Here's a bit of irony.  School Boards are constituted to operate our public schools, to impart learning to our youth.  And yet, in some parts of the country, it appears that School Boards need to go back to school to learn how to read and interpret the English language for themselves.  The federa...

This evening, the Parker Quartet -- Daniel Chong and Karen Kim, violinists, Jessica Bodner, violist, and Kee-Hyun Kim, cellist -- performed in the Peoples' Symphony Concerts Mann Series at Washington Irving High School.  This is a truly fabulous group! They are a young ensemble but already making q...

The 7-member California Supreme Court, which voted 4-3 last May that same-sex couples had a right to marry under the California Constitution, heard arguments on March 5 about whether a slim majority of the voters on November 4 had validly amended the state’s Constitution to change that result by a...

Several talented lesbian and gay attorneys have managed over the past twenty years to get themselves elected to the New York State Supreme Court -- our trial court of general jurisdiction -- but until today we had faced a lavender barrier of sorts, as we have never had an openly gay or lesbian Supre...

Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has filed a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a provision of federal law that requires the federal government to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages, or to treat the partners in same-sex marriages as sp...

The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued rulings recently in two asylum appeals by gay men. Ruling on a petition by a gay Indonesian in Susanto v. Holder, 2009 WL 497277 (Feb. 27, 2009), the court ordered a new hearing, preferably before a different immigration judge ...

I've known Robert Blecker since 1982, when I became his colleague on the faculty of New York Law School.  And for that entire time, the central focus of his scholarly attention has been on the issue of punishment, and most particularly the death penalty.  Robert describes himself as an emotive ret...

Raising money for non-profit and political causes has become difficult in the current economic downturn.  At least with a non-profit charitable fundraiser, the attendants get a tax deduction, but for a political event, there is no tax deduction, just the feeling of doing good and advancing a cause....

The big draw for the new production of Moises Kaufman's play "33 Variations" now in previews at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on Broadway is supposed to be Jane Fonda in the leading role, but to me the big draw is experiencing what one of our most interesting playwrights has conjured up about the great...

U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns (S.D.California) ruled on February 6 that San Diego State University and UC Long Beach had not violated the constitution by refusing to extend official recognition to campus chapters of an organization calling itself "Every Nation Campus Ministries." Every Nation...