  We examine the gauge dependence of lower bounds on the Higgs mass obtained
from the requirement that the electroweak vacuum be the global minimum of the
effective potential. We study a simple model, the spontaneously-broken Abelian
Higgs model coupled to a chiral quark doublet in a two-parameter gauge and
demonstrate that the lower bounds on the Higgs mass obtained in this model are
dependent on the choice of gauge parameters. We discuss the significance of
this result for calculations in the Standard Model.
