Describing people like Dede Scozzafava as a "moderate Republican" is disingenuous. She's a liberal on almost every issue…Consider the following alternative scenario: How would liberals feel if the Democratic Party had pro-life candidates who supported the war on terror, reduced taxes, voted against bailouts, didn't want government healthcare and saw the United Nations as a threat to American sovereignty?

The loss of students, apparently to charter schools in some cases, is bad news for the district's budget -- with funding based on attendance.

Local independently run charter schools added more than 9,500 students this fall, a surge of almost 19% to more than 60,000. At the same time, enrollment is down more than 19,000 students, about 3%, at schools affiliated with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Many factors affect enrollment, including birth rates, the availability of jobs and housing prices, but the growth of charter schools hasn't abated. Charters are publicly funded and operate free of many district regulations.

Washington state voters appeared to approve giving gays and lesbians in domestic partnerships the same practical rights as married couples.

Newly approved federal law recognizes that crimes committed because of the victim's sexual orientation are hate crimes

next on the federal agenda is ending employment discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Lifelong marriage traditions and deeply held religious beliefs have a strong grip on many voters.

Gays and lesbians shouldn't have to wait for an entire generation to reach voting age in order to receive equal rights.

More than 200 people are marching north on Vermont Avenue from Santa Monica Boulevard to protest Proposition 8, the measure that banned same-sex marriages in California.

The Lawry's chain of high-end steakhouses will pay more than $1 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit contending that for decades it hired only women as servers, the government said Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that a company as large as Pasadena-based Lawry's Restaurants Inc. should have known that the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited such a policy.

The case was based on a 2003 complaint by a busboy who said he was denied a higher-paid position as a waiter because of his gender.

The case was unusual because the standard employment complaint against expensive restaurants is that they fail to promote women to server positions, said Anna Y. Park, the EEOC attorney who handled the case.

Under the consent decree, Lawry's agreed to pay $500,000 to men denied jobs as waiters for the chain. Park said several hundred people might be eligible to share the compensation.

Lawry's also agreed to set aside $225,000 to train its workers to comply with discrimination laws.

The company will spend an additional $300,000 for an advertising campaign to let the public know that it now hires men as waiters.

This week's announcement that the Roman Catholic Church will welcome disaffected Anglicans en masse is of primary interest to members of the two Christian communions.

But this religious realignment is also a reminder to supporters of equality for women and gays and lesbians that they must literally preach to the converted if they are to win believers to their cause.

But Benedict's action is part of a formidable religious backlash against gay rights that isn't confined to the pulpit; witness the lobbying by some religious leaders against same-sex civil marriages.

Under the 1st Amendment, churches in this country can't be forced to alter their doctrine or to stop preaching against the supposed immorality of homosexuality.

Even so, supporters of gay rights in particular -- many of them Christians -- should try to dispel the notion that belief in God is incompatible with full equality for gays and lesbians.

Now as before the pope's action, Christians can be reminded -- as they have been by both Anglican and Catholic theologians -- that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality and that church leaders, including popes, have changed their thinking over the years about everything from usury to the culpability of Jews for the Crucifixion to the desirability of religious tolerance.

• The Constitution limits the federal government, and should thereby work to prevent government’s intrusion into the lives of citizens.
• Some responsibilities of government are - and should be - reserved for the President, some for Congress, some for the Supreme Court, some for the states, and some for people to work out by themselves, including by forming voluntary associations.
• It isn't the responsibility of the President or the federal government in general to try to solve all problems.
• Changing something through law or government policy can make things worse.
• Human rights are God-given or natural, not granted by governments.
• People should be as free as possible to enjoy the fruits of their own decisions and work.
• People should generally be free to do what they want with what they own, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of other people.
• There are real differences between men and women in addition to reproductive organs.
• Both masculinity and femininity have value and contribute positively to society.
• Parents should be responsible for and have authority over their own minor children, only overridden by government intrusion when they demonstrate they are neglectful or otherwise abusive parents.
• Unless one of them is abusive, it is best that children are raised with both their mother and father who are married to each other.
• It is better that a baby be born and adopted by such a family than for the baby's mother to have an abortion.
  
• If someone who practices a religion you don't says they do or will pray for you, you respond with "thank you", not negativity or hostility.
  
• People should be treated differently by government based on what they do, not their skin color, ethnicity, beliefs, or sexual orientation.
• Since immigrants choose to come here, they need to adapt enough to live by our laws and policies; we're under no obligation to change to accommodate their traditions.
  
• Our nation should defend itself with force, which will sometimes involve killing people and breaking things in other countries.

Come to think of it, is there a single prominent voice against divorce that the marriage neutering advocates have ever been anything but hostile towards?