We anxiously await the Supreme Court decision on two cases related to gay marriage. There is good potential for SCOTUS to strike down DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton. This would open up federal marriage benefits to individuals married in states where same-sex marriage...

Last winter, I was discussing a coaching client's challenge in communicating empathy with colleagues. He told me that there are times that his co-workers are too focused on personal matters that are not that interesting or important to him. The example he used to prove his point was with people...

My partner, an organist for a suburban Episcopal church, needed to practice the organ for Sunday's service, so I had an hour to kill after a long, tiring day of five meetings in every corner of midtown Manhattan. I decided to pop into a local bar to have a glass...

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) received a harsh condemnation from the Vatican after a three-year study into its practices and stances. The critique expresses concerns that women religious have been too tolerant in their views about sexuality, too supportive of universal health care despite...

Move aside football. New Yorkers and much of the nation are fascinated with a basketball player named Jeremy Lin who went from obscurity to stardom by leading the Knicks to seven straight victories (at the time of this writing). An unknown talent, considered mediocre and lucky...

I know what you're thinking if you're not a New York Giants fan. Here is another one of their obnoxious fans basking in the glow of a second tight and impressive victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. But besides being a fan of Big Blue since...

My entire perspective on life as a Giants fan is colored by "The Fumble." In 1978, ahead on the scoreboard with a few seconds left, New York Giants' quarterback Joe Pisarcik botched a handoff to Larry Czonka, and Herman Edwards of the Philadelphia Eagles recovered the ball and...

Recently, I took my nephew to his first Broadway show. This straight 19-year-old experienced the magic of live theater watching witches and monkeys fly in the long-running production Wicked. This clever show reminds an ethicist like me that good and bad should be used to describe behavior, not people. Nothing...

Lady Gaga proclaims from the stage of her Madison Square Garden show filmed for HBO that she once sat in the cheap seats dreaming of the moment when she would headline a concert in the famous arena. Now that she is here, she tells her little monsters that...

It doesn't take too long to come across a scandal when you scroll down a news website like the Huffington Post. We find these stories on the front page (just think Penn State) and on the business page with investment bankers stretching the rules or major media companies hacking private...

The Penn State scandal includes sickening detail of alleged child molestation and what appeared to be a systemic failure of leaders to intercede on behalf of victims. Having written on pedophilia in the Catholic Church as a former Catholic priest and ethicist, I am too familiar with how...

In his new book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined , Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argues that the world is becoming less violent because of an increase in intelligence and education. He demonstrates multiple data points to prove his case that statistically significant adjustments...

Because my career involves helping leaders be more effective inside companies, I am always drawn to stories about leaders who appear to have innate abilities to persuade people to follow their vision. This led me to reach out and interview a young leader who displays classic leadership tendencies along with...

In beginning this blog on The Huffington Post's new Gay Voices section, I decided to share my extraordinary encounter with a person who is larger than life and the lesson it taught me about the importance gay rights has in the ordinary, everyday lives of LGBT folks. Our fight has...