When I read Ross Douthat's "A Case for Hell" in The New York Times, I assumed that, as an atheist, my major disagreements would be with his Catholic theology. Instead, his ideas about human choices and freedom to act are a reminder of the chasm between conservative...

The day after the Oscars, I couldn't help chuckling when I opened the Arts section of The New York Times and saw the headline "'Fighter' Wins for 2 Supporting Roles."

I live in Connecticut, so our version of the Times went to bed before the best picture award...

Watching the three-day Jeopardy match between Watson the IBM supercomputer, and former Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, I couldn't help but feel bad for humankind. As a former Jeopardy contestant myself, I knew Watson was beating them where it hurt, not with...

This speech is adapted from a speech given at the Yale Political Union's annual Gardner-White Prize debate. This year's resolution was "Resolved: Bring Back the Stocks" and most speeches focused on the interaction between shame and justice. I delivered the speech below against the resolution and took first place.

Lila Rose's pro-choice group, Live Action, continues to release videos from their 'sting operations against Planned Parenthood. They're trying to position the videos as exposés, and the allegedly damning material has turned out to be a revelation... about the tactics and anti-rule of law mindset behind many pro-life groups.

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The year has gotten off to a bad start for everyone with a stake in the fight over abortion rights. Instead of focusing efforts to repeal Roe v. Wade on political solutions and lobbying, the pro-life movement continues to adopt the tactics of obstruction at all costs, dragging medical professionals...

Early this week, The New York Times gave front page coverage to a tragic death. Target, a stray dog that had saved the lives of military personnel in Afghanistan, had been mistakenly euthanized after running away from his new family. Target's death was covered on every major news channel, a...

Popular TV show Glee has had a tendency to go off the rails when it tackles serious issues. The show's irreverent, ironic tone had led them to strike occasional false notes when they address issues of disability and discrimination in the past. Last night's episode, framed as...

Last week, as part of the pledge process, members of the Yale chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (DKE) led prospective members across campus chanting, among other obscenities "No means YES! Yes means ANAL!" under the windows of freshman dormitories. That night, members of the Yale Women's Center helped...

Like 75 percent of Americans, I was profoundly disappointed this week when the Senate failed to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. As an American, I'm ashamed that my nation not only refuses to let gay people serve openly, but also conducts a cruel witch-hunt...

Coverage of memorials on the ninth anniversary of September 11th have been eclipsed by the will-he-or-won't-he drama of Pastor Terry Jones's threats to establish 9/11 as "International Burn a Koran Day" and to inaugurate it appropriately.

The national consensus (barring perpetual hatemonger Fred...

The Republican rhetoric on the Park51 mosque and community center seems to have settled into a steady chant of blame the victim. Now, Imam Rauf and the other backers of the center are being blamed for provoking the anti-Muslim backlash that is spreading across the country. Although they are within...

Even though the legal options to block the Cordoba House mosque from being constructed two blocks from Ground Zero have dwindled away to nothing, conservatives are still using the issue to stir up the base. Currently, Gingrich and others are trying to figure out how to brand their inevitable defeat,...

So far, it seems impossible for Sarah Palin to err badly enough to upset her base. And she's certainly been thorough in her experimentation.

When Alaska resident Kathleen Gustafson found out her former Governor was coming to Homer Alaska with a Discovery Channel film crew, she unfurled a giant "Worst...

The coverage of the WikiLeaks controversy has become a debate over the precise shade of morally gray to assign to WikiLeaks's possible endangerment of Afghan informants. The discussion of WikiLeaks's moral responsibility with regard to disclosure threatens to obscure another journalistic ethics problem brewing, and this one...

Apparently England should have tried death threats.

Prime Minister David Cameron is upset that Facebook refuses to take down a group that honors a murderer. The group, titled "R.I.P. Raoul Moat You Legend!," honors Raoul Moat, a criminal who shot several people, including a police officer, and...

In Tennessee, defendants won a court case in which prosecutors had attempted to stop them from marketing a service that was to be "inherently fraudulent."

No, the above is not the latest update on the battle over overdraft fees and payday loans. The embattled businessmen were not part of...

The Dalai Lama's recent editorial in The New York Times rebukes "radical atheists" and others for being intolerant of many religions. As disproof of these hateful attitudes, the Dalai Lama offers a personal story of finding common ground with a Trappist monk in 1968.

A...

The Winter Olympics have begun, and LGBT activists have a lot more to lose than medals.

LGBT activists primarily work in conventionally political spheres, but regulatory bodies for athletics are doing a great deal to define the terms of the debate over sexuality and gender identity. A new recommendation...