David Love: Another reason for the rift between blacks and the LGBT community has been the historic lack of synergy and inclusion regarding blacks and the gay rights movement.
What We Can Learn from Surveys
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Steve Hochstadt: Once the enforced segregation of black and gay Americans into closets and ghettos was broken, discriminatory ideas have lost their persuasive power.
Perry Pandering
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Carl Matthes: I understand that a remake of “Dumb and Dumber” (“Dumb and Dumber 2”) is in the works. I suggest that the producers contact two governors of Texas who might be perfect for the starring roles!
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.
Cook for President!
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Carl Matthes: Is Tim Cook, now head of Apple, qualified to be President of the United States? Check! Oh, and did I mention that he’s gay?
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.
Congressional Candidate’s Husband May Face Deportation
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Paul Hogarth: As the Administration now refuses to defend DOMA – again, thanks to activists giving him heat – the anti-gay legislation is still used as a basis for deporting immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens.
Gays, Nazis, and the GOP
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Jonathan Zimmerman: It’s one thing to oppose same-sex marriage; it is quite another to claim that gay people launched the Nazi Party in Germany. The former is a policy opinion, while the latter is a factual lie. Republican presidential candidates to distinguish between opinions and lies and to denounce those supporters who have made the gay-Nazi claim.
DHS and Gay Bi-National Couples
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Seth Hoy: There are currently 36,000 same-sex bi-national couples in the United States, many of whom are routinely denied applications for lawful permanent residence and other relief from deportation due to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
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.
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.
Choosing Homosexuality
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Tina Dupuy: Republicans embrace hot-button social issues as a way to get their disastrous economic policies passed. It’s like Three-Card Monte: while all eyes are on the two grooms – white-collar grand larceny gets decriminalized.
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.
Gay Pride
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Kivi Neimi: I have heard and seen many gays who want to limit who may participate in gay pride marches – especially eliminating the drag queens and leather queers who started the Pride parades when many “mainstream gay” individuals were too closeted to attend a parade.
Gay Marriage Offers Lessons for Immigration Reform
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Randy Shaw: Gay rights advocates have been far more publicly critical of the President than immigrant rights groups, and have done a far better job of holding Obama accountable for his actions rather than his words.
American Family Values, Invisible Lives
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Sikivu Hutchinson: The numbers of LGBT families of color are increasing, especially in traditionally conservative regions like the South, which has seen a new black “re-migration” due to the massive ripple effect of job losses, foreclosures and gentrification in northern urban black communities.
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?
In the Closet at CNN
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Irene Monroe: One of the motivating reasons for Lemon, 45, now revealing his sexual orientation is because of the suicide of 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi.
Armenians and Gays Together
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Carl Matthes: The 1998 establishment of Gay and Lesbian Armenian Society (GALAS) to help lgbt “Armenians who are looking for friendship, support and a sense of belonging in the community.” GALAS held its fifth annual Armenian LGBT Conference titled “Breaking Through”
Like Black Church, St. Patrick’s Day Parades Are Anti-Gay
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Rev. Irene Monroe: St. Patrick’s Day has rolled around again, and like previous March 17th celebrations nationwide, its LGBTQ communities are not invited. As a contentious and protracted argument for now over two decades, parade officials have a difficult time grasping the notion that being Irish and gay is also part of their heritage.
The Pro-Bullying Lobby
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Lee Fang: Despite a growing number of LGBT suicides, conservatives are claiming “that anti-bullying measures are nothing more than insidious tools of the ‘homosexual agenda.’”
Rev. Peter Gomes: Accidental Gay Advocate
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Rev. Irene Monroe: In 1991 Gomes came out of the closet as a pre-emptive strike against a rabidly conservative Christian student group on campus whose magazine hurled homophobic diatribes against us LGBTQ students.
The Other Down Low: Sagging
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Jasmyne Cannick: Don’t expect an end to sagging by Black men in or out of prison coming anytime soon. Heavily influenced by mass media, what started off as a signal for other prisoners that one was gay, is now a part of pop culture.
Remember Our Homeless Gay Youth This Holiday
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Rev. Irene Monroe: many of our LGBTQ youth, myself included as once a homeless youth, do not really have a home to go to where they can sit at the family table and be fully out — or if out, fully accepted.
Why Obama Wins on Foreign Policy and Gays but Loses on Economics and Taxes
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Robert Reich: When it comes to protecting the fortunes of America’s rich (mostly top corporate executives and Wall Street) and maintaining their strangle-hold on the political process, Senate Republicans, along with some Senate Democrats, don’t budge.
When Will the Homophobic Bullying Cease?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: Anti-gay bullying is not to be endured or tolerated. And it must be stopped by us all — and at all levels, from our legislators to our educators.
American Terror
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Sikivu Hutchinson: Bullying is vicious, unconscionable and life-threatening. Yet reactive public condemnations of bullying often foreclose real analysis of the systemic mechanisms that institutionalize violence and terror against gay, lesbian and gender non-conforming children.
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Friday Feedback: Same-Sex Marriage Ban Bigotry
This week, Reggie Brown comments on Sheria Reid’s article, “Same-Sex Marriage Ban: Bigotry Isn’t Only a Southern Brew” which addresses the banning of same-sex marriage in 31 states.