Hale Institute

03/21/2026

Thank Jeff Shafer for standing with the rights of children and joining our campaign to overturn Obergefell!

02/13/2026

In reading the right to same-s*x marriage into the Constitution, the Court played social policymaker instead of judge.

The Hale Institute's Director Jeff Schafer joined FRC to discuss the errors.

FRC is proud to be part of the Greater Than coalition to overturn Obergefell, to stand for biblical marriage, and to put the needs of children over the desires of adults.

Comment "Marriage" to learn more.

02/04/2026

01/27/2026

Fewer than 10 spots remain for our lecture with Scott Yenor at The Pierian Gallery on Thursday, January 29. Register today before it fills. Registration link in the comment.

07/25/2025

For centuries Natural law discourse was a mainstay in Western philosophy. Then came the fallout.

But now? The tide is turning.
Read the full symposium papers on the past, present, and future of natural law: https://www.haleinstitute.org/events/a-world-meaningful-and-perspicuousconsidering-the-history-claims-and-significance-of-natural-law

03/17/2025

Every child has a mother and father. Is it unconstitutional discrimination against same-s*x couples for the law to recognize that fact?
In the linked essay, Hale Institute director Jeff Shafer critiques the mistake that courts across the country have committed in interpreting the Supreme Court’s Obergefell same-s*x ‘marriage’ ruling as requiring state officials to treat children as objects for accessorizing adult relationships.

On the current analysis of Obergefell, historic family law must be judicially de-s*xed, foisting upon it a so-called “gender-neutral interpretation."…

03/17/2025

This essay explores this sea change in outlook with particular critical attention to the Court’s jurisprudence on s*x and family regulations and on the freedom of speech. The essay then challenges the modern turn in the Court’s jurisprudence and advocates the law’s obligation to preserve its systemic moral coherence and thereby its continuing ability to serve its historic, vital purposes.
Read it here:

By Jeffrey A. Shafer. The US Supreme Court’s privatization of morality effects an inversion of law and the society it pretends to liberate.

03/17/2025

How has individual autonomy and equality fueled an inversion of the family's role as a foundational social unit?
Listen to the full interview with Jeff Shafer, Peter Leithart, and James R. Woods on The Civitas Podcast:

Peter Leithart and James Wood have a conversation with Jeff Shafer. Jeff Shafer is Director of the Hale Institute. He graduated with honors from the Regent University School of Law in 1995. Early in his legal career, he operated a general pra...

11/04/2024

NS Lyons: “Delivered at the ‘Meaning vs. the Machine’ conference in Margaretville, New York in October, this speech by Jeff Shafer, a lawyer and Director of The Hale Institute at New Saint Andrews College, was widely recognized as a true bombshell by many in attendance. What Shafer does exceptionally powerfully is to demonstrate, step-by-step, how the application of new technologies and commercial surrogacy processes to reproduction is already radically redefining both family and human personhood within the liberal managerial worldview, not only in theory but in law. And he then shows how this redefinition must logically lead to a truly totalitarian social and political dynamic, in which children become not persons but assembled products, and parents (if they can be identified as such at all) merely “provisionally accredited custodians” of this property on behalf of various stakeholders, and ultimately the state.”

An essay by Jeff Shafer

11/04/2024

Simon Kennedy, an intellectual historian, fellow at the Danube Institute, and editor at Quadrant Magazine, joins Timon Cline to talk about his book, Reforming the Law of Nature.

Podcast Episode · Hale Institute Podcast · 08/16/2024 · 1h 4m

10/02/2024

The Hale Institute hosted Dr. Paul D. Miller in Moscow last week. Dr. Miller lectured on the subject of "What is Just War Theory?" In this talk, Miller explored the evolving dynamics of a just war theory in relation to individual rights and international law. Watch it here. To learn more about the Hale Institute and find out more about upcoming events, visit https://www.haleinstitute.org/events

06/11/2024

Brian McCall, professor of law at Oklahoma University School of Law, joins Timon to walk through his essential book, The Architecture of Law: Rebuilding Law in the Classical Tradition.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hale-institute-podcast/id1727748286?i=1000658273048