This is what love and democracy look like in action when a Miami judge lifts a stay in the marriage equality case. Let freedom ring!

Quote of the day, on marriage equality

"I think the Equal Protection Clause does guarantee same-sex marriage."

--Barack Obama

The desperation of America's social conservatives is hard to miss as they continue to lose in the court of public opinion

One of my favorite scenes from the movie "Pride," on power of empathy and connection

Colbert laughs at the social conservatives' suggestion comparing marriage equality to slavery. Me, too

The Colbert Report
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Quote of the day, on the importance of marriage equality

We, as judges, deal so often with laws that confine and constrain. Yet our core legal instrument comprehends the rights of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, to love and to marry the individuals they choose. It demands not merely toleration; when a state is in the business of marriage, it must affirm the love and commitment of same-sex couples in equal measure. Recognizing that right dignifies them; in so doing, we dignify our Constitution.

-- 9th Circuit Court, Federal Judge, Stephen Reinhardt, in striking down Idaho's and Nevada's same-sex marriage bans

The Cheerios Effect: how three people came together to create a loving family, but not a traditional one

Fierce. Watch this gay man take on sexism and "bottomphobia"!

This hopeful German short film chronicles the life of a fictitious gay soccer player and the high cost of living in the closet...for everyone

This gay Penn State student reads his poem about the courage it takes to love...

In praise of friendship...

“[W]hen we are young and literary, we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now. I always placed a high value on friendship, but even I had no way of guessing back then that it was more fun to get drunk with a friend than with a lover. Love is a source of anxiety until it is a source of boredom; only friendship feeds the spirit. Love raises great expectations in us that it never satisfies; the hopes based on friendship are milder and in the present, and they exist only because they have already been rewarded. Love is a script about just a few repeated themes we have a hard time following, though we make every effort to conform to its tone. Friendship is a permis de sejour that enables us to go anywhere and do anything exactly as our whims dictate,” 

-– Edmund White, City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and ’70s.

Moving: Michael Sams accepts the ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage Award for coming out as a gay football player

U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv celebrates gay pride. Thank you, Barack Obama!

"Safe in My Hands" video and song is a moving way for Allstate to recognize LGBT pride. Thank you!

I love this op-ed column about a father who is watching his 9-year old son develop crushes on other boys

"I Know My 9-Year-Old Son's 'Type': Pretty Boys With Dark Hair'

by Dave, from the Huffington Post

I went to pick up my kids from school the other day, my usual 3 o'clock date with the playground. My eldest son's teacher met me as I walked up, all atwitter with excitement. "We had some high-school seniors come in today to do some tutoring, and your son just really clicked with one of the boys," she told me. "He just talked and talked to him, and they got along so well." She knows just how painfully shy my son can be around new people and was just as happy as I was that he could find someone to interact with in a way other than hiding behind someone taller than he and sneaking glances around their torso. 

"Let me guess," I said. "Is this boy slim, dark-haired and very pretty?" Most people can't talk to people they find attractive, but my shy, shy boy is the exact opposite. 

"But... how did... how did you know that?" she asked. 

I know what my 9-year-old son's "type" of guy is. This is not something I expected to have knowledge of, not when my son was 9, and perhaps not ever. But that knowledge is in my brain anyway, and now I have to deal with it. And as much as it weirds me out, it is so cute to see him when the right kind of boy walks into his life.

Read the whole post.

Outsports captures the bro-kisses of soccer players: I love it

Check it out here. 

Quote of the day, the First Lady of Japan

"There is no difference to importance of love from sexual orientation. There should not be any discrimination because who you love. I am going to raise my voice. If my raised voice could contribute to the pride of LGBT people, there is no greater joy." 

- Akie Abe, the First Lady of Japan, speaking this spring at a gay pride event sponsored by the US embassy in Tokyo.

Watch this compilation of news clips about gays from the '80s, the decade I came out. I am glad that survived it all

Quote of the day on 'reparative therapy'

There is no legitimacy or value to this “reparative therapy,” just as there is no “homosexual lifestyle,” since being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender stems from biology, not choice. And there certainly should be laws and executive orders banning aversion therapy because it is based on non-science and is almost always deeply harmful to the people who undergo it.

--Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times

This is how to make an apology. And why the f-word is so devastating to all men

I am sure Jonah Hill is not a homophobe and I appreciate the tone of this apology.

Underlying this apology is the homophobic societal notion that calling a man "faggot" is the worst thing you can do to demean another man, as any school boy knows from his playground experience.  In essence, you are saying he is weak, ineffective, and not a man.  Until we change that belief about gay men and AFFIRM them as they grow up, the use of the f-word is continue to wreak havoc on the psyches of gay and straight men alike.