Christopher Wiggins

A professor with more than forty years of employment and tenure at a Christian university in Oklahoma has sued the school for firing him over a gay guest speaker he had invited to speak to his class. The guest speaker, a former adjunct professor, is included in the lawsuit. Michael O’Keefe and Scott Hale filed an Oklahoma County District Court complaint alleging university administrators had stained their reputations. According to them, Oklahoma Christian University, a Church of Christ-affiliated school, and its chief legal counsel Stephen Eck acted and spoke “wrongfully, intentionally, and recklessly” about the men. O’Keefe had invited Hale to speak in […]

On Tuesday, while the U.S. House of Representatives was in disarray due to Republicaninfighting, a lawmaker in Texas introduced his version of a “don’t say gay” law. State Rep. Jared Patterson’s bill, HB 1155, requires schools to disclose all information related to students’ mental health information to parents, which exposes children to being forced out of the closet by school officials and adds language to the state’s education code that would restrict the instruction of topics on sexual orientation and gender identity. “A school district, open-enrollment charter school, or district or charter school employee may not provide or allow a third party to provide […]

Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced legislation based on a right-wing conspiracy theory and proposed what critics are calling a federal “don’t say gay” bill. The bill prohibits using federal funds for programs or events that contain “sexually-oriented material” geared toward children under 10, such as drag queen story hours, which have attracted the attention of conservative politicians and right-wing activists. On Tuesday, Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson introduced the bill with more than 30 House Republican co-sponsors. The introduction of this legislation is a reaction to far-right conservative outrage over innocuous drag performances that have included the presence of children […]

There are “clearly partisan” divides over the inclusion of content addressing LGBTQ+ issues, race, and other supposedly controversial subjects in schools, says a new study from the University of Southern California. “While Republican state leaders are backing public schools away from directly addressing race, gender, and sexual identity — as well as their historical injustices — in the U.S., Democratic state leaders are pushing in the opposite direction, mandating curricula and coursework discussing America’s racist origins and legacies and highlighting the contributions throughout history of women and people of color,” says the study, titled “A House Divided? What Americans Really Think About […]

The U.S. Supreme Court began its new term Monday, which is shaping to be historical.  Notably, associate justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will have heard her first arguments as the court’s first Black woman. But this term comes as the court has its lowest approval rating ever, with Gallup reporting a historically low approval rate of 40 percent in the wake of last term’s Dobbs decision which overturned Roe vs. Wade and took with it decades of precedent with the stripping of reproductive rights from Americans. This term will bring major controversies over affirmative action, voting, religion, free speech, and gay rights. The court will decide whether LGBTQ+ people are protected from […]

n response to a mean-spirited tweet sent by Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida about her appearance, a queer activist from Texas has gotten the last laugh. In addition to clapping back hard, she has raised more than $1.5 million to support abortion care as of Friday. Olivia Julianna, a political strategist for Gen-Z for Change, a social justice advocacy group led by young people, revealed to The Advocate that she wasn’t prepared for her overnight success but appreciated it. She uses her first and middle names publicly for privacy concerns. “I’m in shock at the amount of support that we’ve gotten from […]