May 17, 2004 was an odd day in American politics. Many will remember that Monday as the first date in United States history that the government of one state recognized the union of same-sex couples in marriage, initiating a nationwide proliferation of legal challenges to same-sex marriage restrictions in several other states. This in itself is quite remarkable,… continue reading
Few voices regarding scientific research are as eminent as the National Academies.1 When the Academies speak, Congress and the White House not only listen but also act. As federal legislation and executive orders exemplify, the Academies’ reports about challenges at the biomedical science-society interface inform public policies and influence laws. Foremost at this interface are… continue reading
What do the debate about the rising number of bankruptcy filings and the debate about public school reforms have to do with each other? Quite a lot according to Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi, mother and daughter co-authors of THE TWO- INCOME TRAP: WHY MIDDLE-CLASS MOTHERS & FATHERS ARE GOING BROKE. They conclude that middle-class families… continue reading
Perhaps no issue is more closely associated with religious, moral, and emotional concerns than extending marriage to same-sex couples. As the discussion has broadened and deepened over the last fifteen years, though, the public debate has evolved to include considerations of the social and economic consequences of marriage equality. Economic consequences, in particular, have assumed… continue reading
“This is without question the worst case of my judicial career…” So observed United States District Court Judge Gerard Lynch in 2002 in a case before him involving a defendant facing a mandatory-minimum ten-year sentence on a charge of advertising the distribution of child pornography. That case and Judge Lynch’s actions and observations, about which… continue reading
Veterinary medicine has gone through tremendous changes in the past several decades. Until fairly recently, veterinary practice was viewed primarily as a “service profession to agriculture,” that involved many rote practices such as vaccinating herds of cows. In contrast, today’s veterinary practice focuses much more heavily on companion animal medicine and includes such specialty areas as… continue reading
As one of the Nation’s preeminent legal philosophers and public intellectuals, Ronald Dworkin has, not surprisingly, engaged the Nation’s preeminent legal-political-social issue – the meaning of marriage. That engagement appears in its most focused form in Is Democracy Possible Here? published in August 2006 (with key excerpts appearing in the September 21, 2006 issue of the New… continue reading
The Borgata Hotel, Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey recently came under attack for the strict weight policy that is imposed on its beverage servers. The weight requirement provides sanctions for any employee whose weight increases by more than seven percent from the time at which a baseline weight was established. Critics of… continue reading
Imagine for a moment that you are three years old again. Your biological mother has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and your biological father left before you were born. As a result of your mother’s inability to maintain a job, her dramatic, often frightening mood swings, and lastly, a verbalized threat of potential harm, the local… continue reading
Imagine the scene: you are sitting in your living room at 11:05 pm on a Wednesday night peacefully reading a magazine. Suddenly, you hear police sirens blaze and a voice muffled through a megaphone shout, “you two . . . stop right there, don’t move!” You toss down the magazine, run to the window, pull… continue reading
