In late November, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a chimpanzee named Tommy of Gloversville, New York. Stephen M. Wise, leader of the Nonhuman Rights Project, is demanding that the State Supreme Court in Fulton, County, NY recognize Tommy as a legal person, with a right to liberty, but one that has limits. . .
How should we think about this rather novel and extraordinary legal argument to establish that chimpanzees are legal persons, with rights and liberties? Permit me to offer several reflections on the growing animal rights movement

Reproductive technologies and information technology are re-defining marriage, procreation and are affecting the value we place on both marriage and children. The result is tension, confusion and an uncertainty about almost every social dimension of our culture. Marriage, as an institution, is incredibly fragile and these technologies are not helping to stabilize this foundational institution. Consider these observations:

The month of November 2013 witnessed the anniversaries of two quite significant events in American history?Lincoln?s Gettysburg Address (the 150th anniversary) and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (the 50th anniversary). Both are important for our history and both are symbolically quite powerful.

The Supreme Court?s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 changed America. Abortion remains one of the most contentious issues in our culture, with positions on both sides of the divide uncompromisingly hardened. For many, it is the touchtone issue of life. And perhaps because it deals with life and its value, it will never diminish in its importance to American civilization. Several thoughts:

The debacle surrounding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, is a case study in the fallacious argument that government can do things better than the private sector. But the way it has been presented and the public promises made by the president about the law also indicate an intentional and willful decision to deceive the American people. Several thoughts:

At the center of the Postmodern worldview is the doctrine of personal autonomy–the idea that as free humans we are a law unto ourselves. In Postmodernism, the self defines reality. There are virtually no boundaries for behavior and there are few authority figures that matter anymore. Autonomy impacts all aspects of culture?entertainment, business, law, leisure and religion. The autonomous self defines reality because there is nothing transcendent to do so. If there is a god, he is a deistic god, who is more therapeutic than sovereign, and who serves at the behest of the human. Such a claim has a haunting ring of familiarity to it, for the book of Judges has as its refrain, ?Every man did what was right in his own eyes.?

In 2005 David Barton was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. Presumably, this recognition resulted from the organization he leads, WallBuilders, a ministry committed to championing the proposition that America was founded as a Christian nation and that the separation of church and state as defined today is wrong. He also advocates conservative political views that reflect conservative Republicanism or those posited by the Libertarian movement in the United States.

Modern technology is changing the definition of fatherhood and the rights that go with it. Consider two cases: (1) A pregnant woman wants an abortion. Her husband does not. Should he have a say in her decision? (2) A woman wants to become pregnant with frozen embryos. Her ex-husband opposes the decision. Should he have a say in the decision? Legally, the answer is no to the abortion case and yes to the frozen embryo case.

As a result of the 18th century Enlightenment, Western Civilization began an intellectual journey to develop, in the words of philosopher David Hume, a ?science of man.? The Enlightenment leaders sought for the social sciences a level of certainty achieved by Sir Isaac Newton during the previous century for the hard sciences. Hence, the modern social sciences of psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. were born. Have we achieved a ?science of man?? Have we achieved as a civilization an ability to attain a level of certainty about human behavior? The US government often operates on the basis of social science in its public policy programs. This applies to how the government funds prison reform policies, criminal behavior policies, economic policies, federal housing policies, etc. Has this connection between social science and public policy in western civilization been successful?

Gregory Berns, professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University, argues that ?dogs are people, too.? He bases this rather stunning conclusion on brain scans of dogs he and his colleagues at Emory have conducted. . . How should we think about Berns, his work and his conclusions? Should dogs be granted personhood? Should they have rights equivalent to humans? Is there a Creation-Order difference between dogs and humans? What is the fundamental difference between a dog and a human being?