Recent Opinion Articles

Doctor, Doctor

Despite gains in society, gays and lesbians still face challenges receiving equal treatment in health care

Published on March 18, 2010, 1:13am

Back in the very early 1990s, not long after college and in the depths of my great post-collegiate career crisis — fancy speak for ''educated and unemployed'' — I found myself without health insurance. This seemed no big deal for a young, healthy, adult male. Then my wisdom tooth decided to make a move, becoming impacted, painful and in desperate need of removal. After many calls to dentists' offices to no avail, a friend told me to call a local ...[more]

Vatican's Past Imperfect

Amid a new choirboy scandal, social evolution is leaving the Catholic Church behind

Published on March 18, 2010, 1:11am

Pope Benedict XVI has been beset by matters of the flesh lately, from the growing sexual-abuse scandal in Germany to the revelation that a member of a Vatican choir procured male prostitutes for one of the pope's ceremonial ushers at 2,000 euros a pop. A headline in the March 13 issue of The New York Times declared, ''Church Abuse Scandal in Germany Edges Closer to Pope.'' This refers to the revelation that 30 years ago in the Archdiocese of Munich ...[more]

Seniors in the Spotlight

LGBT aging is not a news trend, it is what we are living every day

Published on March 18, 2010, 1:09am

It's been another big news week for LGBT aging. An Associated Press story released Monday on coming out late in life; the SAGE/Movement Advancement Project report entitled ''Improving the Lives of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Older Adults''; and a significant LGBT presence at the National Council on Aging/American Society on Aging's annual conference -- the largest conference of aging professionals and policymakers in the country. There's a reason for this attention. Our nation is aging, and the LGBT ...[more]

Political Proof

It may seem counterintuitive, but we need Virginia's Republican governor and attorney general to pursue their far-right, anti-gay platform

Published on March 11, 2010, 2:27am

Just to be clear about this before I start: I was appalled that Bob McDonnell could be elected governor of Virginia and absolutely horrified the Ken Cuccinelli was elected attorney general. In fact, I can't even remember who else ran for attorney general -- all I know is that I voted for the candidate who was not Ken Cuccinelli. As a current Northern Virginia resident who also happened to attend college in the state lo these many years ago, I'm ...[more]

Transformational Tie

Marriage may not change our relationship, but it changes our relationship to our community

Published on March 11, 2010, 2:26am

It's funny, and often fascinating, how so much can change in such a short time -- and yet change so little. When our family arrived back home on Tuesday evening, we were the same family we were when we left home that afternoon. Yet, as a family we experienced an important change when my husband and I -- after being married in all but the legal sense for 10 years -- were legally married to each other Tuesday afternoon. The ...[more]

How We Won

Bringing marriage equality to Washington has been years in the making

Published on March 4, 2010, 3:12am

March 3 marked the start of same-sex couples being able to apply for marriage licenses in District of Columbia Superior Court. The seeds of this victory trace back to 1975, when Cade Ware, Frank Kameny and Craig Howell of the Gay Activists Alliance (as it was then called) gave the first testimony before the D.C. Council in favor of same-sex marriage. In 1978 -- responding to Anita Bryant's successful anti-gay campaign in Dade County, Fla., the previous year -- Jim ...[more]

Celebrating Victory

Marriage Equality in D.C. should be met with great joy, even as we work to protect it from opponents of equality

Published on March 3, 2010, 10:37am

It's in my nature to urge caution when it comes to celebrating our political successes. Long experience has taught us that defeat is sometimes snatched from the jaws of victory. It's often better, I think, to take a more measured approach that moderates joy to protect against the possibility of later disappointment. Not this time. This time, I'm as joyous as the gay and lesbian couples who, as I write this, are lined up outside a courthouse on a cold ...[more]

Conservatively Speaking

Even with GOProud's CPAC success, gay conservatives have a long way to go

Published on February 25, 2010, 6:39pm

I believe it's important to acknowledge when we're wrong about our assumptions or expectations, so I should point out that when GOProud initially announced its plans to sponsor this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) — a confab generally recognized as being a forum for some of the more extreme elements of the right-wing, a place where Ann Coulter could say ''faggot'' from the stage to applause — I had my doubts about the wisdom of the effort. But the ...[more]

Shticks and Stones

Cheap and easy shots may make for entertaining political outbursts, but it's damaging the nation's discourse

Published on February 24, 2010, 11:38pm

There's the old Woody Allen joke about how being bisexual can double your chances of getting a date. It's not terribly funny, but it gets to the heart of the self-defined bisexuals: maximum opportunity, minimum commitment. For those of us who are simply gay, the term bisexual is a joke on its own. We may allow the ''B'' in our politically correct rainbow, but honestly, we think you're just faking it. Pulling back the curtain on one fraud, we may ...[more]

Making an Exception

Cheney's support for repealing ''Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' is a positive, but it's fair to ask what took him so long

Published on February 17, 2010, 11:59pm

I was once a big believer in American exceptionalism. I don't mean the quasi-mystical version of exceptionalism in which God laid down the foundations for his favored nation around the time he introduced Adam to the dinosaurs. What I do mean is the idea of a nation that believes in the rule of law and a system of government that requires the consent of the governed. That's not to say that we've always lived up to that belief — ideals, ...[more]

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