Is signing a petition and delivering it to the government a public act, like voting on a bill in the legislature or contributing money to a campaign? Or is it more like casting a secret ballot at the polling place?

Toleos said, "We don't ask people to go confront strangers. This is about finding someone they already know -- a cousin, a friend and co-worker -- and having a civil dialogue."

Physical attacks on people based on their sexual orientation will join the list of federal hate crimes in a major expansion of the civil rights-era law Congress approved Thursday and sent to President Barack Obama.

The measure is named for Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming college student murdered 11 years ago.

To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill the Senate approved 68-29. The House passed the defense bill earlier this month.

Conservatives have opposed it, arguing that it creates a special class of victims.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, hailed the bill as "our nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Too many in our community have been devastated by hate violence."

The measure also provides federal grants to help state and local governments prosecute hate crimes and funds programs to combat hate crimes committed by juveniles.

The FBI says more than half of reported hate crimes are motivated by racial bias. Next most frequent are crimes based on religious bias, at around 18 percent, and sexual orientation, at 16 percent.

"Nothing in this legislation diminishes an American's freedom of religion, freedom of speech or press or the freedom to assemble," said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. "Let me be clear. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act targets acts, not speech."

Supporting the government's healthcare reform efforts should be a no-brainer if you're a woman.

That's according to Marcia Greenberger, copresident of the National Women's Law Center, who testified at a Senate hearing last week that the health insurance industry is rife with "unfair and discriminatory practices... including gender rating, the exclusion of healthcare services that only women need, and pre-existing-condition denials."

Women get charged more, Greenberger tells me, because they see doctors more often than men do--at least before age 55.

"While some companies do charge men more from ages 55 to 65, at which point Medicare kicks in, others continue to charge women more or just give very small price breaks," she says.

The insurance industry, however, says it also supports fixing this problem.

Reproductive rights groups, like Planned Parenthood, have been launching offensives this week to ignite a little activism.

The Vatican announced a stunning decision Tuesday to make it easier for Anglicans to convert, reaching out to those who are disaffected by the election of women and gay bishops to join the Catholic Church's conservative ranks.

Pope Benedict XVI approved a new church provision that will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining many of their distinctive spiritual and liturgical traditions, including having married priests.

The new Catholic church entities, called personal ordinariates, will be units of faithful established within local Catholic Churches, headed by former Anglican prelates who will provide spiritual care for Anglicans who wish to be Catholic.

They would most closely resemble Catholic military ordinariates, special units of the church established in most countries to provide spiritual care for the members of the armed forces and their dependents.

Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.

The new canonical provision allows married Anglican priests and even seminarians to become ordained Catholic priests - much the same way that Eastern rite priests who are in communion with Rome are allowed to be married. However, married Anglicans couldn't become Catholic bishops.

With ballot initiatives, voters can set in cement laws and constitutional amendments that will govern the state long after they are dead or have moved away, even if a new majority of Californians would like something different.

Such a direct democracy isn't worthy of the name. It isn't very direct, and it isn't particularly democratic.

Successful reform in this area should not restrict voters or lawmakers. It should seek to free them, and give them more power and discretion -- but it should do so in ways that allow better checks and balances. This could be accomplished with four changes to the current system: Make initiatives subject to the same rules as legislation.

This would mean that, like bills in the Legislature, initiatives would be submitted to the legislative counsel's office for vetting. The drafter of any initiative that added to state or local budgets would have to convince that office that the measure proposed enough revenue to cover those costs.

More important, initiatives would no longer be immune from legislative amendment. Any initiative that passed could be amended or eliminated by the Legislature after being in place for two years -- the length of a legislative session.

As a corollary, any initiative that seeks to impose supermajority requirements would itself have to pass by a supermajority.

Currently, an amendment may be added with a simple majority vote of the people. But the constitution cannot be revised except by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and a vote of the people. This dynamic -- making it easier to add than to edit -- is one reason California's Constitution has grown so long.

Under the current system, the Legislature holds hearings on each initiative, but there is no formal mechanism for negotiations between initiative sponsors and lawmakers. There should be. An initiative that gains enough signatures should first be put to an up-or-down vote by the Legislature. In addition, lawmakers should be able to offer amendments that an initiative sponsor may accept or reject.

Reform to the initiative process must also address an oft-neglected tool of California's direct democracy, the referendum -- a measure that permits voters to undo an act of the Legislature.

The signature-gathering standard for a referendum should be lowered substantially, perhaps to 1% of the number of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election.

• Not all problems are going to be solved in this lifetime.
• There are not only other - but better - ways to solve most problems than by a federal government program.
• The Constitution tells the federal government what it can do; otherwise, the federal government isn’t to interfere. If you want the government to get involved in something not currently assigned to it by the Constitution, then amend the Constitution.
• Unconstitutional government involvement usually begets more unconstitutional government involvement.
  
• Capitalism is unavoidable. The more restrictions placed on it, the smaller the percentage of the population that will be able to use their resources to the fullest and enjoy the fruits of their work the way they see fit; only the elite, connected, wealthy, or criminal will be able to circumvent the restrictions.
  
• Some people are going to make more out of their resources than others, and they shouldn’t be punished for doing so. People should be celebrated for making the most of the resources under their control.
• With free markets, the pie gets bigger for everyone.
• Someone else having more money than you is not automatically evidence of injustice.
• Disagreeing with President Obama’s proposals and decisions does not make someone a racist.
• People who judge other people on the natural color of their skin are being foolish.
• As long as they are minors, your kids are your responsibility. You chose to make them; they didn’t choose it, and nobody else chose to make your kids. This means that some things you want will have to take a back seat to what your kids need.
• I don't blame women for the evils of men, but I don't blame men for the evils of women. I blame people for their own sins - including myself for my own.
  
• Having your genitals surgically altered, taking hormones, dressing differently, and calling yourself by a different name does not really change your sex.
• There are things more evil in this world than hypocrisy. Getting busted for doing an evil you have preached against means you should haven’t done that thing, not that you shouldn’t have preached against it. Someone who does that thing and fails to speak the truth by preaching against it is not more noble. This word is frequently misused, as it means saying one thing while believing something contrary. People do things they know are wrong all of the time. People also have done things in the past that they thought were OK but now they know better, and say so. In neither case are these people hypocrites, especially not in the second case.
  
• Not all cultures are equal. Some cultures are better than others. The primary mission of American education should be to pass down American culture to the next generation.
• If you came to this country, then clearly you like something about our culture enough that you bothered to come here, and you should adopt our culture instead of subverting it.
• That you don’t like the way the world seems to be is not proof that God doesn’t exist.
• Whether or not Jesus Christ lives or is Lord is not determined by what any professor, politician, preacher, performer, or scientist thinks. 
• Believing that some people will go to Hell is not the same as taking steps to hasten their arrival.
• I will not try to force my religion down your throat, but I will represent myself with my vote and other political actions.