The announcement that the California Supreme Court would rule within the month on the legality of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s initiative granting of marriage licenses to same-sex couples had been made weeks earlier.

Antonin Scalia, the man most likely to be our next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, turned history on its head recently when he attended an Orthodox synagogue in New York and claimed that the Founders intended for their Christianity to play a part in government.

Ending extreme poverty, disease, environmental degradation, war? We asked one of the world's most influential economists--adviser to Kofi Annan and Bono alike--what would have to be done to put the world on a course to do exactly that. What follows is his modest little plan.

Having lived in Germany and extensively interviewed many former, now elderly, members of Hitler's Nazi Party (and one spy for him) for a book I was writing on the religion of the Nazis, I can say categorically that Hitler had (or at least his people believed he had) a Vision.

Many of the world’s mature democracies require every high school graduate to serve a year or two of either military or nonprofit service.

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon thought they could bomb Vietnam into accepting democracy. George W. Bush thinks he can do it with Iraq. Thomas Jefferson had some very different thoughts on the issue.

What's in a word? Plenty, if the word is “marriage.”

"Gay Marriage is simply the logical and appropriate extension of the idea that in a constitutionally limited democratic republic a vital function of government is to protect the rights of minorities. It's called 'civil rights.'"

Having raised a daughter almost into her third decade, I now have the luxury of looking back to savor all the hard work done.

The reaction to the drug problem -- and drug felonies -- recently alleged against Rush Limbaugh highlight sharply the differences between conservative morality and liberal/progressive morality.

Imagine a bomb that only kills Caucasians with red hair. Or short people. Or Arabs. Or Chinese.

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote a note to James Madison about the future possibility of a president who didn’t understand the principles on which America was founded.

To all Americans who love America...who believe our country has gone astray in becoming something other than the land of freedom, justice and equality for all...

A year ago when the theme “Beginning Anew” was chosen for this issue, I wondered if we might possibly be living in a radically transformed world at this time -- for better or for worse.

Santa Clara County, of all jurisdictions in America, should have known better. They could have started by looking at Florida.

As surely as renewed resentment and violence is brewing worldwide in response to the United States’ attack on Iraq, a New America is also being born out of the ashes of these recent world events.

Dennis J. Kucinich, US Congressman and presidential candidate, leads the Congressional opposition to the war in Iraq. He delivered this speech to the US National Newspaper Association, March 21, 2003.

The following is a transcript of the speech given by actor Tim Robbins to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 2003.

Scott Ritter, a former UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 is much in the news. Although a Republican he is also a vociferous critic of the Bush administration. Invited to the Netherlands by the Dutch Socialist Party, he gave a series of lectures and interviews

It's easy to vilify George W. Bush as a cynical warmonger, anxious to attack Iraq to repay the oil companies that funded his election campaigns.

My daughter, Michella, is graduating from high school and stepping out into the adult world. Her first cultural milestone -- oh, but what a precipice for her mother!

An hour ago, I was standing deep in a Franconian forest of central Germany, gazing in amazement at the time-hidden ruins of an ancient castle

Computers in the electoral process started in 1964, the year Goldwater opposed Johnson for the presidency.

Before I start this poem, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th.

For the last half century, children the world over have had to learn that their elders possess biological, chemical and nuclear weapons which could conceivably destroy all life on Earth.