Defying Pennsylvania law, Montgomery County’s register of wills has begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Will this bold move help or hurt the cause?
Christopher Moraff
Christopher Moraff covers national politics, social justice and consumer issues for a number of publications. He writes a weekly column for Philadelphia magazine's blog "The Philly Post" and is a contributing writer for In These Times, where he serves on the Board of Editors.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The New Gay-Rights Frontier
As gay marriage gets its day at the Supreme Court, activists in New Jersey launch a new offensive in the fight for LGBT equality.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
The Budget Prescription
A spoonful of medecine may make the deficit-reduction go down.
Posted inFeatures
Latin America’s Legalization Push
South of the border, where drug violence has taken a serious toll, lawmakers are weighing their decriminalization options.
Posted inArticle
A Crack in the System
For the fourth time in 20 years the U.S. Sentencing Commission has asked lawmakers to reform mandatory cocaine sentencing policy. Might this be the year Congress listens?
Posted inArticle
Safety First
On March 13, Kim Witczak stood before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and recounted the death of her husband, Tim. Known to his friends as Woody, Witczak hung himself from the rafters of the couple’s Minneapolis garage in 2003 just five weeks after being prescribed Zoloft by his family physician. He […]
Posted inArticle
Star Wars
Timing is everything. The Bush administration declassified the text of its new National Space Policy on October 6, 2006, just a week before the topic of preventing a space arms race was scheduled to come up before the United Nations. The document the White House unveiled marked the first time in nearly ten years that […]
Posted inArticle
Along Came a Spider
When representatives from more than 100 nations gathered in Geneva late last month to celebrate a decade of international cooperation to rid the world of landmines, the United States was conspicuously absent. Indeed, the United States has always opposed those international efforts — and it is now on the cusp of actively reviving its own […]
Posted inArticle
Spills of War
For the past four weeks a mass of black sludge composed of between 15,000 and 35,000 tons of medium/heavy grade oil has been creeping unhampered up the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon. International environmental groups are calling the mid-July destruction of Beirut’s Jiyyeh Power Plant — and the massive oil spill that resulted — one of […]
Posted inArticle
Let’s Play Monopoly
A few weeks after announcing a renewed push to loosen broadcast ownership restrictions, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) met yesterday in Washington to seal Time Warner and Comcast’s acquisition of Adelphia Cable. Meanwhile, some 2,000 miles away in Sun Valley, Idaho, Time Warner’s Chief Executive Officer Richard Parsons joined representatives of the media elite for […]
