Rev. Irene Monroe: For African-American ministers, the liability of Obama losing his 2012 re-election bid is far greater than being publicly outed for not being in lockstep with their homophobic brethren.
Obama Forced Out on Gay Marriage
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Rev. Irene Monroe: There’s one thing that has always irked me about Obama’s evolutionary narrative on same-sex marriage—and that’s not his position on it per se so much as the insincerity of his homophobia.
Romney’s Gay Fall Guy
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Rev. Irene Monroe: It is also evident that Romney is neither a friend nor ally to those LGBTQ Republicans who would work on his behalf to get him elected.
How Anti-Sodomy Laws Were Sunk
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Rev. Irene Monroe: For some Americans, the photo of Lawrence and Garner wasn’t disturbing just because they were two gay men. The silent issue in the Lawrence v. Texas case was race. While race was not on trial, it was certainly the elephant in the room.
Obama and Romney Can’t Fence Sit on Marriage Equality
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Rev. Irene Monroe: In the last presidential election, it would have been political suicide to support marriage equality. This November it may be a risk not to.
We Are Trayvon Martin: LGBTQ and African Americans United by Murder
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Rev. Irene Monroe:With Florida’s Stand Your Ground permitting Zimmerman to walk without charges, the Shepard-Byrd statute not only reminds us of how bias-motivated crimes links gays and blacks together but that it’s also the best hope for Trayvon Martin and his family seeking justice.
Bayard Rustin: One of the Tallest Trees in Our Forest
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Rev. Irene Monroe: During the Civil Rights movement, Bayard Rustin was always the man behind the scene, and a large part of that had to due with the fact that he was gay.
Manago: Perhaps the Most Dangerous Black Gay Man
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Rev. Irene Monroe: To a nationwide community of same-gender loving (SGL), bisexual, transgender and progressive heterosexual African American men, Manago is the MAN!, seen as a visionary, game changer and “social architect.”
Hazing or Hate Crime?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: We may never know if Champion’s beat down from “hazing” was an accidental homicide or an intended hate crime.
Black LGBTQs Finding Voice for the Future
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aving voice in the Black Community is still an arduous struggle for its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community. As we cross over into 2012, one of our biggest accomplishments in 2011 has been the various ways in which LGBTQ of African descent have employed different public venues to be heard. These following venues [...]
2011: The War on Christmas Continues
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Rev. Irene Monroe: The intolerance of a multicultural theme for this holiday has little to do with a heightened renewal of the birth of Christ by the Christian Right.
Black LGBTQ Community Doesn’t Support Its Own
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Rev. Irene Monroe: A lack of financial support from the black LGBTQ community has contributed substantially to all the print and online black LGBTQ publications folding.
Queer Politics for the Birds
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Same-sex coupling is not a new phenomenon in the animal world. However, its disclosure and acceptance of it comes in a homophobic society that will attempt to pathologize it.
Transgender, Victimized and Black
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Rev. Irene Monroe: It’s not easy for any person of African descent to be LGBTQ in our black communities, but our transgender brothers and sisters might feel the most discrimination.
Presbyterian Church’s Ordination of Gays Bittersweet
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Rev. Irene Monroe: As a church that is borne out of a liberal Protestant Christian tradition, the Presbyterian Church’s problem with its LGBTQ worshippers is a history of how it not only broke the backs and souls of the many who wanted to serve, but also how the church recklessly discarded the gifts we bring.
Flying While Gay
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Rev. Irene Monroe: I like to know how many heterosexual couples have been or would be thrown off Southwest Airlines for kissing? Would it even be an issue?
Repeal of DADT for LGB’s, but not T’s
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One minute past the stroke of midnight on September 20 the long-awaited repeal of President Bill Clinton’s 1993 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy went into effect. At precisely 12:01 a.m. EST, the popping of champagne bottles began along with cheers and tears celebrating the end of a repressive era that prohibited LGBTQ servicemembers from [...]
Homophobe Tim Hardaway’s Change of Words
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Hardaway’s homophobia is shaped by a particular type of black masculinity that no longer has to break through this country’s color barrier to represent the race and prove athletic prowess or manhood in sports.
Why Can’t Bert and Ernie Marry?
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Irene Monroe: Is it now time for “Sesame Street’s” under-the-radar winks and nods to the LGBTQ community be replaced with a full-throated statement of support?
Out Gays Barred from Rick Perry’s Mega Prayerfest
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Rev. Irene Monroe: To have moral authority, Rick Perry cannot as a governor call Americans to a Christian rally that by its invitation and sponsors exclude LGBT people, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and many others. And he cannot impose his religious views into the fabric of American democracy.
NPR’s Foxification of Ex-Gay Rhetoric
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Rev. Irene Monroe: My head spins at the thought of how Christian counseling services, like Dr. Marcus Bachmann’s, still get so much air time, especially, in spite of the voluminous information disputing the pseudo-science of “ex-gay” conversion therapies.
Massachusetts’ Throw-Away Kids
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Homelessness among heterosexual students came in at 3.2 percent. This rate increased to 15 percent among bisexual students, and 25 percent among lesbian/gay students.
Our Bi-Phobia Placed on Sheryl Swoopes
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Rev. Irene Monroe: My head spins at the thought of how Christian” de-gaying” counseling services, like Dr. Marcus Bachmann’s, Michele Bachmann’s spouse, could politicize Swoopes’ seemingly sexual flip-flopping as their poster-child.
Obama, Slavery, States Rights, and Same-Sex Marriage
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Rev. Irene Monroe: But what does it signal to us LGBTQ citizens when the first African American president wants to employ states’ rights, which once upon a time in this country federally mandated racial segregation and sanctioned American slavery, to address the issue of same-sex marriage?
Tracy Morgan’s Homophobic Rant Is About Black Manhood
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Rev. Irene Monroe: While I will continue to argue that the African American community doesn’t have a patent on homophobia, it does, however, have a problem with it. And Tracy Morgan, comedian and actor on NBC’s “30 Rock,” is another glaring example of the malady.
Provincetown’s Not Safe for Black Lesbians
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Rev. Irene Monroe: The sexual and homophobic harassment many of us LBT sisters endure from many of our heterosexual brothers of African descent back home in our communities, or imported from one of the Caribbean Islands has, too, become an inescapably reality at P-town.
Pride Celebrations? Haven’t We Assimilated?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Cultural acceptance is just one of a few things LGBTQ communities of color still do not experience from larger Pride events, instead at times experiencing social exclusion and invisibility.
Are We Writers or Gay Writers?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: In our longing to enter into mainstream society, how far is too far before we not only lose our distinctive cultural identities, but we also potentially lose leverage from our communities and allies in our continued battle for LGBTQ civil rights?
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It’s What — Not Who — Killed Whitney Houston
Rev. Irene Monroe: We may never know all the demons that took this internationally renown pop star diva down a torturous and troubling road of self destruction, but one demon not mentioned is homophobia.