Carlos A. Ball

As we prepare to honor mothers on Sunday, we should keep in mind that the practice of mothering is not limited to women. There are many men in America today, married and single, gay and straight, who mother their children every day. I am one of them. My male partner...

It is likely that by the end of this week, both houses of the New Jersey legislature will have approved same-sex marriage. The whole exercise may be for not, however, because Republican Governor Chris Christie has promised to veto the legislation. Christie believes that only heterosexuals should have...

It is easy to forget, at a time when the question of same-sex marriage dominates the current debates over gay rights, that one of the most important gay rights issues twenty short years ago was whether voters could enact state constitutional amendments prohibiting the enactment of laws protecting lesbians, gay...

Conservative politicians and commentators are celebrating the decision by a federal judge in Virginia striking down the recently enacted health insurance legislation. This means that in the next few days we will hear repeatedly from conservatives how a federal court has agreed with the law's critics that it...

As I think about the results of this year's midterm elections, there is a part of me that is tempted to give up on politics altogether. I am a 46-year old whose political life as an adult has been dominated by eight years of Reagan and twelve years of the...

Gay rights advocates have expressed a lot of frustration lately -- much of it aimed at the Obama administration -- about the seemingly slow pace of reforms that seek to end discrimination against gay people. Indeed, watching the slow and painful death of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy over...

Although it is not frequently acknowledged, bathrooms have been contested civil rights sites for several decades now. The civil rights movement during the 1950s fought to end the prevailing practice in some parts of the country of prohibiting African Americans from using so-called "white" bathrooms. In the 1970s, the women's...

A CNN poll released earlier this month has received considerable attention because it is the first national survey showing that a majority of Americans believe that same-sex couples should have the right to marry, a rate of support for gay marriage that is double what it...

The most striking aspect of Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling, voiding California's ban on same-sex marriage, is how it makes clear that defenders of Proposition 8 did not even come close to presenting evidence in court supporting their claim that gay marriages harm society and individuals. It is one thing to...

Less than two years after the near collapse of the American economy caused by good old-fashioned capitalist speculation in the housing market, libertarian ideology, as reflected most prominently in the apparent political clout of the Tea Party, is riding high again. This resurgence of libertarianism might strike some as surprising...

Fourteen years ago, Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, one of the worst pieces of federal legislation ever passed. The law was always unnecessary and unwise. And on Thursday, a federal court in Massachusetts ruled that it is also unconstitutional.

The main impetus behind the 1996 law was...

In this country, we are constitutionally entitled to speak and to associate as we like. But the Supreme Court ruled this week that our First Amendment rights do not entitle us to receive a government subsidy to pay for our free speech and association activities.

The lawsuit arose when the...

As the U.S. Senate begins hearings on President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, it is worth noting that if the nomination is approved, it will be the first time in history that three female Justices will sit together on the Court. Kagan would also be the...

For supporters of LGBT rights, the election of President Obama represented an apparent historical turning point for sexual minorities in our country. As a presidential candidate, Obama had said all of the rights things: he criticized the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (DADT); he called for the enactment of...

In 1968, the pioneer gay rights activist Frank Kameny coined the phrase "Gay is Good," a slogan that was used with some frequency by gay rights proponents in the years following the Stonewall riots. The slogan, like the phrase "Black is Beautiful" of the same era, was meant to respond...

A few years ago, I applied for a teaching position at a Catholic University's law school. Although the faculty eventually voted to give me an offer, the school's seemingly devout Catholic Dean vetoed that decision. Knowledgeable sources later told me that the Dean did so because I was openly gay...

Let me share with you a real-life story involving a transgendered parent. A few years after Michael B. married his wife Barbara in the 1970s, he told her that he preferred wearing women's clothing and that he felt more comfortable thinking of himself as a woman.

The marriage was a...

One of the many things that have surprised me in the healthcare debate over the last year is the extent to which those who have health insurance (and who may have to pay a little more so that others can get it) seem much angrier than the millions of Americans...

In the last five weeks, the New York and New Jersey state senates separately voted against marriage equality bills. While this is extremely disappointing, there is reason for optimism in the fact that nine African American state senators in New York, as well as two in New Jersey, voted in...

It is becoming increasingly common for LGBT rights opponents to argue that they are the true victims of discrimination in a society that is becoming more accepting of gay people. As two recent legal cases show, many of those claims are based on the theory that laws and regulations that...