On the surface, it seems like something on which both Democrats and Republicans could agree: There's a gender gap in the workforce, and it needs to be addressed. Women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn -- 64 cents for African American women and 56 cents for Latinas -- which adds up to a loss of about $431,000 over the course of their professional lives. No one, on either side of the aisle, wants women to be discriminated against in the workplace.

Why women's pay growth slows at age 30 and peaks by 39

And yet, the Paycheck Fairness Act failed in the Senate on Tuesday. The procedural vote was along party lines, with 46 Republicans voting against it, 50 Democrats voting for it, two independent senators joining the Democrats, and Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois not voting at all, The Hill reported. The bill needed 60 votes in order to pass; Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada changed his vote to "no" in order to bring the bill up again later.

"It is

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Major media outlets tend to turn to men for insight on major election-year issues, a new study shows -- even when the issues primarily concern women.

Related: Nobel Peace Prize winner Leyman Gbowee asks: Where are all the angry American women?

According to 4th Estate, a project that tracks media coverage of the 2012 election, when it came to news stories on abortion, 81 percent of the quotes published or broadcast by newspapers and news shows were from men, 12 percent were from women, and 7 percent were from organizations. When the stories were about birth control, 75 percent of the quotes were from men, 19 percent from women, and 6 percent from organizations.

"In our analysis of news stories and transcripts from the past 6 months, men are much more likely to be quoted on their subjective insight in newspapers and on television," 4th Estate, a project that tracks media coverage of the 2012 election, wrote in their analysis. "This pattern holds true across all major news outlets,

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According to data from a new Gallup poll released today, the number of Americans who identify themselves as pro-choice is at a record low.

When asked, "With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?", 41 percent of American adults -- a new record low -- said that they're pro-choice, down from 47 percent last July. Fifty percent replied that they consider themselves pro-life, compared with about 46 percent last year -- close to the record set in May 2009, when 51 percent of those polled said they were pro-life.

When Gallup started asking Americans about their views on abortion, in 1995, 56 percent said they were pro-choice and 33 percent said they were pro-life.

Related: Georgia lawmaker counters abortion bill with one restricting vasectomies

The decline in pro-choice supporters was consistent across political party lines. Among Republicans, the number of people who identified as pro-choice fell from 28 percent to 22 percent while t

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When President Obama publicly announced his support of gay marriage on May 9, homosexuals and same-sex marriage supporters nationwide rejoiced.

While some-gay and straight alike-have questioned what kind of change the President's announcement would actually effect (at least in the short term), there seemed to be little question: Obama has the gay vote locked down.

This may be true. Though, of course, not all gays care about gay marriage, nor will all gays be voting Democrat come November.

Yes, gay Republicans do exist. Even in the blue states. Some of them are as "out" about their sexuality, as they are their politics, despite the fact that conservatives generally have not supported-and have even crusaded against-gay rights. How do you support a party that doesn't support you back? Isn't that kind of like being a pacifist who belongs to the NRA?

Karl, 31, from Baltimore, MD, chooses the party that best fits his beliefs. But it's not a perfect match. Though he believes in marria

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By Leslie Marshall

There's an old song called "Spinning Wheel" from back in the day and one of the lines is "what goes up, must come down." That is so true if you look at the polls during this residential election. They seem to change hourly and many of them completely contradict one another.

Take for example the CBS/New York Times poll showing Mitt Romney up by 2 percent over President Obama with women. Gallup shows the president up by 8 percent over Romney, and many other polls show the president doing much better among female voters than Mitt Romney.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 campaign.]

Now of course different polls use different methodology. Some use robocalls, some use live person-to-person callers. (The latter I feel are more accurate.) Could the president have lost so many female voters in a day or so?! He could have, but that isn't very likely.

Now those on the right will argue that the president's support of gay marriage is the

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