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Arizona – Why You Gotta Be So Mean?
It’s not just the LGBTQ folks who should be upset by this hideous Arizona law. Every American should be concerned that by simply being who you are you can be refused service, refused a place to live, refused a job, refused anything if someone believes that to give you said thing or service would violate their practice and observance of their religion. And what sort of religion would encourage anyone to discriminate? You either believe that love and peace is for every human being or you do not…
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A Gay Dad’s Valentine to His Sons
Since today is aching Valentine’s Day, rather than submit logic here on why heterosexual couples are as likely to enjoy consensual relationships with each other, and how same-sex couples can be as strongly “child centric,” I decided to go ahead and commemorate the day by BEING child-centric instead. I hope you consent. Instead of submitting an amicus brief, I am submitting a valentine. Here is my valentine. It is not to my partner Jim, whom I adore. He will get his own valentine this weekend. It is to my sons for whom I live and for whom I would die…
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Remembering Larry King
Today I remember Larry King, who was killed six years ago. On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, 14-year old Brandon McInerney brought a gun to E.O. Green Junior High School, stood up in the middle of class and shot 15 year-old Larry King twice in the back of the head. A few days later Larry was taken off of life support. Like so many other LGBT youth of color, Larry spent his life navigating violent and unsupportive foster care and educational institutions…
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Discredited Regnerus study demonizing gay parents continues its reign of error
For the anti-gay movement, call it the gift that keeps on giving. The thoroughly discredited study by University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus that was released July 2012 has turned up yet again, this time in the initial brief filed on behalf of the state of Utah in its fight against marriage equality. The brief suggests that children will somehow be endangered by marriage equality, and the Regnerus study is supposed to lend credence to the false claim that children raised in same-sex households fare worse in many ways than in households with opposite-sex couples…
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Thanks Coke for the Super Bowl commercial… but, ‘Is It the Real Thing?’
You have been deservedly under fire for your sponsorship of the Sochi Olympics. Now you have shown great courage in the United States on behalf of diversity. There are those who are cynical that you may be playing both sides and looking for the maximum in financial gain. To use your own branding catch phrase, they are asking, and I am asking, about your support for freedom and diversity: Is it the real thing? Will you blindly fund a regime that would deem your current public outreach as a crime or will you still stand for diversity in a country whose population is not yet open to hearing it?
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If equality for same-sex couples harms your straight marriage, it’s your own fault
For years, in thousands of same-sex marriage debates which I have participated, those opposing marriage equality have claimed that if it was made legal, harm would be done to opposite sex marriages. There was nothing about their argument that seemed the least bit logical, so I fought back vehemently with all the rational thought I could muster against, what to me, was a purely irrational concept. I missed something. I should have seen it. It parallels another argument anti-gays have made for years, long before the marriage equality issue was even on the table…
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State of the Transgender Union: Time for collective action toward racial justice
In this year’s State of the Union Address to Congress, President Obama is expected to acknowledge and focus on the inequality that is seemingly growing once again in the United States. As the President has been thinking about inequality among the 300 million people who live in the U.S., I wonder if he has thought about transgender people and the inequality we face—the disrespect, the discrimination, the violence, and other inequalities that affect us on an everyday basis…
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Nigeria’s anti-gay law fanning violence, ‘mob justice’ against LGBT people
I woke up at 5:00 am this morning unable to sleep and worrying over my fellow LGBT Nigerians. The violence in the wake of the passing of my country’s anti-gay law keeps me awake and I find myself constantly preoccupied with the security of my friends and countrymen. The violence is now being fanned throughout Nigeria’s churches and mosques, incentivizing violence and “mob justice” against LGBT people…
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LGBT youth must be allowed to grow into authentic adults they’re meant to be
Coming of age in the most supportive of environments can be a grueling process for any adolescent; coming to terms with one’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression in a state that allows so-called therapists to try to change who they are can be devastating. Minors do not have full, legal control over their healthcare and legislation is needed to protect them from being subjected to quackery judgments that they’re anything but normal. The damaging practice of trying to change LGBT minors and deny them of their authentic identities needs to stop…
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Legislating from the Bible: The red state foundation of government ‘service’
The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. While that reads like a tired bumper sticker, there are still lawmakers in the United States who use this as the very foundation of their government “service.” One such lawmaker is Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern. Even people who may not be able to find Oklahoma on a map know of Kern and her opposition to anything that resembles equality for LGBTQ Americans. Especially marriage equality…