Constitutional Law

Bloomberg's Sneaky Fix For All Those Stop-and-Frisk Lawsuits

Anti-Islamic Subway Ad Scuffle: Time To Pick Sides

It took just over 24 hours for several subway ads featuring an offensive, anti-Islamic message were vandalized, which, somehow, has led to a debate about the First Amendment, as apparent in the comment section of our story abut the vandals posted yesterday.The entire debate is a bit of an enigma/com ... More >>

Gay Inc Takes On Stop and Frisk, the NAACP Goes to the Stonewall Inn, and Other Signs of the "Black/Gay Divide"

So, the promised fallout between blacks and gays continues! Four weeks after President Obama came out for same-sex marriage, today will see one of the most significant signs of a new alliance between traditional race-based civil rights groups and the current wave of LGBT oriented civil rights group ... More >>

The Obama Effect: From the NAACP to 50 Cent, Black Leaders Back Gay Marriage

It's fair to call it the Obama Effect: leaders in the black community, old and young, political and cultural, are coming out of the closet to back same-sex marriage. And they are a motley crew, from the legacy NAACP, to the rapper 50 Cent, who just a couple years ago suggested that if you're a man " ... More >>

President Obama: Will He Come Out Today For Gay Marriage?

Update: President Obama has indeed come out of the closet, telling ABC news that he does, in fact, support the right for same-sex couples to get married. Read our report, with reactions from New Yorkers, here. It's been a rough few days for President Obama on the gay marriage question, although he ... More >>

Christine Quinn, Bride To Be This Month, Reacts To Obama's Gay Matrimony Approval

Christine Quinn, the Speaker of the City Council, frontrunner for being the Democratic nomination as the next mayor, and bride to be this month, gave her pleasant reaction to Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriages this afternoon. Says Quinn, in the above video, "For me, someone's who's getting m ... More >>

Jazz Hayden and the Fight Against Stop-and-Frisk

An unlikely activist's battle with the NYPD's frisky business

21 Voice Stories from 2011 That Melted Even This Grizzled Journalist's Heart to Report

James Worrell​Looking back, 2011 has been quite a year, especially on the gay rights front, one of our major beats. Like the cardiac organ caught in a bear trap accompanying Jen Doll's "Plight of the Single Lady," there were times when, objective reporter or not, the stories we were reporting ... More >>

Adrian Schoolcraft, Police Officer, Wins Round One In Legal Battle With City, Jamaica Hospital

​Adrian Schoolcraft, the police officer forced into the Jamaica Hospital psychiatric ward by police three weeks after he reported misconduct to investigators, has won round 1 in his legal battle against the city. Schoolcraft's saga was the subject a five-part Village Voice series published la ... More >>

Nixon Wins, But Nat Hentoff Has a Beef with Ed Koch

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives. November 16, 1972, Vol. XVII, No. 46 Next year in Fear City by Nat Hentoff This was going to be the first of a non-consecutive series of probes into the reasons for and the consequences of the Nixon victory, with particular emphasis on ... More >>

Patriot Act Fail Is A Civil Liberties Win, For Now

​The House of Representatives failed on Tuesday night to extend three security measures in the post-9/11 Patriot Act, voting 277-148 to push the provisions through 2011, but failing to reach the required two-thirds majority, the Washington Post reports. For those doing math at home, that's sev ... More >>

The Feds Bury Border Patrol Abuses of Immigrants, But What's Been Unearthed Reveals a Culture of Cruelty

Anti-Gay Activists Outed by Supreme Court

Just in time for Pride Weekend, the Supreme Court has booted thousands of anti-gay activists out of the closet yesterday, who were terrified of being outed as bigots. In an unusual, near unanimous 8 to 1 decision, the court ruled that people who signed a petition to repeal Washington State's "everyt ... More >>

Rand Paul: He May Be a Fool, Say Rightbloggers, But He's Our Fool

"Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show With some smart-ass New York Jew And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too Well, he may be a fool but he's our fool..." -- Randy Newman, "Rednecks" Last week, fresh from winning the GOP nomination for Senator Jim ... More >>

Bed-Stuy Councilwoman Calls for Investigation and Public Protest in the Wake of the Voice's 'NYPD Tapes' Series

​City Councilwoman Darlene Mealy is calling for an investigation into orders given by 81st Precinct supervisors that may have led to civil rights violations, and said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly needs to do something about the issues raised in The Village Voice's "NYPD Tapes" series. (Part ... More >>

