Views & Voices

Hi, I'm a Christian. As a gay man, I understand all too well why those words conjure up fear, loathing, and dramatic eye rolls among my LGBT friends. But I'm proud of my faith. I love its emphasis on grace, mercy, and love. I love Jesus' teachings about forgiveness, service, putting others first, and giving people more than they deserve. I love that he was known for befriending the outcasts and "sinners" while condemning the religious leaders. We could use a little more of that attitude today! But as much as I love my faith, sometimes my fellow Christians make me want to scream. [ Read more → ]

The officials are calling the impending death of young Jadin a “suicide”. It was not a suicide; it was the destruction of something innocent, something beautiful, something of supreme contribution exposed to an environment that valued it not at all. The facts support their word perhaps. No argument. A 15 year old boy took a rope to a playground and without assistance from any visible being, hung himself. [ Read more → ]

We will never know the sort of life Whitney Houston might have had if her Mother had been just a bit more compassionate, loving and accepting toward her daughter. If she is harboring this much anger still – one can only imagine what Whitney had to listen to while she was alive. [ Read more → ]

Campus Pride executive director Shane Windmeyer revealed Monday that he and Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy are now friends, and explains that his organization has suspended its campaign against the anti-gay chicken company — which has franchises on many university campuses. But Windmeyer fails to actually explain any concrete changes taking place at the company -- Chick-fil-A is not ending the bulk of its anti-gay giving, Chick-fil-A is not implementing any LGBT-inclusive policies like nondiscrimination protections, and Dan Cathy is not apologizing for his vitriolic comments. [ Read more → ]

I always figured there were certain hateful statements my sons would make, especially ones that say I am inadequate. Such statements would come out in the future during some teen age angst scrapple where I was laying down the law and they were going for my vulnerable jugular. My sister told me once, “If your kids don’t shout out that they hate you at least a few times, then you aren’t doing it right.” Up until now, no such shout out has occurred... [ Read more → ]

I don’t want to rain on anyone’s LGBT Inaugural moment, however… Even though the President mentioned Stonewall along with Selma and Seneca Falls in the same sentence, he doesn’t really see gay marriage as a civil rights issue that needs to be helped along by the federal government. For the truth of the matter is, no matter what President Obama may say, and no matter where he is when he says it – he still believes that marriage equality belongs in the hands of the States. [ Read more → ]

David Kato advocated for the freedom of LGBTI Ugandans and for their right to their natural born sexual orientation in a heightened climate of hostility and homophobia ... Today on this second anniversary of the death of Kato, his friends, comrades, human rights defenders, and LGBTI people around the world are expressing their love, comforting each other and extolling the virtues of this great hero, with comments, memories and prayer for the peace of his dearly departed soul. [ Read more → ]

In his second inaugural address, the President called for the equality of gays and lesbians like no President has ever done. Even now, as I think about the transcript of his speech and reading those words “Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall” my throat tightens, my eyes water. With that line he presented a seminal moment in the history of gay rights – the Stonewall riots – as a transformative moment in American civil rights history. There is no question. The President of the United States, who is African-American, views the battle for gay rights as a battle for civil rights. As much as he can, he gets it. [ Read more → ]

Presidential inauguration days are often filled with pomp, circumstance, cheering crowds, and moments to remember, but rarely do they so perfectly illustrate a dramatic shift in our country’s understanding and acceptance of cultural changes. The second inauguration of President Barack Obama did just that. ... To be sure, having our President call for full equality for gay Americans in what is one of the biggest and most viewed speeches of his Presidency is monumental. [ Read more → ]

Society had it all worked out in advance for me. All the time growing up, the message though implicit was loud and clear. Any of my future romantic endeavors would concern the male kind, because I’m female. This presented difficulties when I came to realize... [ Read more → ]

George Bernard Shaw once described straight parenting a having “no test of fitness.” — yet, LGBTQ parents are beyond the “test.” ... In the present time, motivated gay people, thrilled for the opportunity we thought was denied us, are becoming parents. Higher percentages of us are adopting needy kids than our straight counterparts. A comparison between us will be unfair to a percentage of straight parents of today participating in the status quo who will come off badly. There are ten factors that make this so... [ Read more → ]

As public opinion shifts, churches that do not fully affirm LGBT people will leave many in their flock behind. Scripture that is void of compassion is merely words, and our ability to have compassion for every human being is critical to our faith and in an increasingly diverse world. If conservative Christians cannot stomach this evolution, they should not be surprised if progressive Christian traditions, like the U.S. Episcopal Church, gain more traction in society. For some, this is a necessary consequence to maintaining their biblical interpretation on homosexuality, but this shift should not be depicted as a decline of Christian beliefs in our society. [ Read more → ]

For fifty years, Bob Jones University, in Greenville, S.C., prohibited interracial dating and Bob Jones Jr. once claimed that Catholicism was a “satanic counterfeit” of fundamentalist Christianity. Despite the ugly rhetoric and vile policies, Republican candidates regularly flocked to the school and groveled for its endorsement. The GOP luminaries who appeared at the university include Ronald Reagan, Dan Quayle, and Bob Dole. This ignoble political ritual ended in 2000 after presidential candidate George W. Bush was excoriated for appearing at the school... [ Read more → ]

I don’t understand this whole philosophy that exists by some in the gay community that doesn’t tolerate any sort of weakness when it comes to a gay celebrity. This whole thing that says if you’re gay, and you’re any sort of celebrity, or have any sort of power, it’s your responsibility to pave the way for every other gay person in the world. I don’t believe its Jodie Foster’s responsibility to make my life easier. I don’t believe it should be the job of any celebrity to make my life easier... [ Read more → ]

The truth of the matter is there is misinformation about what is happening at Salem and what allowing an openly-transitioning student to remain at Salem would mean. Regardless of whether a student is considering transition or not, such a decision is in no way the concern of the college administration, Board of Trustees, or alumni but a private and personal decision of the individual and their medical professionals that should be respected... [ Read more → ]

What is it about your spirituality, your religion, that you feel you have the absolute right to judge another human being? It certainly can’t be from the teachings of the Jesus I know who simply said: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” I see nothing there of judging or intolerance – only the commandment to love one another. Period. [ Read more → ]

Dear Bob, As we enter this new year, full of promise and possibility, I realized that I could not in all fairness properly close out the old without first repaying a major debt. One that I owe to you, dear reader, for quite literally saving my life. ... You likely had no idea, when you reached for the book, that the very act of reading it could so profoundly affect me, and all for the better. How could you know, after all, that while I’d long envisioned a life for myself as a writer, until you contacted me, I’d begun to consider stopping altogether? [ Read more → ]

Rather than use his mandate from winning re-election to reward his key constituencies, President Barack Obama has poked a stick in the eye of the LGBT community by turning to former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary -- a man who had an abysmal voting record in Congress and drew criticism for using anti-gay slurs back in 1998. [ Read more → ]

The Pope has stated that gay families pose a “crisis” in which “the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the experience of being human are lost”. Meanwhile, I was taking my gay family on a trip to Disneyland. On the day we went, so did 40,000 other people. I thought about what the Pope could see if he had been there with us. We were as any other family in the park — we were photographed together, kissed and hugged each other when moved to do so, held hands, and laughed a lot... [ Read more → ]

Since the introduction of The Violence of Women Act in 1994, the bill has passed in a bipartisan manner – until now. Eric Cantor didn’t like it – so he killed the bill. He killed the bill because he and other House Republicans didn’t like the portions of the bill that had been expanded by the Senate to cover immigrants, members of the LGBT community, and the Native American community living within tribal jurisdiction. [ Read more → ]