News and Issues

Mr. Thomas Jefferson was a clever man. He recognized that what makes one person happy may not be the same as what makes another person happy. All that his declaration advocated was allowing citizens to pursue whatever they thought might make them happy. Even then, there are obvious limits on how we may pursue our happiness. Murdering your mother-in-law might make you happy, but if you pursue it to completion you won’t be happy when the cops show up. more »

The claim that members of Congress would be somehow "exempt" from the now-stalled health care legislation is a more recent absurdity. It’s a twisted claim based on misrepresentations of the House and Senate bills, neither of which exempts lawmakers. more »

But despite its radical drop in popularity over the course of this century, common-law marriage should not be forgotten. It is a device that still functions as an alternative way to form a marriage – or to claim with hindsight that one was formed in the past. And given the legal significance of marital status, as the determinant of a wide variety of rights and obligations, we forget about common-law marriage at our peril. more »

According to research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, "No reputable or peer-reviewed study has ever shown that allowing service by openly gay personnel will compromise military effectiveness." more »