In an election in which so much is at stake, and so many crucial differences between the presidential tickets, our national conversation keeps getting stuck — and not by accident. It dawned on me this week that race and gender are the elephant (and donkey) in the room — they’re more often exploited in subtle and cynical ways than discussed honestly. You need only witness the side show about "lipstick" that Republicans are using to keep the campaign away from issues that affect Americans and our shared future.

Gary Bauer is all gloom and doom about the prospect of Obama-appointed Supreme Court Justices.

“[I]f the next two or three Supreme Court appointments are appointments made by Barack Obama, confirmed by a Democratic Senate...' -- my friends, the things we have been fighting for 30 years will not only be lost, they may, in fact, be lost permanently," Bauer contends.

But cheer up, Gary! Most Court-watchers speculate that the next few openings on the Court will come from the moderate/progressive wing of the Supreme Court.

Via TAPPED, it looks like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will be up for another vote in the Senate this month.

John McCain has opposed it in the past, and last time it was defeated in a procedural vote. But if Sen. McCain wants to admit his mistake and support the bill now, we’d all welcome his change of heart.

In her speech last night, Sarah Palin mocked the idea that terrorists would be "read their rights." Well, setting aside the obvious complications that come from prosecuting an international “war on terror,” I’m perturbed by the idea that reading someone his rights would be a bad thing. One of the great selling points for this country is that even bad guys, really bad guys, terrible terrible guys, have rights. After all, sometimes those presumed-guilty people end up being, you know, innocent.

In support of my view (and, umm, the Constitution) allow me to trot out the old war horse of this particular argument, A Man For All Seasons.

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sure, we've been saying for years that Senator Susan Collins's votes on the Roberts and Alito nominations show how shallow her commitment to choice really is. But when Kathleen Turner is saying it, it just sounds different.

Did you watch last Saturday's presidential candidate forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church? The media coverage has made me want to scream, hey, progressives have values too!

The week started with great news about a victory for constitutional liberties -- one that People For the American Way Foundation supporters played a major role in achieving.

You may remember that Wendy Gonaver lost her teaching job at California State University over the "loyalty oath" required by the California Constitution for all state employees.

If you read my post back in March after the oral argument before the Fourth Circuit in Turner v. City Council of Fredericksburg, Virginia, you know that it was quite an honor to have had retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the three-judge panel. And now Justice O’Connor has written the court’s opinion in the case, a July 23 unanimous decision in favor of our client, the Fredericksburg City Council.

Many people probably don’t recall much, if anything, about June 26, 2003, but I recall a great deal. That’s because it’s the day on which the Supreme Court issued one of its most important rulings in the area of individual rights and human dignity. In Lawrence v. Texas, a sharply divided Court struck down a Texas state law that prohibited consensual, private sex between adults of the same gender, a law that essentially made criminals out of gay men and lesbians. Five justices held that the law was an improper intrusion on the right to liberty guaranteed to everyone by the Constitution, effectively invalidating all state laws that invade the home to prohibit so-called sodomy.

In a 6-3 ruling on June 9, the Supreme Court made it harder for public employees who are victims of arbitrary or malicious firings to obtain justice. In doing so, the Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, rejected an approach followed by nine federal appellate courts that had allowed a public employee who is arbitrarily treated differently from other similarly situated employees to bring an equal protection claim under the 14th Amendment, even if that employee had not been discriminated against because of membership in a particular class (e.g., African Americans or women).