If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
My mother may continue to cringe at the word "queer," but I invite you to consider the idea that queerness can be a pretty good thing. In the broad sense of the word, every person who has ever gone against social norms and values in order to improve them is queer.
On Saturday, May 18, I had the pleasure of marrying my best friend. In front of a hundred or so dear friends and family on a beach in Provincetown, Mass., I did something I never, ever imagined I'd be able to do legally in this country.
May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, a mob of more than 10,000 people led by men of the cloth from the Georgian Orthodox Church, attacked 50 gay rights demonstrators marching in downtown Tbilisi, Georgia.
It's no longer sufficient for our straight friends to say, "I have no problem with you being gay," or, "I have gay friends." What we really need is for LGBT people and our allies to stand together and say that enough is enough when it comes to homophobia.
I'm proud to be walking for marriage with Garden State Equality. A wise man once helped me understand that even after you've been fighting for 30 years for your rights, you still don't let people trample on you.
The idea that gays are wealthier than straights is an inaccurate stereotype that undermines the struggle for equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Puerto Rico is in the midst of an incredible moment in its history. The momentum around civil rights for our LGBT brothers and sisters has never been stronger.
Most solutions to the problem of youth homelessness center around increased shelter services, but we have established a three-tiered approach that is multidimensional and holistic; each part is important in its own right but ineffective without the others.
Has the culture of stats, nudies and decapitated men begun to spill over into the rest our dating lives and making everything else look a little... cheap?
Somer's gutsy performance style and authenticity led to her being cast on The Real L Word, where the lesbian community got to know her as relatable and uncompromising. Now she's started a new music project, Clinical Trials, inspired by Nirvana and Patti Smith.
His new running mate E. W. Jackson makes Ken Cuccinelli look like Mike Bloomberg. The more time the media and oppo-researchers spend digging up old statements of Jackson's (and there is already a goldmine out there), the more normal -- and electable -- Cuccinelli looks.
It seems that the message we too often miss from Milk's work is that all Americans have an interest in equality because soon we will all be minorities in some way or another. Harvey called this his "coalition of the us's" -- not only gays but blacks, Asians, seniors, the disabled.
With a vote upcoming any day now in Springfield and a Supreme Court decision that is likely to be less than an all-out victory for equal marriage, the issue won't be going away as some have hoped.
What will you do to push back? Will you sign a petition about the Boy Scouts or challenging the use of the word "tranny" at 7-Eleven? Will you march? Will you join an email list? Volunteer?
The opportunity to reunite their families should be extended to all immigrant families, including LGBT families. It is the just and right thing to do. It is the humane thing to do. It is what we must do.
Our community rightfully prides ourselves on being one of the most tolerant in the world, and these attacks have shaken us. The recent murder of Marc Carson exposes just how vulnerable we remain even in 2013 and even in the West Village in Manhattan.
