Even a poor tour guide is entitled to some happiness.

Victory [over homophobia] may require five or maybe 20 years. Yet I have no doubt that "don't ask, don't tell" and same-sex adoption bans will be as unspeakable and inexplicable to my grandchildren as counting a slave as three-fifths of a human being.

If freedom means anything at all, it is the right to primacy in regard to sexuality, reproduction, medical care and death.

Life is nasty, brutish, and short. Death is easy.

Such is the demographic paradox of a junior physician's relationship with his patients: I worry about how to extend their lives. This anxiety inevitably shortens my own.

Catholic extremism should be resisted as fiercely at home as we oppose the Taliban abroad.

If you give a man a hammer, he thinks he can solve all problems by pounding. Well, God gave men penises.