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Religious freedom: Our conflict with a deeply held belief in equality
My gay son now finds himself orphaned by his home state of Michigan, whose government is poised to pass legislation allowing others to discriminate against him based on their religious beliefs.
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Hagel could have ended the military’s transgender exclusion
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s resignation under pressure is a setback to the effort to end the military exclusion of transgender service personnel.
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Duggars make it easier to discriminate against LGBT people… will TLC react?
The Duggar family – made famous by TLC’s popular reality television show – have helped repeal an ordinance protecting LGBT people from discrimination.
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The Christian Right does not want you to know about this day…
In the heat of our political moment, we sometimes don’t see how our future connects deeply to our past. But the Christian Right does — and they do not like what they see.
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The greatest of hypocrisies: Gays condemn black riots over racism, forget how our movement started
Some gays are hypocrites. They condemn the rioting in the aftermath of extreme miscarriages of justice for black people, all the while ignoring the fact they gather once a year …
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AIDS. Remember me?
On the morning of my 30th birthday, I checked my then-partner, Shane Sawick, into the hospital. He would not come out. Shane died just two weeks later, suffering from Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy (PML); one disease, among many, battled in his long war against AIDS. Once in the hospital, the illness quickly progressed, and in just a matter of days, he could no longer speak, blink, nor respond in any way. Through it all, though, his mind still raced, and processed, and thought…
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Why I want Pope Francis to write a requiem for Gabriel Fernandez, the boy tortured to death for appearing gay
There is a story that I have felt compelled to write for three months. I have not written it because I have found it difficult to find the words. I have the words. I have the exact words. I have written them before. The story that has nagged at me is the mourning of Gabriel Fernandez, and the requiem of his death. He was eight years old. I know the words to say to Gabriel, because I wrote them in April to a little boy named Zachary…
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Straight for Equality: The evolution in LGBT rights did not happen in a vacuum
The revolution in equality for people who are gay and lesbian did not happen in a vacuum. For every person in the community who bravely came out and fought, there were people outside the LGBT community – our families, friends, colleagues, and neighbors – who were watching. Many of them saw what our courage meant and chose to stop watching and be part of the fight. The progress that happened would not have occurred without them. Now’s the chance for us to do the same.
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No silence of the trans: Bigoted shouts losing ground in march toward equality
Former Oklahoma GOP Congressman Ernest Istook, a broadcaster and lawyer before entering Congress, has returned to broadcast and print journalism for the conservative press with a recent two-part analysis of the transgender community. He is not happy with the community’s social progress.