The vast majority of Americans eat meat, lots of it, and we love it. We eat 50 percent more of it per person than we did in the 1950s, the height of our culinary steak-n-potatoes era. There are boatloads of reasons why we do it: It tastes good; it signifies prosperity; it’s an integral part of most cultures’ cuisines. Telling us we can’t have it anymore is not going to make us very happy. We will punch you.

On the other side, we are people whose religions, morals, ethics or environmentalism charge us in our good fight to stop the raising, slaughter and serving of flesh. Armed with fearsome statistics — like how livestock account for almost a full fifth of all greenhouse gases — we will throw peanut butter at you.

Wading into this mess is the supremely calm and almost dopily good-natured Meatless Monday campaign, helmed by Sid Lerner, a retired Mad Man who used his Don Draper skills to get you to squeeze the Charmin toilet paper.

Rather than try to convince anyone that eating a burger is doing the devil’s work, Lerner’s message is simple: just try skipping meat one day a week for health and the environment — which, apparently, will do more for climate change than eating an entirely local diet.

Say you have coffee and doughnuts for breakfast, a grilled cheese for lunch, and pasta with tomato sauce for dinner. That doesn’t sound so hard (or terrifyingly healthy), does it?

Lerner’s message caught on. This year, public schools in Baltimore, San Francisco and New York City have committed to Meatless Monday lunch options for their students, and big-time chefs like Mario Batali and Marcus Samuelsson make a point of offering and promoting Meatless Monday dishes.

No doubt it’s been helped by a messenger whose approach is utterly doable, utterly sane. “You can’t be saintly every day,” he said in an interview. “It’s all about incremental changes, cutting back a little here, a little there. Whatever you do, don’t despair: You can always start getting back on the wagon next Monday. It’s very forgiving.”

Because Walker had represented to the United States Olympic Committee in a suit against the “Gay Olympics,” liberal House members revolted against him and the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to confirm Walker when he was originally nominated by Reagan in 1987. It wasn’t until George H.W. Bush renominated him in 1989 that Judge Walker was confirmed to the federal bench.

He was an active Republican at the time of his nomination. He’s allegedly soft on white-collar crime.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger was a circus of a case before it even went to trial. California attorney general Jerry Brown refused to defend Proposition 8, leaving the anti-equality argument to an array of well-funded conservative groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and Campaign for California Families. Judge Walker ruled for the proceedings to be streamed live on YouTube, until the Supreme Court put the kibosh on that idea at the behest of the defendants. And the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that Walker himself was quietly, semi-openly gay. (“Life is full of irony,” he said to the paper, when asked about his anti-gay reputation.)

From the beginning, Walker had strict standards for evidence presented, and he turned what was supposed to be a practice run for a higher court case into a wide-ranging scientific examination of the claims presented by both sides. His fact-finding instructions were remarkably exhaustive — because higher courts must defer to the facts found in the original trial. He wanted evidence — provable evidence — that it harmed the state to allow same-sex marriage. He didn’t get it. The anti-equality side put forth a laughable witnesses and few sound arguments for the superiority of opposite-sex marriage. Instead of buying into their rhetoric about tradition and their assumptions about the preferability of straight parents, Walker sided with science — and fairness — and ruled the same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.

His decision was written almost directly at “swing” Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. He quoted Kennedy’s opinions repeatedly and at length, trying to convince the justice that Proposition 8 violated both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses.

Walker found no “rational basis” for state opposition to same-sex marriage, and he marshaled stacks of evidence to support his finding. Will his decision stand up in higher courts? Considering how conservative the current Supreme Court is, they could very well dismiss Walker’s decision. But Walker gave pro-equality forces the best chance possible at an upset victory.

And then, last month, Walker announced that he’ll retire in February.

“I think he believes that he’s accomplished what he’s set out to accomplish, and now he’s interested in living the rest of his life and not being chained to a court calendar,” U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said.

The courts could use more judges with Walker’s fairness, rationality, deference to logic, and sanity.

So, it was perfectly in line with his oddball persona when, moments after the Lakers secured their second consecutive championship in June, Artest thanked his psychiatrist for helping him to calm down. Few people saw significance in the remark apart from its obvious viral potential.

But in the months that followed, it became clear that this was not another instance of the forward providing amusing YouTube fodder. Artest’s comments were made in earnest; therapy had allowed him to confront lifelong issues, and the newly-anointed champion had decided to battle the stigma of mental illness among inner-city youths — a stigma that had long prevented him from seeking the help he needed.

Artest has teamed up with Rep. Grace F. Napolitano to promote the Mental Health in Schools Act and plans to auction off his only championship ring to raise money and awareness for the cause. As Artest recently told middle school students in East L.A., “When you think about mental health, you don’t have to be afraid.”

Ron Artest’s decision to advocate for mental health speaks to the power of redemption. Six years ago, Artest was considered the NBA’s resident thug, a talent few teams considered worth the risk. But he has turned it all around. Today, he is fighting to help people who are struggling the way he did for so long. Yes, it’s crazy, but Ron Artest is finally sane.

He does a great job throughout, but the kicker is his closing statement. Chris Wallace gives Olson a slimy question at the end about whether “Hollywood director and liberal Rob Reiner” got him to take on the case. Olson’s response:

We believe that a conservative value is stable relationships and a stable community and loving individuals coming together and forming a basis that is a building block of our society, which includes marriage. We believe that that is a conservative value. We also believe that it’s an important conservative value to sustain the rights of liberty of our citizens and to eliminate discrimination on invidious bases whether it’s race or sex or sexual orientation. It should be a liberal and a conservative value. It is a fundamental American value. All men and all women are created equal under the law.

He also wrote a fantastic article for Newsweek called the Conservative Case for Marriage Equality.

Money quote (hat tip: the Daily Dish): 

When we refuse to accord this status to gays and lesbians, we discourage them from forming the same relationships we encourage for others. And we are also telling them, those who love them and society as a whole that their relationships are less worthy, less legitimate, less permanent and less valued. We demean their relationships and we demean them as individuals. I cannot imagine how we benefit as a society by doing so.

Enter Robert Sarver, banker, entrepreneur and majority owner of the Phoenix Suns, Arizona’s basketball franchise. Sarver’s team was playing in the Western Conference semi-finals, and Game 2 happened to coincide with Cinco de Mayo this year. Following passage of the immigration bill, Sarver announced the team would wear special “Los Suns” jerseys “to honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona and our nation.”

Sarver went further, acknowledging Arizona’s frustration with the failure of federal immigration laws but describing the legislation as “flawed,” adding: “However intended, the result of passing the law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question … “

The Suns — or rather Los Suns — went on to win Game 2 against the San Antonio Spurs 111-102.

In a year when most of the attention was directed at a far more flamboyant owner — Yankees chief George Steinbrenner — whose death recalled a lifetime of temper tantrums, let’s give a big cheer to a level-headed and gutsy owner who used his high profile to support not only his team, but a much wider cause.