The above photo is mine, from a Prop 8 protest. I post it because of my description: “I got a little freaked out at one point when I realized the cop to protester ratio was pretty dang high.” This defined the police action last night against #OccupyLA Many police officers must experience a powerful tension [...]

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Many of us have mixed feelings about Occupy Wall Street. I personally get excited at any signs of life in America’s normally apathetic citizenry, but have been confused and maybe a bit turned off by the festival atmosphere and the initial incoherence of the movement and its participants. We expect sound bytes: where’s the political [...]

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Two recent internet interactions:   Anonymous Dude on Twitter: Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. -C. S. Lewis My reply: Funny, I don’t feel rage-filled. Maybe C.S. Lewis was projecting.   Facebook “friend”: Don’t you think this might have something to do with women’s biology? It would [...]

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Apparently, denying Californians equal rights was insufficient for many conservative religious. Indeed, messing with politics in another state (much of the Prop H8 money came from out-of-state conservatives) left them wanting. And so conservative hatemongers have moved on to East Africa—to the country to Uganda—where it is currently a crime punishable by life in prison [...]

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This is a shorter list than it should be, because there are so many, some of them mentioned quite recently. But here are two young women who remind me that kids can do whatever they want and that women can do whatever they want: Emily Yeung, hostess of a TV show in which she learns [...]

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Many people have already posted about the greening of our twitter icons (which shows visible solidarity, but has no other effect), but here is something you can do that will make a difference. Change your Twitter location to a city in Iran and change your time zone to GMT +3:30, making “it harder for the [...]

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Nationwide, Christians who refuse to provide services on the basis of gender orientation are losing legal battles.

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Just started rape in criminal law and the stats at the beginning of the chapter are interesting: Only 32% of rapes are reported. The most common reason they were reported was to prevent further crimes by the same offender against the same victim. The most common reason they were not reported was that it was [...]

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This is how our president defined our country yesterday. Explicitly denying that it was a “Christian nation” and explicitly stating that this fact is one of our “great strengths”. It’s nice to be reminded of this—and by someone so high in the administration! It is vogue for politicians to exclaim “God bless America!” Whether or [...]

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April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and, to kick things off, I’d like to take issue with the growing prevalence of the word “rape” as a slang synonym for “dominated”, “rocked’, or “killed”. Both I and a friend have recently had Facebook “friends” (which of course could be anyone from a mere acquaintance to a [...]

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