Those watching Anderson Cooper 360 last night got a real treat in the form of Dan Savage revealing Tony Perkins for the anti-gay, anti-family misanthrope he is.

In addition to Perkins’ embarrassing ignorance on the role the Constitution plays in our society, and his intentional dishonesty about the pro-marriage bent of young people, be sure to notice how quickly he tries to instigate a fight between gay and black communities (two groups which never, ever, ever overlap.)

In conclusion: Tony Perkins is a hateful, hateful man.

The People For Voters Alliance recently released an exciting set of online-only videos made by Academy Award winning director Errol Morris.

Click here to see the rest of the videos.

Reporters Without Borders released its annual Press Freedom Index today.

The good news: the United States moved up 12 points from last year. (A higher ranking indicates more press freedom.) The bad news: we're still only #36 out of the 173 countries indexed.

RWB explains in its methodology (found here as a PDF) that press freedom is measured by several factors, including the frequency with which journalists are murdered, imprisoned, or threatened; how often the news media is censored; whether those who infringe press freedoms tend to be punished for their actions; and the degree to which a country's press self-censors.

Here's RWB's explanation of why the U.S. did better this year, but still not well enough to write home about: 

The United States rose twelve places to 36th position. The release of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj after six years in the Guantanamo Bay military base contributed to this improvement. Although the absence of a federal “shield law” means the confidentiality of sources is still threatened by federal courts, the number of journalists being subpoenaed or forced to reveal their sources has declined in recent months and none has been sent to prison. But the August 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in Oakland, California, is still unpunished a year later. The way the investigation into his murder has become enmeshed in local conflicts of interest and the lack of federal judicial intervention also help to explain why the United States did not get a higher ranking. Account was also taken of the many arrests of journalists during the Democratic and Republican conventions.

(via ThinkProgress)

Radar magazine has a great interview this week with Linda Greenhouse, who recently retired after 30 years of covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

It's a long, wide-ranging interview, so I'd recommend reading the whole thing, but here's one of the best bits:  Greenhouse talking about the Court's power to make the world better — particularly in terms of advancing gay rights. She refers here to the Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas to strike down a law that essentially made it a crime to be gay.

I talk about gay rights quite a lot as a marker of how much better off we are. I believe that very strongly. I think that was probably the most gripping scene I ever witnessed at the Court—when Kennedy read the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas. Usually, when you go up to the Court, you don't know what's coming that day. But it was the last day of the term, and Lawrence was the last undecided case. So everybody knew, and the Court was filled with gay and lesbian members of the Supreme Court bar. When Kennedy got to where he said Bowers v. Hardwick was wrong when it was decided, it's wrong today, and we hereby overrule it, all these lawyers in the bar section started crying. It was just a wonderful scene. It was great.

Judith Schaeffer, our former legal director, wrote a great reflection on Lawrence v. Texas this past June, on the five-year anniversary of the landmark decision. Read it here.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza outlines John McCain’s latest kinda-sorta-maybe change in tactics (we can’t say “strategy” because at this point it’s unclear whether McCain ever had one.)  Obama partisans are most likely very happy with the McCain campaign’s performance so far, but they might want to be careful what they wish for.