Imaginary Lesbians, Pro-Choice Christians and Santorum’s Gay Friends: Editors’ Picks, 6/12-6/18

This week the blogosphere was shocked when it was revealed that the popular American-born Syrian lesbian blogger Amina Abdullah Araf, the voice of the widely read blog “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” who was purportedly abducted last week by three armed men, was actually the fictional online persona of Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old, white U.S.-born [...]

Judge Rejects Bigotry of Prop 8 Proponents

The proponents of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that stripped same-sex couples of their right to marry, aren’t above fighting dirty. In their campaign materials, they whipped up fear about protecting children and defending families, irresponsibly painting lesbians and gays as molesters and degenerates. When they had their day in court and an opportunity [...]

Prop 8 Judge Finds His Private Life on Trial

Proponents of Proposition 8–a voter-approved amendment to the California Constitution recognizing marriage as a union between a man and a woman–recently asked the U.S. District Court to vacate Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision last year finding Proposition 8 unconstitutional. The basis of this request is that Walker allegedly failed to reveal publicly, at the outset of [...]

Down-Low Men and Self-Protecting Women

Terrance Dean’s debut novel Mogul (Atria Books) tells the story of entertainment music producer Aaron “Big A.T.” Tremble’s struggle to come to terms with his sexuality. After compromising photos of Big A.T. and another man are sent to his girlfriend, Big A.T. must decide whether to publicly reveal his sexuality and risk compromising his success. [...]

We Heart: Minnesota Rep. Steve Simon

How many gays must God create before we accept that he wants them around? Amen. Rep. Steve Simon (D-St. Louis Park) posed this question to his peers at a Capitol hearing on May 2 in a speech against a bill banning gay marriage in Minnesota. The bill (HF1615) would define marriage as a union between one [...]

Anti-Gay Politics Hit Home on Mother’s Day

A “Yes on Prop 8” sticker on a neighbor’s house led Jaime Jenett, a non-biological lesbian mother who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, to write this letter: Hello, You don’t know me but I walk past your house three to four days a week on my break from work. Every time, [...]

Is “Gay” a Dirty Word in the Classroom?

Picture this: Johnny, 13, lives in Tennessee. Sally, 13, lives in California. Both are in the 8th grade and both are questioning their sexuality. When Sally asks her teacher or counselor about being a lesbian, a new policy proposed by California lawmakers would allow for a healthy dialogue. But when Johnny tries to talk about [...]

The Dying Breaths of the Anti-Gay-Rights Movement

With each passing day, the anti-gay rights movement loses a bit of steam. When same-sex marriage is one day legal in the United States, historians may look back on this week as the beginning of the end in light of three major events. First, on Monday, supporters of Proposition 8, the law in California that [...]

Prop 8 Still in Effect: What’s the Harm?

Yesterday, more than seven months after same-sex marriage ban Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided to prolong the wait for California gay couples who want to exercise their constitutional right to marry. After a federal judge overturned Prop 8 in August, the 9th Circuit stopped lesbian and gay couples [...]

CPAC and GOProud: Can Gay Rights Edge into the Conservative Movement?

If you’re not a political junkie, you probably breezed over news about the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that took place over the weekend in Washington, D.C. With an agenda [PDF] that listed more that 30 high-profile speakers and a score of panels on topics ranging from “How Political Correctness is Harming [...]

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