McNichol, 49, who has lived with her partner Martie Allen, also 49, for the past two decades, said she decided to reveal her sexual orientation because she is “approaching 50″ and wants to “be open about who I am,” reported People magazine.

McNichol said that by coming out, she hopes to inspire children who are dealing with bullies.

She “is very sad about kids being bullied,” her publicist, Jeff Ballard, told People. “She hopes that coming out can help kids who need support. She would like to help others who feel different.”

McNichol has also starred in several films, including “Little Darlings” in 1980 with Tatum O’Neal.

In 1992, McNichol was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and subsequently ended her television career.

“She is very happy and healthy,” Ballard said. “And she enjoys living a very private life.”

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. To every man who makes a difference in someone’s life, and teaches people to have no fear.

Randy Slovacek

I’m inviting everyone to tune in, shout out and don’t be afraid to have an opinion.

Growing up in Texas, I was a pretty afraid of a lot of the world. Afraid to express myself, afraid I wouldn’t be liked, afraid I wouldn’t get where I wanted to go. I went to Syracuse University for college – blinding change of temperature, tone and scenery. Opened up my world a bit as a got through four freezing cold years, spent over $40K and walked away with a piece of paper saying that I had done something.

I moved to NYC with my best friend Carlye to pursue dreams of being on Broadway, and eventually got there after serving time in many National touring companies of those Broadway shows I dreamed of being a part of.

In those years I came to deal with the fact that I was gay, fell out of the closet, fell in love with my husband Michael, moved out west, got married and began a new chapter. You’ll be hearing much more about Carlye and Michael in future posts.

Somewhere along the way I realized life had taught me a lot about fear and it’s uselessness. I once heard the phrase “I’m not afraid of anything” and I really liked how that sounded. I really try to honor that. Even if a little fear creeps into a life moment, I chalk it up to reminding me I’m alive. But most of the time, I try to keep heading forward.

I’m not so worried about what people think of me anymore, or what people will think of how I express my thoughts. I think it’s the American Way to live and let live, to honor our differences and realize that all our flavors create the best country in the world. I have no time for people who have issues with anyone who is “different.” Different is good. And if you believe that, you have to take it to the bank. Live it. So skin color, hair color, religion or lack thereof, sexual orientation, age, blah blah blah…. it all makes life interesting. At least to me.

Short story: My father loved to travel and loved adventure. Before he died at the age of 91, he had traveled everywhere in the world several times over. Sometimes by himself, meeting new friends along the way. My mother had passed away when I was five, so my father was THE grown up figure in my life. He was very confident, and throughout childhood I always knew I wanted his approval. I wanted him to be proud of me. To not only love me, but see me attempt something and hear him say “good job.”

When I was very young my father took my brother and me to Mexico for a vacation. For me as a 7 year old, Mexico was a very different world. Other than a swimming pool at a hotel, I was scared of a lot. At one point we were on a beach and my father signed my 9 year old brother Gary up to go para-sailing. They strapped Gary into the harness, and up and away he went. It didn’t seem like adventure to me so much as just plain frightening. When the time came for the ride to end, my brother was so small and light in weight and the wind was so strong, it was difficult to get him down to the ground. It took ten minutes for the “technicians” to get him down. My father turned to me and said “you’re next” and I went running away, crying. Scared to death. That was Mexico to me for a long, long time.

Fast forward to two years ago. I was on vacation with friends of mine and we all decided to go zip lining through the jungle near Puerto Vallarta. I couldn’t wait. Loved it. Taking a zip line hundreds of feet above the jungle floor was beyond exhilarating. The guides asked my name at the start of the day and I gave myself a nickname “Bruno” just to be funny and make my friends laugh. All day long the guides cheered “Bruno” on. It was a great day. No fear in sight and it didn’t even occur to me fear should even be in the equation.

The next morning, while still in Mexico, I got the call my 91 year old father had passed away in his sleep of natural causes. I flew from PV to Texas to handle the funeral and burial details. In getting ready to speak at my father’s funeral – a daunting and important “one shot moment” at expressing something that needed to be profound – I searched to find the best and most “right” thing to say about this world & life traveler who never showed fear.

