Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson

Like many rustbelt towns, struggling little Jamestown, N.Y. puts its hopes for a brighter economic future on its ability to draw tourists to sample its charms. One of those charms, which already draws many fun-loving tourists, happens to be a museum and arts center celebrating hometown girl, comedienne,...

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the first annual Out in the Silence Award for Youth Activism, honoring three remarkable groups of courageous youth:

• Grand Prize: Farrington High School Gay-Straight Alliance, located at a diverse, inner-city Hawaiian public...

Several years ago we fell in love and got married. Like many couples, we decided to share the news with our communities by publishing our wedding announcement in our hometown newspapers.

Dean's announcement in The New York Times elicited congratulatory notes and wishes for a happy life together. But...

For the past two years, we've been traveling around the country to screen Out in the Silence, a film about confronting homophobia and the limitations of religion, tradition, and the status quo in small town America.

The aim of these events is to help concerned local residents...

At a recent Saturday afternoon duplicate bridge party in the Virginia countryside, the conversation at my table turned to Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann's husband Marcus, who is under intense media scrutiny for owning and operating a Christian Counseling Center, partially funded by publicly-subsidized Medicaid payments, that regards...

Dispatch from the Culture War Front: Durango, Co.

As filmmaker-activists who have spent the last two years criss-crossing the heartland of America to promote fairness and equality with our documentary Out in the Silence, we spend a lot of time listening to stories of how difficult and dangerous...

Dispatch from the Culture War Front: Washington, D.C.

Last week's horrific murder of Ugandan gay activist David Kato sparked outrage and a series of protests against the U.S.-based religious groups responsible for exporting American-style bigotry and homophobia to Africa, resulting most infamously in Uganda's pending "kill-the-gays" bill.

While such activism is sorely needed, the focus on foreign countries prompts the question: Why are we not equally outraged and rising up against the massive damage these same conservative religious groups cause right here at home?

Organizations such as the American Family Association, for example, are too clever to propose a law that would impose the death penalty on homosexuality in the U.S. -- that would be a bit obvious -- but they continue to use their well-funded propaganda machine to spew anti-LGBT lies and distortions that have a similar effect, creating an atmosphere so poisoned and repressive that many LGBT people, particularly in small towns and rural communities, live their entire life in the closet or possibly even take the ultimate step of suicide.

This video of small town "family values" mom Meribeth Glenn sadly demonstrates how these tactics play out. Many of her statements, including the presumed connection between marriage equality and bestiality, are taken straight from the AFA, which broadcasts a regular program on her local Christian radio station. In fact, Glenn consented to speak on camera only after consulting with her AFA chapter head, Diane Gramley.

When anti-gay bigotry and hatred is a commonplace and accepted feature of conservative and religious broadcasting -- as it is today in the U.S. -- and when its adherents incorporate these messages into the lexicon of their own daily lives -- as Glenn and millions of other people do -- is it any wonder that we continue to see LGBT lives ruined, families and communities in distress and a rash of gay teen suicides?

And when the President of the United States feels comfortable attending a National Prayer Breakfast event supported and attended by the AFA and other conservative religious groups -- including "The Family," the very group pushing for the anti-gay legislation in Uganda -- is it any wonder that the best response we can muster to the recent rash of gay teen bullying and suicides is to promise that "it gets better"?

Recently, Dan Savage -- creator of the 'It Gets Better' video campaign -- declared in a Newsweek interview that "the culture war is over" and later that the homophobes are "losing the battles [that] are taking place in living rooms all over the country." Obviously Savage hasn't spent much time in the living rooms of people like Meribeth Glenn or he would realize that there are still many battles to be fought to ensure that all people -- here in the U.S., as well as in Uganda and other countries around the world -- can live full lives, openly, with dignity, respect and equal treatment under the law.

The late David Kato knew that his activism put him at risk. When asked by a reporter why he gave up the comfortable life of an educated professional in relatively progressive South Africa to return home to Uganda, he said "My role is to fight and liberate."

As residents of the country from which much of the global anti-LGBT crusade emanates, we feel that we all have a similar...

Today, December 6, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court is hearing arguments regarding the appeal of a lower court decision that Proposition 8, California's anti-gay marriage initiative,...

What could possibly be so bad in the life of a teenager that they would want to end it all?

This heart wrenching spoken word piece by Kevin Morrison, filmed in our home base in...

Last month, a gentle 13-year-old boy named Seth Walsh went out to the backyard of his house in the small town of Tehachapi, California, and hung himself. His mother Wendy knew that he...