Views & Voices

My name is Issak. I am a high school senior at Red Lion Area High School in Pennsylvania. As a student who happens to be transgender, my life isn’t all that different from other students in my class, except that I came out the summer before my junior year and have been going by my male name ever since. I try hard to make good grades, work at a part –time job, and have a wonderfully supportive family and an awesome girlfriend... [ Read more → ]

I can not help but be in awe of the horrible force that homophobia still exerts in our world. It is the force that inspires a mob to destroy a teenage girl, it is the power that drives a family to abandon a daughter at a time when she needs them most, and, worst of all, it is a hatred that through its destruction can turn the brightest, most unconditional love a human being can experience in on itself and into a dark and evil grief that devours every iota of life... [ Read more → ]

For those of you who wonder why it is I continue to write about equality issues and continue to ask you all to not give up the fight for what is right and just in this world, and wonder why marriage equality is so very important, it is because of Carolyn Compton, Page Price and their children. They are the reason. And because it could be you or me standing in a court room, watching helplessly as a homophobic judge wields his gavel down on us... [ Read more → ]

On Mother’s Day mornings, my son, Jesse, leads the way in bringing me breakfast in bed with flowers. He got the idea on his own three years ago at the age of seven. “You do everything their mothers do,” he explained at the time. “This is your day, too.” So with that, I would like to send you an open Mother’s Day Card for all LGBT parents, including gay, bisexual, and transgender dads. I offer this up as a Father’s Day Card for all lesbian, bisexual, and transgender moms, as well... [ Read more → ]

I remember vividly, a moment as a thirteen or fourteen-year-old Arkansas kid, sitting on a pew at the First Baptist Church. While the preacher delivered his message, I was busy praying. I was asking God to make me bisexual. Not for acceptance, and not for fear of sinning, but because for my young, sheltered mind, it was the only way to one day become a father. Often in small, southern towns like mine, people manipulate religion to cause turmoil for LGBT people, and anti-gay folk hold the Bible up as the reason for their intolerance... [ Read more → ]

An openly LGBT cabinet secretary would be another milestone for LGBT inclusion and an important symbol of pride for our community — but let’s be clear, this should not be a key priority for our community. Moreover, the idea that this would be a mark of failure on the part of the President doesn’t sit well with me. ... To me, a “key priority” for our community should be something tangible that actually advances our equality or improves our lives through policy or action. [ Read more → ]

New York State’s transgender residents have suffered severe discrimination, harassment, and even violence. But, listening to the general debate, you would think the only thing this bill did was allow men to go into women’s bathrooms and showers. As is the case every time GENDA comes up for a vote (or even just discussion), some argued that this would endanger women’s safety in bathrooms, with men who are not actually transgender claiming to be women just to invade women’s private spaces... [ Read more → ]

Do you consider Jason Collins a hero for coming out as the first professional gay male athlete? What about Ellen DeGeneres or Anderson Cooper, Neil Patrick Harris or Rachel Maddow? Are they heros? First, let’s be clear on the definition of the word hero. Dictionary.com defines the word hero as such: "a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities." [ Read more → ]

The Mormon church surprised many last week with its announcement supporting the proposed Boy Scout policy allowing gay scouts but not gay leaders. Having spent most of my life as a Mormon and having served in its local leadership, I wasn’t surprised at all. Here’s why. Though not true until relatively recently, the Mormon church does allow gay people to be members and even to have some local leadership jobs, as long as they stay strictly celibate... [ Read more → ]

I have a confession to make. As much as I loathe clichés and generalizations, there is one that I live up to with incredible gusto. I typify the gay guy who doesn’t do sports. Not even a little bit. From the pains of never getting picked for teams in PE to the days of racking up huge Trivial Pursuit momentum only to be demolished by the final Orange pie question (for those too young for the original Trivial Pursuit, that was the “sports” category), I am the ultimate sports nerd... [ Read more → ]

