otherwise; the matter should be left to the states.

In order to justify a federal role in marriage, Kuznicki says, conservatives have to cede to progressives their fanciful view of the Constitution as a flexible document, and give up the idea that the Framers intended a federal government with limited and enumerated powers.

Thomas Peters, cultural director at the National Organization for Marriage, argues that “the purpose of marriage is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and one another,” and that gay marriage fails to achieve this purpose.

Peters continues that the federal government should be in the “marriage business” because it serves the public good. Defining marriage as between one man and one woman, he argues, is “key to protecting the best interests of children.”

Henry Potrykus from the Family Research Council and Matthew Bechstein from GOProud also weigh in on the issue. You can see their responses and more video clips taken by AFFer Bruce Majors on his blog. Full disclosure: I also work for Cato.

Famed orator, abolitionist, and author Frederick Douglass was one of history’s greatest champions of liberty. Born a slave, Douglass didn’t know his actual birthday, but chose February 14th, St. Valentine’s Day, to celebrate the occasion.

Learn more about Douglass and his life in this lecture by Robert McDonald, assistant professor of history at West Point, from a Cato Institute conference in Annapolis, Maryland (Full disclosure: I work for Cato).

The Phillips Foundation is now accepting applications for the 2012 Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship Program. Print and online journalists with less than 10 years of professional experience are eligible.

Fellows are awarded $50,000 for full-time and $25,000 for part-time to undertake a one-year project of the applicant’s choosing focusing on journalism supportive of American culture and a free society.

Several of the past fellows have included prominent AFF members and Doublethink contributors, including Tim Carney, Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Sonny Bunch, David Donadio, Michael Dougherty, Cheryl Miller, and others.

For more information, visit: www.novakfellowships.org, or contact: The Phillips Foundation, 1 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 620, Washington, DC 20001. Phone: 202-677-4633. Email:
info@thephillipsfoundation.org.