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.
Remembering Trans Heroine Rita Hester
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Irene Monroe: This weekend is the 12th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance and many of us across the nation will be memorializing transgender Americans murdered because of their gender identities or gender expressions.
Re-introducing Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Women of African Descent
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Rev. Irene Monroe: After nearly two decades of LBT women of African descent’s invisibility on a national level Zuna is causing a revolution by taking the bold step in this era of single-issue queer politics to remind us all we, too, matter.
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.
Latinos and Gays Face Same Foe on November 2nd
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Luis Lopez and Dolores Huerta: Few groups in California have felt the sting of contradiction more sharply than Latinos and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. The statewide election on November 2 is a perfect chance for both populations to send a message that picking on us will be punished.
I Wanna Be A Macho Man: The Prosperity Gospel According to Eddie Long
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Sikivu Hutchinson: In America being a macho man and a professional homophobe is big business, one that jeopardizes the lives and mental health and wellness of thousands of gays and lesbians. Regardless of whether the allegations against Long are true or not, his prosperity gospel of gay-bashing and robber baron profiteering at the expense of poor black people is another indictment of the moral injustice that happens on “God’s” watch.
Will Tea Party Climate Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”?
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Irene Monroe: With the momentum of Tea Party candidates, who are anti-Obama, anti-abortion, and anti-gay civil rights, unseating long-term Republican incumbents in this recent primary aggressively trying to retake Congress and with midterm elections now just weeks away the chances of repealing DADT is looking slimmer.
Baseball Justice
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Peter Dreier: Major League Baseball’s corporate mentality, its failure to deal with widespread drug use, and its decline in popularity among America’s youth (more of whom now play soccer than Little League baseball), don’t reflect well on what its pooh-bahs still call the “national pastime.”
Healing the Black-White Divide on Homophobia
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Rev. Irene Monroe: McClurkin is a classic example why homophobia is an ongoing problem in the African American community, and it must be challenged at every opportunity.
Are We Not Patriots, Too?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: As LGBTQ Americans, our patriotism is not recognized. But one of our community’s greatest moments of patriotism was the Stonewall Riots of June 27–29, 1969, in New York City’s Greenwich Village. We celebrate their heroism every day as out-of-the-closet people who are intentionally visible in various facets of American life.
Goodbye, Right-Wing Friend, Goodbye
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Natalie Davis: Progressives and right-wingers don’t speak the same language (and the Right insists that everyone speak theirs and live under its rules and worldview). When I resist that, I AM THE BAD ONE. If I get angry at inequality, something obviously is wrong with ME. Of course, I reject that notion wholesale: Each of the two sides sees the other’s view as completely immoral, not merely as “misguided” or “wrong.”
Hypersexual Disorder: Stop Blaming Gays and Lesbians
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Carl Matthes: It’s time to stop putting the blame for violent or predatory sexual activity in the military on gays and lesbians. Even facing unfair characterization and laws, gay men and lesbians enlist. They serve loyally, even though they must lie about their sexual orientation. And, yet, they remain willing to possibly give, ultimately, their life for their country.
Will Faith-Based Agencies Help Haiti’s Gay Community?
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Rev. Irene Monroe: It is my hope that the many conservative faith-based groups and organizations that are now part of Haiti’s earthquake relief effort will not discriminate against Haiti’s LGBTQ community as many of them did toward New Orleans’s queer communities during Katrina.
Schwarzenegger Could Veto California Out-of-State Couples Bill Any Moment
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Anti-LGBT organizations like Ron Prentice’s ProtectMarriage.com are trying to convince Schwarzenegger to veto SB 54, the Marriage Recognition and Family Protection Act (Leno, D-San Francisco).
Let Obama be Obama
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President Obama was the one that was most in tuned to both the welfare of the Gay citizenry and the liberal views I hold near and dear. I campaigned for him, he won, and now it seems my role, and that of all his supporters is to support him.
Obamas Welcome Gay Rights Activists to White House
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During his remarks, President Obama acknowledged gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny, to whom the government recently apologized for firing in 1957, because he was gay.
No Nonsense Census
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There’s been another informed and intelligent decision by the Obama administration. In August 2008, in an LA Progressive article entitled “Census Nonsense,” which decried the Bush administration’s move to exclude legally married same-sex couples from being counted as married couples during upcoming the 2010 census, I wrote, “…to capsulize the situation, as it stands now, [...]
Father’s Day: It Takes All Kinds
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In 1995, Oakland, California, a young man helping a fellow church friend found himself the father of a 4-month-old child. This happened when the mother, who at the time had three small children, simply couldn’t afford to take care of them all. What started out as helping her on the weekends with the kids, eventually [...]
White Supremecist DC Shooting in Post-Racial America
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On June 10th, an 88-year-old white supremecist walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, armed with a rifle, and killed a black security guard before being fired upon and apprehended. As usual, local authorities including the Mayor of Washington, DC used two familiar words that were recently uttered in the murder of [...]
Equality: Obama vs Truman
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July 26, 2009 marks the 60th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman signing Executive Order #9981 ending racial segregation of the United States military. 2009 also marks the 16th anniversary of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law passed by Congress mandating the discharge of openly gay, lesbian or bisexual military servicemembers. According to Servicemembers Legal [...]
Civil Rats Are Human Rats!
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I watched the movie Gettysburg again the other day. It is one of my favorites because the producer was a Mexican American and it is about the real reasons why democracy exists. In the movie, there is a scene where a New Hampshire officer is talking to two rebel soldiers. He asks them why they [...]
Gay Pride Speaks to Equality
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In the Oxford English Dictionary “equality” means, “Identical in amount; neither less nor greater…having the same measure, number, value, intensity.” How did three Democratic presidents, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Lyndon Johnson, speak to equality? President Barack Obama on Monday, June 1, named June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month” issuing a proclamation: [...]
What Blacks Can Learn From Gays
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Before you open that bottle of champagne, can of beer, or bottle of Hennessy in celebration of last week’s decision by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8 and the ban on gay marriage, did you ever stop to think maybe the joke’s on us? I mean, think about it. Last November, Blacks voted overwhelmingly [...]
Obama Not Marching with Black Pride
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June is Pride Month. And Black Pride contributes to the multicultural aspect of joy and celebration in the queer communities. Black Pride symbolizes not only black LGBTQ uniqueness as individuals and communities, but it also affirms our varied expressions of LGBTQ life in America. This year will be our first Black Pride parade with an [...]
Lieutenant Dan Choi Takes “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Directly To Obama
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Wednesday evening, in an act of daring befitting a West Point graduate and veteran of Iraq, recently discharged New York National Guard Lieutenant Daniel Choi defied the orders of dozens of crowd control police and stepped into the ‘no protest zone’ street to ceremoniously salute his Commander in Chief, Barack Obama, out of site at [...]
Marriage Equality, Beyond the Lying
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My first essay for the L.A. Progressive was about Proposition 8 and the lies that self proclaimed Christian activists were telling in order to promote their bigotry. It seems almost ridiculous to catalog the number of violations of the Commandment against bearing false witness that these “Christians” embraced in order to sell their ballot measure. [...]
Proposition Hate Redux
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The California Supreme Court ruled again on same-sex marriage. This time it did to uphold Proposition 8, restricting marriage to one man and one woman. In a 6-to-1 decision, the justices decided that Proposition 8 would remain part of the state constitution. And the 18,000 same- sex couples that ran to the altar to legally [...]
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