I have a lovely friend. She is a transgender woman who lives in Nigeria. Her dream, at present denied her, is to be a professional dancer and actress. In her heart and in her spirit, she is both. As I think about her, I imagine the words and music from the song “Mirror and the Music” from the show A Chorus Line encompassing her as she goes to sleep each night... [ Read more → ]

Wednesday marks the two year anniversary of the brutal death of Noxolo Nogwaza, a South African lesbian and LGBT rights activist. In 2011, 24-year-old Noxolo, organizer of the Ekurhuleni Pride Committee, was murdered in South Africa, while on her way home from a night out with friends. Her attackers raped, repeatedly beat and stabbed her, apparently because of her sexual orientation, before dumping her body in a drainage ditch. Two years after her death, no progress has been made into the investigation of her murder... [ Read more → ]

I really don’t know why I can’t seem to see these things coming. I blog about them. I write about prejudices, I have argued with countless anti-gay people, and I have diligently parented to the best of my ability. And yet, these situations emerge and again, I am caught like the proverbial deer in the headlights, unsure which path to take, and positive that all choices lead to certain destruction... [ Read more → ]

Marriage Equality is about being able to hold the hand of the person you love when they are sick and need your love and compassion the most. It’s about making decisions that all people will eventually have to make about life and death, and who you want with you at the end of your life. Two men have all the legal papers they were told they needed. They followed the law, and still, one man is in a hospital bed while his life partner is restrained and dragged from the premises. [ Read more → ]

Jokes are supposed to be funny. They always start with a set up and then build to a crescendo where the plot twists and the listener bursts out laughing. Last week a “joke” went viral, but no one was left laughing. The “joke” was an article titled, “Parents put 16-year-old daughter up for adoption after learning she is gay." ... The piece was written as humor…satire… but none of the 72,000 who shared it took it that way. They believed it to be real. Who could blame them? [ Read more → ]

Although we just had an election, Rick Santorum, as tireless as he is tiresome, is already stumping in Iowa to prepare for his next defeat. His willful ignorance and woeful arrogance personifies why the GOP is losing the next generation of voters. Santorum, for instance, attacked marriage equality and foolishly pretended the huge cultural shift on this issue was no more than a passing fad – like a Hula Hoop or a Rubik’s cube... [ Read more → ]

There are just some people who will go to their graves believing what they believe. That is their journey – that is their little bit of racism, hatred and discrimination they will have to answer for. I believe at this moment in time, the red on the equality map needs to be celebrated. I believe the acceptance and support of our friends and families and co-workers and strangers needs to be celebrated, for these are the people who will stand by us and love us and help us to win whatever battles may lie ahead... [ Read more → ]

Mark Sanford perfectly encapsulates the particular sanctimony the Right reserves for homosexuality. Republican politicians perfected this selective intolerance back when gay people were a convenient political punching bag – an unfamiliar other with whom the majority could not immediately identify. Since then, gay people have come out of the closet in droves and most Americans have come to embrace gay rights. But the GOP is sticking with its reflex condemnation of gay people. Does it trouble Mark Sanford or give him any pause at all as he goes from being the ambassador of international love back to his embrace of a position that is now laughingly hypocritical? [ Read more → ]

My 10-year-old son Jesse had big plans Easter morning. His desire to rise early was not to go searching for the Easter basket the mystical bunny was likely to have left him, it was to make French toast as a surprise for me, his dad. That special pleasing Dad bond is an important one for many young boys. Jesse was not alone in that objective. Three thousand miles away, another boy, Nolan Cranford was preparing to please his dad. Unlike my son, Nolan’ endeavors did not involve syrup and buttery niceness. The way to his dad’ heart was to shout at exiting Church goers and condemn them to hell... [ Read more → ]

So it's over. Two days that are now part of LGBT history. Two back-to-back arguments at the United States Supreme Court, with most of the country paying attention—hearing about our lives, our relationships, and how discriminatory government policies and voter initiatives mark us as inferior, unequal, and vulnerable. In Wednesday's case, the issue was section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which withholds federal protection and recognition from same-sex spouses. Once again, the Justices were not only engaged, but talked about us in terms we have rarely heard in these hallowed halls... [ Read more → ]