Gay/Lesbian News

While Federal Judge Vaughn Walker is openly gay, that fact was probably not known when he was first nominated to the Federal bench. New York Senator Charles Schumer has put forward for nomination Daniel Alter. As a Federal bench nominee, Alter would be the first openly gay man nominated whereby his sexual orientation is known at the time of his nomination.

Last month, Lt. Col. Lee Archer, the only confirmed ace among the Tuskegee Airmen, died at the age of 90.

Lt. Dan Choi has been called back to duty. This is an unusual event given that Lt. Choi is openly gay, and it has been recommended that he be discharged from the military for being so. Unlike Colonel Victor Fehrenbach, Choi’s homosexuality was personally disclosed instead of him being outed by a third party. Lt. Choi has been a vocal advocate for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and has been featured on The Rachel Maddow Show and recently introduced Senator Kirsten Gillibrand before her speech to the Human Rights Campaign’s New York Gala. Choi is a member of the New York National Guard, which means that he is not full time military.

Senator John McCain has reversed his position on the anti-gay Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.

John Carroll University in Ohio was the scene of a student protest last week. Prior to the start of a basketball game , gay and lesbian students along with their allies staged a sit in to protest the university's lack of LGBT bias protections in their official policies.

Yesterday Rhodes News and a small contingent of follows attacked Rachel Maddow online. It seems that the Tea Bag party members object to Maddow using the term “Teabaggers” to describe them.

Just fine, actually. I was reading about all the teabaggers and their leader, Sarah Palin, and how they all think it’s not the right time for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to be repealed. Not the right time. It sounds so innocuous. Sure — they’ll get around to it later. Definitely. But no, for these people, it will never be the right time. The forward march of equality scares the Shine, beJesus, Shine out of them. The fallacy that they need time to sort stuff out is making the rounds. At the hearing “at least a year” was the cry. If they say it often enough, we might just buy it.

My undercover investigation has led to a campaign against those who wreck lives by peddling conversion therapy

Last year, in Britain, a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist tried to "cure" me of my homosexuality. What they didn't know was that I was working undercover investigating what happens during so-called conversion therapy. The results of my investigation, published last week in the Independent, have sparked a bushfire of anger and outrage.

Children are too young to learn about ANY kind of sexuality. It's a common refrain, when you discuss teaching children about homosexuality or homophobia. Children are too young for that. Too vulnerable. Too young to understand. They're not homophobic, they hasten to add, oh no, they don't want to teach kids about ANY sexuality! And that includes heterosexuality!

And I really want to know where the idea came from that you DIDN'T teach sexuality (and gender identity) to your 5, 8, 10, 14 (or however old you think is too frail to hear about the GBLT folk) year old?

New Jersey's largest gay rights group is suspending donations to political parties after feeling spurned by Democratic lawmakers who failed to pass a gay marriage bill.

Three candidates running for Rhode Island governor are promising to sign a gay marriage bill should it reach their desk if they are elected.

Comedian Sarah Silverman has been running around promoting her new show picked up by the queer TV channel LOGO. She is also touting her support for the gays and marriage equality.

When asked yesterday on Fox News Sunday “Should the rule ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for the military be repealed?” Sarah Palin said, “I don’t think so right now…. I’m surprised that the president spent time on that in his State of the Union speech when he only spent about 9% of his time in the State of the Union on national security issues.

It is sometimes hard to remember that Kirsten Gillibrand is facing a Republican challenger to her Senate seat given all the speculation regarding whether or not Harold Ford Jr. would be entering the Democratic Primary. Bruce Blakeman feels that Senator Gillibrand is grandstanding by trying to put an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The Military Times is a newspaper targeted at career military personnel. For the past several years the paper has been surveying its readership on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Tomorrow they will be releasing the latest results and today they pre-reported the findings.

Gay couples with children exist. And many gay couples with children send their kids to public schools—schools that gay couples, and gay singles, help to fund through property taxes. Acknowledging the existence of families headed by same-sex couples no more "teaches homosexuality" than acknowledging the existence of opposite-sex couples "teaches heterosexuality."

A remarkable little story from the Chronicle: The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.

This is the first in a series of articles from Uganda by Xtra freelance reporter Kaj Hasselriis.

Even before I landed in Uganda, I got a taste of how much influence the Christian right has on the country.

On KLM flight 561 from Amsterdam to Entebbe, I was surrounded by Christian missionaries. The plane was literally packed with Bible-thumpers from Texas to North Carolina.

Said one passenger to another: "We teach Ugandans that God wants us to have one partner for life." She could have specified "one opposite-sex partner for life." That's because fundamentalists are landing in the Pearl of Africa by the planeload to tell Ugandans that homosexuality is a sin — a sin punishable by death, if a controversial bill gets passed this year by the Ugandan Parliament.

An elderly woman sits with her grandson. She begins to tell the story of her family and her Catholic faith. She talks about her core values and says, "Marriage to me is a great institution. It works, and it's what I want for my children, too."

The camera angle widens to reveal the woman's son and his male partner sitting next to her and her grandchild. It is only then that you realize this is an ad asking you to vote no on a ballot initiative which would repeal marriage equality in Maine. (You can see the ad HERE.) The commercial said a lot. But it's what it did not say that was worth hearing. The ad didn't say a word about rights or benefits. It spoke of responsibilities and commitment.

Third Way recently partnered with Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research to conduct two statewide polls after the 2009 election: in Washington, where voters upheld an expanded domestic partnership law, and in Maine, where voters overturned marriage. By analyzing the poll results, we've come up with some insights about what we think is the best way forward to achieve relationship recognition and marriage in the future, and they sound an awful lot like that ad from Maine.

I penned this piece almost a year ago. It speaks to the the difficulties of being gay and a teacher.