Columns

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The Problem with Gay Republicans

So, what did you get up to on your summer vacation? I myself did the usual gay hot spots along with many of my fellow queer Washingtonians — Rehoboth Beach for a few weekends here and there, Provincetown, Mass. All in all, a pretty gay little summer.  Just as our summers were wrapping up, Vice President Mike Pence was wrapping up his own rainbow tour of Europe, including stops in Ireland, where he dined with the country’s gay prime minister and his husband. Later, on to London, where Pence got all dreamy-eyed sitting across from Boris Johnson, gushing over both […]

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Rising to Our Moment Against Trump’s Madness

When most of us launch into a new morning it is nothing like storming Normandy Beach on D-Day. Most of us are not being shot, deported, jailed, evicted, or starved. Whatever brutal measures Trump and his minions have in mind, most of our freedoms have not yet been blotted out by a fascist state. We still have our voices and our power to act. It is for us to use them. Some say we’re letting Trump distract us from the harm he’s doing. Really? We can’t multitask? What is he up to that we’re missing? Lining his pockets? Packing the courts? […]

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President Trump Must Honor 50th Anniversary of Stonewall Riots, LGBTQ Movement

GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today called on President Donald Trump and his administration to honor the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots by declaring June as National Pride Month. The riots at the Stonewall Inn back on June 28,1969 sparked the creation of the LGBTQ movement and the beginning fight toward LGBTQ acceptance across the nation. “In just fifty years, LGBTQ Americans have become indispensable to the United States of America thanks to the hard work of countless LGBTQ leaders who bravely called out injustice and hate. Yet, as LGBTQ acceptance around the U.S. spreads, President Trump […]

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Will We Elect a White Gay Man before a Woman?

We are living in interesting times. We have a disgusting pig in the White House who constantly denigrates women as well as just about everyone else except white men. Then from all I am reading the press is currently swooning over a 37-year-old gay white mayor from South Bend, Ind., suggesting he could be elected president possibly before the many qualified women running. So you have to wonder: Do misogyny and sexism still rule the media and the Democratic political establishment? Are we mired in the past? It seems we just might be.  I want to be clear for the […]

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Will We Ever Have a Gay President?

And I know what some of you are thinking? We had James Buchanan. The guy just before Lincoln who kind of tapped out of the whole thing right before the Civil War, the one who Andrew Jackson referred to him and the man he lived with as “Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy”. He’s generally regarded as our worst president, Buchanan that is. So, let’s not rush to name any LGBT centers after him.  Fast forward to last month, when 37-year old, and sadly taken, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg threw his hat into the ring of Democratic contenders to […]

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Why the “Rainbow Wave” at the 2018 Midterm Election Matters for Future Queer Generations

The 2018 midterm election has been considered the most diverse election in terms of candidates and elected officials in America’s history. It was the lowest year ever in terms of straight white male candidates running for political office. There were a record number of queer and transgender candidates in the 2018 midterms, many of them winning their races. With over 150 queer and trans folks victorious in their respective elections, this midterm was a major advancement in social progress. Many are calling this “Rainbow Wave” a major checkpoint in the fight to achieve equality for queer and trans people in […]

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A Free Press Needs You

In 1787, the year the Constitution was adopted, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote to a friend, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” That’s how he felt before he became president, anyway. Twenty years later, after enduring the oversight of the press from inside the White House, he was less sure of its value. “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” he wrote. “Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” […]

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King’s Dream of ‘the Beloved Community’ Extends to Your Community, Too

This year is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. It’s a painful and necessary anniversary to remember considering where the country is today. Americans on the margins have the most to lose in a nation now eroding if not dismantling decades-long civil rights gains that allowed full protections and participation in an evolving multicultural democracy. While I am nervous where we are in 2018 after an Obama presidency, I am also reminded, however, of MLK and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. My looking back at that era gives me hope to […]

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Forget About ‘Gun Control,’ Let’s Repeal the Second Amendment

So after suffering the effects of yet another mass shooting in our country, this time in Las Vegas, Nevada where currently  58 people have died and approximately 520 others were wounded, let’s look at the firearms laws in the state of Nevada. No permit required to purchase a firearm; No gun registration required; No gun owners’ license required; No permit required to carry concealed long guns; No laws restricting the sale and ownership of assault weapons; No restrictions on the capacity of firearms magazines No restriction on the number of firearms an individual may own! The suspected shooter had with […]

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I am Not a Queer Dinosaur Because I Accidentally Misgendered You

In my university course of 320 students, I try to remember everyone’s pronouns, but I find it impossible. This is the case as well even in my much smaller courses. Whenever I am unsure, I ask students again, or I use the pronoun “they.” But students often get very upset and enraged when I and any of my colleagues unintentionally misgender them. Several of my colleagues have quit the profession of teaching because of what they increasingly see as a “tyranny of language” (a language that is in perpetual flux and changes virtually by the day, with differing preferences and […]

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