And suddenly it came to me the memory of that 7 year old boy who was so afraid of everything in life, and now — having just been in Mexico for the first time since the frightening age of 7, and without thinking twice – I was the one zooming through the canopy of the jungle thrilled at the adventure of it all. I suddenly sensed an amazing closing of a circle and passing of a torch. I think one of our parent’s greatest responsibilities is to prepare us, consciously and subconsciously, to face life. To not be afraid.

Standing next to my father’s casket, I took a second, turned and said to my father and his memory – “good job.”

That story probably says something about me and my life. Tons of friends got me here along the way.

I hope people find this blog, and read and react.

Feel free. No fear.

Mark and Dad, circa 1984

Dad thought it was just terrific (“Want to make a fire with two sticks, Mark?” “Did you count the worms in the bait can?”) and he was getting along well with the other dads at this father/son campout with my Cub Scout troop. For that I was grateful.

At school they were calling me a queer and at church the jocks were chasing me down the halls for wearing platforms. But Cubs was populated with other misfits like me. I wondered if the Scouts was a club that parents paid to give their kid friends.

The dusk air was filled with the sounds of mallets thumping, as duos of fathers and sons pitched their tents. Dad was nearly giddy as he carried a long bag from the car. I’ll bet he bought us a brand new one, I thought, since we never went camping before.

Dad unrolled the bag at our feet. There, stretched across the ground, was clear plastic and some twine. Nothing more.

“Somebody stole our tent!” I said, shocked.

Dad laughed. He was one of those men who began most sentences with a laugh or a “heh heh” sound. It was endearing but not at the moment.

“Nope, sport, that’s our tent,” he said, “let’s get it going.” He started to unfold it. I stared and stared. It looked like the largest plastic leftover baggie I’d ever seen. My face felt flush with embarrassment.

c. 1968

Dad was strange. He always had projects going on in the shop or downstairs, like building a grand piano from cardboard (no special reason) or learning about geodesic domes and making one the size of a Starbucks in the back yard. Out of clear plastic. Getting a splinter removed from my foot became a lesson in physiology, not little piggies.

His obsession for years was box kites, the bigger the better. He started with a six-foot prototype, flying it in a cotton field near home. Then we worked all summer on a box kite the size of a Winnebago that we transported to the field on a flatbed truck. It crashed after a few glorious minutes and Dad, predictably, laughed. “Wow!” he gleefully shouted. “Did you see that crash? Spectacular!”

On weekends you always heard his low, rumbling laugh in the basement when he “had an idea.” Mom hated it when he had an idea.

Dad was now pitching a plastic baggie, and the others were noticing. The mallet thumping slowed and heads turned. Why did we have to be so different? I liked fitting in with this group of Scouts. Dad was ruining everything.

“Dad,” I offered, speaking in the calm manner of a hostage negotiator, “why don’t we borrow a tent?” I looked around and didn’t see anyone who felt like interacting, much less lending. I wondered how long a K-Mart run might take.

Mark, age 10.

He paused and twirled his wooden mallet. I was surprised it wasn’t made from clear plastic. “Heh heh,“ he replied. “Nobody has one like this. I made it for us! Nobody makes one like this.” He draped the plastic sheet across a clothesline contraption he’d made and then it struck me.

The stares. The withering, judgmental stares of the others. Once inside our leftover baggie, they could still stare as much as they liked. There was no place to hide. I wanted to throw myself on the campfire.

“But Dad,” I tried, a bit more desperately, “everyone can see us. You can see through this…”

“That’s the beauty of it!” and he bellowed a laugh that produced more squinty glances from around camp. “Look up, Mark! We’ll be able to see the stars!”

Those days, and that moment, are lost to time now, and so is my father.

Not long after camping out under the stars, our personas traded places. I embraced my sexuality and my misfit charms, while Dad’s struggle to understand my life made him just another parent who didn’t get it. Worst of all, he was made to contend with a teenager who saw him as something abhorrent: typical.

We had many years, later, when our outlooks merged again and we reveled in his various projects and my work as an outspoken gay man. Dad raised exactly what he valued, a man who steps up and asks stupid questions and knows that to soar you must risk the occasional, spectacular crash.

