In Memoriam

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 → ]

NEW YORK – Internationally known DJ, remixer, producer and label owner Peter Rauhofer has died of complications related to brain cancer, his manager reported on Facebook today. He was 48. [ 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 → ]

LA GRANDE, Ore. — The father of a gay Oregon teenager who hanged himself is ready to begin walking across the United States to spread his message against bullying. [ Read more → ]

CHICAGO, — Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, who was known for his “thumbs up, thumbs down” critiques of films, died Thursday. He was 70, and had battled cancer in recent years. [ Read more → ]

SEATTLE — A former Seattle city councilwoman who announced last summer that she was gay and said she wanted to encourage others to tell their loved ones the truth has died at age 66. [ Read more → ]

C. Everett Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America's attention on the then-emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, has died in New Hampshire at age 96. [ Read more → ]

Charlie Morgan, a Chief Warrant Officer of the New Hampshire National Guard and a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act, died Sunday after a long battle with breast cancer, according to a statement by OutServe-SLDN. [ Read more → ]

Ed Koch, the mayor who became a symbol of New Yok City, died at 2 a.m. Friday from congestive heart failure. He was 88. [ 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 → ]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association says its president, Michael Triplett, has died. Triplett, who was an assistant managing editor at Bloomberg BNA, was 48. [caption id="attachment_73099" align="alignright" width="200"] Michael Triplett[/caption] The association said in an email that Triplett had cancer... [ Read more → ]

MINNEAPOLIS — Pauline Friedman Phillips, who as Dear Abby dispensed snappy, sometimes saucy advice on love, marriage and meddling mothers-in-law to millions of newspaper readers around the world and opened the way for the likes of Dr. Ruth, Dr. Phil and Oprah, has died. She... [ Read more → ]

Jeanne Manford, mother of gay rights activist Morty Manford, pioneering straight ally in the gay rights movement, and the founder of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), died at her home in Daly City, Calif., Tuesday. She was 92. Manford had been... [ Read more → ]

Richard Adams, an early pioneer in the fight for marriage equality for gays and lesbians, died Dec. 17 in the Hollywood home he shared with Tony Sullivan, his partner of 43 years, his attorney said Sunday. Adams was 65. [ Read more → ]

Spencer Cox, the the New York-based AIDS activist who was featured in the documentary "How to Survive a Plague," died Tuesday of complications related to HIV. He was 44. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inoye (D-Hawaii), a 50-year veteran of the U.S. Senate and a recipient of the nation’s highest military award for valor, the Medal of Honor, died of respiratory complications at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Monday afternoon. [ Read more → ]

Thirty-one years ago, on June 5, in 1981, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta published a report of five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. All of the men were described as “homosexuals” — two had died. This was the first official mention of a disease that had no name, no known means of transmission, no treatment and no cure. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Tuesday marked the 14th annual observance of Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international day of remembrance of the people lost to anti-transgender fear, discrimination, and violence. [ Read more → ]

Today is the 14th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a solemn tribute to those who have lost their lives to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice, and a day to raise awareness of the constant threat of brutality faced by the transgender community. [ Read more → ]

Arlen Specter, an independent-minded moderate who spent 30 years in the U.S. Senate but was spurned by Pennsylvania voters after switching in 2009 from Republican to Democrat, died on Sunday of cancer at the age of 82. [ Read more → ]