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Losing battles, winning the war
Dear Opponents of Equality: You can feel it approaching, can’t you? Victory for those of us who seek equality under the law is looming on the horizon. Our shared concepts of marriage, love, sexuality and family are changing. We get that you might be worried or afraid. Change is difficult; especially if you’ve had things go your way for, well, most of history. What you’ve failed to grasp is that the right to define those terms is not YOURS alone. All of us in a free society can contribute to the understanding, the definition, and the reality of what makes a family and what defines a marriage…
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An open letter to the Mother’s Day slushie victim: Bullies with an agenda are still bullies
Thanks to the television show “Glee,” the slushie has been elevated from an overly sugary refreshment to an act of public humiliation. Not since a cream pie hit the face of Anita Bryant, has a caloric treat wielded such stature. Previously, the slushie had been confined to fictional encounters. It has now entered our reality. On Mother’s Day 2014, a young woman named Jessica Prince became so irate that she felt compelled to throw a red slushie at an anti-gay protester (watch here) You might call it, The Slushie Heard Around the World…
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I just can’t vote for a gay Republican…
Carl DeMaio is running for the U.S. House of Representatives. He’s a fiscal conservative Republican, and that is why he won’t have the vote of this liberal Democratic lesbian. And I don’t like the fact that he won’t really talk about LGBTQ issues – saying instead that the fiscal issues are more important. I have to hope that if he does get elected he will vote on the side of supporting LGBTQ issues … but, then again, we all know that the words “gay” and “Republican” mix about as well as oil and water.
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An open letter to the ‘Christian’ man who would be ‘King’
If you haven’t heard of Darrell Trigg or his intentions, don’t feel bad. In terms of his real objective and vision, he is not actually running for President. He really wants to be our King. The monarchs of old saw their leadership ordained by God, their authority blessed and their decrees sacrosanct and immediately actionable. Mr. Trigg’s view of himself coincides, as he states, “He has revealed Himself to me spiritually…” and “I know that it is His will for me to be the next President of the United States of America.”
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Driving Rosa Parks: Lessons from Jo Becker’s book, ‘Forcing the Spring’
For all the consternation the book “Forcing the Spring” has caused, Jo Becker’s trespass in portraying American Foundation for Equal Rights founder Chad Griffin as the Rosa Parks in the fight for marriage equality is not much worse than all the many times newspapers, magazines, and even knowledgeable people in the LGBT community have casually pronounced Stonewall as the start of the gay civil rights movement and rioting drag queens as the pioneers. The movement started decades earlier, and its pioneers were people who pushed back against discrimination in many different ways…
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An unthinkable tragedy
Gabriel did not die because his moms were lesbian. His death was not the byproduct of homophobia. His fate was not because of a violation of any legal custody issues. His story is bigger than any of that. His story is about love, sacrifice and the true meaning of being a parent. His story is one that brings the bigoted preconceived notions around same sex parenting to its knees. When I heard the story of Rachel and Heidi, I wept over what had happened to them. This is my letter from a dad to two moms.
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Living single in the age of marriage equality
What good is being gay when you have no one to love? What good is same-sex marriage when you’re single? During the periods when I was single, I watched a lot of films, at home, alone. The selection process had to be very cautious. Romance was out. Drama too, as my emotions were too raw after breakups. Suspense and mystery were iffy; I’m more easily spooked when I don’t have someone to protect. Sci-fi creeped me out. Comedy was about the only choice left…
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Why an LGBT non-discrimination executive order would not be ‘redundant’
In 2008, then-candidate Obama pledged that if elected president, he would use an executive order to protect the LGBT employees of all federal contractors from discrimination. After several years of pressure from LGBT advocacy groups, the Obama administration still refuses to act on this executive order, explaining that it would prefer that Congress pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)…
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‘What’s between your legs?’ is the new ‘So what do you do in bed?’
Transgender characters in entertainment were always around, but as the punch line. When it came to news, it was usually about a hate crime. And I can tell you from personal experience even that coverage had to be fought for, from Brandon Teena to Fred Martinez to Gwen Araujo. But increasingly, we are seeing transgender actors, activists, filmmakers, politicians and people from every walk of life coming out and telling their stories…
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A requiem on the death of Fred Phelps
Fred Phelps is dead. Many will celebrate, and many will make comments about picketing his funeral in an eye-for-an-eye retaliation. I will not be among them. I do not respect Fred Phelps, nor do I forgive the pain he inflicted, but I value him. I value what he contributed to the struggle for LGBT equality. I am grateful that because of his presence, millions woke up to understand homophobia better and to confront it…