Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is at it again. Just days after threatening to gut the Senate Intelligence Committee if it launches an investigation of President Bush's illegal domestic spying program, Frist announced his new number one legislative priority: the Flag Amendment. Dr. Frist, whose accomplishments to date include witness malpractice in the Schiavo case […]

Rarely is a precise price tag put on bigotry. But that's just what happened this week, when a University of California commission totaled the costs associated with the Pentagon's indefensible and staggeringly counterproductive "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the American military. That cost, according to the commission, is $369 million over 10 […]

In Trenton on Wednesday, the New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments in the latest legal challenge to state prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Coming just weeks after a Baltimore Circuit Court struck down a 1973 Maryland statute barring same-sex couples from wedding, the New Jersey case reflects what may be the best strategy for pursuing equal […]

In Atlanta this weekend, thousands braved unusually cold weather to pay their final respects to Coretta Scott King, who lay in state at the Georgia Capitol. That honor, withheld from her slain husband in 1968 by the legendary racist Governor Lester Maddox, comes as a bitter irony. For it was in the same Georgia Capitol […]

Faced with negative polls and a pessimistic American nation, President Bush's just completed 2006 State of the Union Address naturally focused on the theme of "the Hopeful Society." But like the stillborn "Ownership Society" vision before it, Bush's 2006 SOTU will be remembered not for its policy program, but for its partisan political purposes. The […]

There are days when the convergence of events can't help but deliver a larger message, to augur change or signal the passing of one era and the start of another. With the coincident confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito and the death of Coretta Scott King, today is one of those days of historical - and […]

This past week has been among the most instructive in the annals of the Pentagon's inexcusable "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Among the lessons learned: while the American military has no place for soldiers who pose on gay web sites, the Bush White House press corps is another matter altogether. On Wednesday, the Center for […]

The Washington Post today offered a devastating look at the Bush administration's systematic attempt to undermine voting rights in the United States. The Post looks in-depth at cases in Georgia, Texas and Mississippi in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other Bush political appointees overruled career staff in the Civil Rights Division of the Department […]

The new Ang Lee film Brokeback Mountain may be one of the most powerful love stories brought to theaters in recent years. It would also appear to be among the most successful at the box office, with the highest per screen take of any film in the United States during the past week. The "gay […]

Among the least surprising political announcements of 2005 is the word from Boston that Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is not running for reelection in 2006. It is only the latest step towards a 2008 White House run for a man whose presidential ambitions started in the womb. The son of 1968 GOP presidential contender and […]