On my best days I live happily in a clear plastic tent of my own design, writing and living as an HIV positive queer for all to see. And on the worst of days, my mind’s eye conjures up a hearty laugh coming from nearby, maybe the basement, where something is being built that will solve absolutely everything.

Usually it’s a box kite, crafted from unlikely supplies and fatherly magic, that carries me far, far away.

(This originally posted in August of last year, but my late father is very much on my mind during this Father’s Day weekend. Thanks for giving this another look.)

LaVar Christensen

SALT LAKE CITY — Extremist and anti-gay Utah state Representative LaVar Christensen (R) has introduced House Bill 270, called the “Family Policy” bill.

The language includes the State affirming marriage as “ordained by god” between a man and a woman:

“As the public policy of Utah, that a family, consisting of a legally and lawfully married man and woman and their children, is the fundamental unit of society; and requires that publicly funded social programs, government services, laws, and regulations designed to support families be carefully scrutinized to ensure that the promote the family.”

And as if we needed any more proof that Christensen and his Sutherland Institute cronies have never actually read the constitution, it also says;

“Marriage and family predate all governments and are supported by and consistent with the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, the Creator and Supreme Judge of the World.”

Welcome back to the dark ages folks.

I’m still going through the details of the bill, but it appears that it doesn’t actually effect any actual policies, but rather is a typical Utah GOP ‘Message Bill’ designed to garner favor with the most extreme 1% of the population.

Utah already has a constitutional amendment (Amendment 3) which prohibits same sex marriage, civil unions or any governmental recognition similar to marriage in the state.

Last Week, Christensen reintroduced a bill he tried to pass in 2006 which prohibits same-sex couples from making contractual agreements, such as wills and financial arrangements.

Produced by O’Donnell, who also makes a brief appearance, A Family Is a Family Is a Family is a documentary where kids in nontraditional families talk about their lives.

The film also features musical elements (inspired by Marlo Thomas’ 1970s kids’ TV special Free to Be… You and Me) celebrating the love and support found in families of all kinds.

“I think kids in general say the truth,” O’Donnell said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

“Not only are the kids in this cute, they are poignant,” she said. “What they are asking for is safety, security and acceptance: That their families are just as valid as anyone else’s should they be raised by a grandmother, a mom and a dad, two dads, or one mom. Whatever makes up your family, it is valid and worthy and it should be cherished and respected.”

In the upcoming documentary, O’Donnell diplomatically addresses her breakup with Carpenter after ten years together, telling daughter Vivienne, “Even though Kelli and I aren’t living in the same house anymore, family is forever.”

Here’s the extended ET interview:

The definition of a family is at the heart of the comedian’s documentary, which premieres this Sunday, January 31, on HBO at 7 pm ET.

O’Donnell, 47, recently announced she will be moving in with her new love interest, Texas-based artist Tracy Kachtick-Anders, who has six kids of her own.

Alenier, right, and Leon, with their adopted son.
(Miami Herald photo)

Vanessa Alenier and Melanie Leon of Hollywood, FL, became the third gay couple in the last year to be approved to adopt, directly contradicting the state’s 1977 law against it, according to the Miami Herald.

Alenier, 34, said she did not want to begin her journey as a parent with a lie. So she told the truth, acknowledging she was gay on the adoption application — despite Florida’s 33-year-old law banning gay men and lesbians from adopting.

Earlier this month — as a Miami appeals court determines the constitutionality of the embattled adoption ban — a judge quietly approved the 1-year-old’s adoption. The decision by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia is the third finalized adoption by a gay couple within the last year.

While the 1977 law remains in limbo, Sampedro-Iglesia’s ruling suggests some state court judges already have made up their minds about gay adoption, a thorny political issue in a state with a significant social conservative streak.

The Florida Department of Children & Families says it is currently deciding whether to appeal the judge’s decision.

Previously, a judge in Key West, Monroe Circuit Judge David J. Audlin, struck the first blow to the statute on Aug. 29, 2008, when he signed a 67-page order declaring the law unconstitutional. Audlin’s order cleared the way for a Key West lawyer, Wayne LaRue Smith, to adopt a boy he had been raising in foster care.