John Casey

Halfway through Netflix’s jarring docuseries Death of the Pastor’s Wife, I found myself rewinding a clip to make sure I had heard it correctly. It was that unhinged. There was John-Paul “JP” Miller, pastor of Solid Rock Church, telling his congregation that a wife who refuses her husband sex is inviting the devil into her marriage. He claimed that withholding intimacy was comparable to rape, sex trafficking, or homosexuality. He said it as doctrine, as some sort of Bible-based fact, and as justification for his own abhorrent behavior. What stunned me was that members of his congregation sat in the pews and […]

When Tim Cook was named to replace the legendary Steve Jobs as Apple’s CEO in August 2011, it was a wild and electric moment, not just for the tech world but for our community. His sexuality was already being widely whispered about in corporate circles, with reports circulating as early as 2011 that Cook was gay, though he was working to keep his personal life private. In fact, in April of 2011, our sister outlet, Out Magazine, named him as one of the most influential LGBTQ+ people in America. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email […]

I went to a Catholic school for eight years, so I had no choice when it came to learning about the Bible. I remember being confused by scripture on many occasions. As a child, I could not comprehend how Noah got all those animals onto a small boat. It was around the same time I began to wonder how Santa could carry presents for all the children in the world on his small sleigh. Nevertheless, I came to respect the Bible and what it stood for. Some might say it was eight years of brainwashing, but I prefer to think of […]

I’m old enough to remember what it looked like when the government decided AIDS wasn’t its problem. I remember the silence from the Reagan White House as funerals piled up. I remember watching and hearing about brilliant sons, partners, uncles, friends, entire communities disappear while officials shrugged and said this was a “gay” disease, something that happened to people who had brought it on themselves. Stay up to date with the latest in LGBTQ+ news with The Advocate’s email newsletter, in your inbox five days a week. Working on the Hill at the time, I listened to the horrid bigotry […]