Homosexuals were with us in Auschwitz and were persecuted along with Jews throughout Western societies for the past several thousand years, so we stand with them in the struggle for full acceptance and full legal equality, including marriage equality, in the 21st century. But even had they not shared our fate, the denial of rights and the double standards used to justify such denials are always a threat to Jews as well as to everyone else on the planet!

The rights of homosexuals are supported by an overwhelming majority of the American Jewish community. That support is not only based on a memory of shared victimhood, but also on the core values of our own Jewish tradition. The Torah's command to "love our neighbor" and "love the Other [or 'stranger,' Hebrew ger]" are intrinsic to how most American Jews understand our Jewish obligations today. The current (July/August) issue of Tikkun magazine has as its major focus "Queer Spirituality & Politics" with a powerful essay by Jay Michaelson on "Why Gay Rights Is a Religious Issue" plus other essays by Starhawk, Jay Bakker, Yvette A. Flunder, Emi Kyami, Joy Ladin, Parvez Sharma, Andrea Smith, Dean Space, Ruth Vanita and other GLBTQ writers and thinkers. In fact, Tikkun was the first place to publish an essay by a then-closeted homosexual rabbi discussing his struggle, and we have severely criticized those parts of the Jewish religious world which still do not sanctify gay marriages. As a rabbi, I've had the honor to conduct many such marriages in the San Francisco Bay Area, as have many of my colleagues around the country in the Jewish Renewal movement, in the Reform movement, and in the Reconstructionist movement.

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No offense to the Dutch, but it seems entirely reasonable to suspect that today's semifinal showdown between Spain and Germany will eclipse whatever World Cup final ultimately transpires. Germany has been playing far and away the most dynamic attacking football in the tournament, and pretty much the best football period, having so thoroughly dismantled England and Argentina. Perennial underachievers Spain, meanwhile, haven't fully lived up to expectations, but when they're at their best, their meticulous possession game can't be topped. Having reached the World Cup semifinals for the first time, the pre-tournament favorite Spaniards will no doubt feel a particular pressure to triumph in this rematch of the Euro 2008 final (which they won), whereas Germany seem comfortable playing the carefree, if supremely confident, underdogs. And that was before the ever-prescient Paul the Octopus picked Spain to win! This feels like the real final, even if it's not.

Germany will unfortunately today be without the services of 20-year-old Thomas Muller, perhaps the breakout star of the tournament, after he picked up a harsh yellow card for an incidental handball against Argentina. But they won't be lacking for creativity and firepower due to their stellar crop of dynamic young players, led by the crafty Mesut Ozil. As for the German old guard, striker Miroslav Klose is having yet another banner World Cup and is just one goal shy of tying Ronaldo for the all-time World Cup record of 15. However, he still trails the red-hot David Villa of Spain for this tournament's Golden Boot, as the Barcelona man has found the back of the net 5 times so far, picking up the slack for his out-of-form strike partner Fernando Torres.

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What do the ACLU, the former director of the NSA and a tech industry lawyer all have in common (and this is not a joke)? They believe that the government's recent request to let the FBI get Americans' internet use records in national security investigations without going to court, and without any suspicion of wrongdoing, is a huge expansion of authority that would open floodgates of sensitive information to the FBI.

National security letters (NSLs) are rather informal requests for records the FBI can use to obtain people's communication, financial and credit information. These requests are not approved by a court, and the FBI does not have to suspect you of actually being a terrorist, spy or criminal; the only thing they have to do to get your records is certify to themselves (not a court) that you are "relevant" to an investigation. To make matters worse, the FBI has the power to prohibit any internet service provider, bank or credit company from which it demands sensitive customer records from ever disclosing anything about the record demand. (The ACLU has challenged the constitutionality of this "gag" power in three cases). An audit by the Department of Justice Inspector General found that in the mid-2000s, the FBI issued upwards of 50,000 national security letters, often to get information about U.S. citizens, and sometimes to get info on people two or three times removed from an actual suspect. There is currently no information on the total numbers of NSLs issued every year.

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Brent Lang of The Wrap just doesn't get it. Plain and simple. In his provocatively-titled piece 'Zac Efron and the Incredible Shrinking Teen Idol Stars', Land submits that the newest generation of young stars (Zac Efron, Robert Pattinson, Miley Cyrus, etc) have disappointed at the box office even as the numbers he uses fail to bear that out. Once again, a pundit has fallen into the classic trap: Because a movie star's latest movie has failed to match up with his or her all-time best performances, said actor's star must be fading. But it fails to take into account two obvious factors: not every film an actor makes is identical in appeal and marketability, and a star cannot be expected to top their previous best every time out of the gate.