Harvey Milk's Birthday: Chatting with Cleve Jones

Tomorrow is Harvey Milk's birthday. It's an official holiday in California for the first time (signed into law last year by the Terminator), and will be marked here in the city by a march beginning at the GLBT Center at noon. Runnin' Scared spoke to the real-life Cleve Jones on the phone (portr ... More >>

Tea Partiers Drop N Bombs, Anti-gay Slur, and Spit on Democratic Lawmakers at Capitol Hill Protest

cj brenchley​Members of the Congressional Black Caucus leaving a speech on health care by the President yesterday were met by tea party protesters chanting "Kill the bill, nigger." The incident has been confirmed by Congressmen John Lewis (D-Ga), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo), Andre Carson (D-In), an ... More >>

'Crash' Director Paul Haggis Ditches Scientology

"I am only ashamed that I waited this many months to act. I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology." ​Over the past few days, a remarkable letter was published in four parts at the blog of Marty Rathbun, a former high-level Scientology official who has left the church and no ... More >>

Clip Job: Threats to Civil Liberties Increasingly Multiple

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives April 15, 1965, Vol. X, No. 26 The Name Game By Nat Hentoff Nearly everyone in New York is, of course, for civil rights in Alabama. There are even some who are for civil rights in both places. But a feeling of urgency about civil libe ... More >>

Justice Denies: Feds won't stop Bloomie's term limits coup

Yesterday afternoon, the Justice Department shot down one of the last legal challenges to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's controversial term limits extension. In a fifty-page appeal, lawmakers and civil rights groups had asked the federal government last month to consider the term limits extension a violatio ... More >>

3rd Time's The Charm? Siegel and Mastro Ask the Feds to Restore Term Limits

After losing their federal lawsuit challenging the City Council's right to overturn term limits for Mayor Bloomberg, advocates are turning to the federal government. Last month veteran civil rights attorney (and current candidate for public advocate) Norman Siegel, along with the corporate law fir ... More >>

A Brooklyn College Grad Experiences the Constitution in a Cage

Torture in Manhattan for 28-year-old Muslim American Sayed Fahad Hashmi

Tally Ho!: The GOP's Hounding of Voters

Joe Frederick, First Amendment Idol

Will the Supreme Court hold high the banner 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus,' or crush free speech?

Mugging the Minutemen

Forcibly silenced, an invited speaker at Columbia has not been invited back.

Arlen Specter's Sellout

Senate Judiciary Committee chair intent on rescuing Bush from felony charges

Her Right to Be Obnoxious

Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned

New York Times v. Janice Rogers Brown

Black woman nominated to a high federal appellate court is still scandalized

Speaking of Filibusters

There's a long, rich history of big-time talkers. You have a few hours?

Extreme Makeover

Martha's finally rehabilitated, unlike 1.5 million other ex-felons

Bush's Unprecedented Attack on African Americans

Still Digging

A reporter hunts racist murderers, but does a verdict mean the case is closed?

Voter's Digest

The latest election fraud warnings

The Ripple Effect

Confusion over felon voting bans keeps even the eligible from the polls

Political Prisoners

Minorities struggle to break free of felon voting bans

Off the Court

New bill would block federal judges from hearing key gay-marriage cases

Whose Dream?

Why the black church opposes gay marriage

The Nader Interview

Stop Building 'an American Sparta'

Old-school: Looking back on the civil rights movement

Supreme Court's Gag Rule on Us

'The Powerful Have Only Gotten More Powerful'

Fierce Watchdog of the Constitution

'Civil Liberty Is Why We Have This Country'

The Once and Former Rule of Law

Could Ashcroft Pass a Quiz on the Constitution?

Activists Push Back at NYPD

Rescuing Protest Before Bush '04

Free Speech and Funding Fears

CUNY Law Says No Thanks to Lynne Stewart

Al vs. the Dems

Presidential Candidate Sharpton Goes After His Party

Trent Lott, Call Home

Why Should We Be Glad He's Still in the Senate?

Post–9-11 Civil Rights

If You're Black, Who's Got Your Back?

The NYPD Wants to Watch You

Nation's Largest Law Enforcement Agency Vies for Total Spying Power

Letters

The Soldier of the Constitution

Keeping the FBI Lawful