Opinion

We talk about coming out as if it’s something you only do once. In my experience it’s an ongoing part of life. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it makes my stomach flutter. I first came out as a lesbian 30...

This week’s column is (mostly) not about Donald Trump. Instead, as I do from time to time, I asked my Facebook friends to suggest topics. So here goes: Anne Marguriet and Cathie Gansert suggested: “How can rights be decided by states?...

This last sleepy, dreary, overcast Saturday, you might have missed President Barack Obama as he gave what many might say in the future was one of his best speeches of his presidential years. It was a commencement address at Howard...

This is a tough election year cycle for me. If the presumptive candidates are Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, there just isn’t a clear choice for a disenfranchised voter like myself. I have always voted for the person I feel...

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program Tuesday, Donald Trump asked why people didn’t look into the reports that Ted Cruz’s father was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald, seeming to suggest that Cruz’s father was a part of the assassination of President...

Almost a decade and a half ago, I was sent by my grandmother to Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge is a program primarily for alcoholics and drug addicts, but homosexuality is seen as a similar life controlling issue. This was before...

Listen up, LGBT history fans. When you think of LGBT history, you likely think of San Francisco or New York City, but the truth is, 40 years ago, Pennsylvania was at the vanguard of the American struggle for LGBT equality. You’re...

Last Friday I attended a meeting of the National Gay Media Association, an organization of the publishers of the LGBT legacy publications. At one point when we came back from a break, Lynn Brown, publisher of The Washington Blade, asked...

After Republican senators announced they would unequivocally not “advise and consent” to any nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court that President Obama seeks to appoint, I wrote in my Feb. 18 column that “by taking such an approach, the GOP...

Jason and I went to a heterosexual wedding last weekend. (I wonder if heterosexuals say, “I went to a gay wedding last weekend”?) Anyway, it was the first one we’ve been to since our own wedding. We were honored to...

Nate Silver of The New York Times’ “FiveThirtyEight” website, and the most accurate of political pundits, attempted this week to bring sanity to the presidential race after this past Super Tuesday’s presidential primaries, with Donald Trump winning big on the...

OK liberals, the Republicans, in their “wisdom,” have said they won’t consider President Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. By taking such an approach, the GOP has handed liberals a golden opportunity — and shown...

There seems to be yet another controversy in our community this week. The issue du jour is over HuffPost changing its dedicated LGBT site’s name from “GayVoices” to “QueerVoices.” While there are strong opinions on both sides of this issue,...

Finally, the Iowa caucuses have come and gone and with them come the pundits and candidates with their spin. But what about the LGBT spin? Let’s look at what those races meant and maybe do a little crystal-ball predicting. Let’s start...

One of the first things I had to do when I decided to revive this column is to reconcile that I am no longer part the younger generation. Post-fifty, I challenged myself: from what perspective are you going to write...

Very simply, there are many LGBT people out there trying to revise LGBT history. Most have either a financial stake or a personal political agenda, but either way, they do an injustice to our community by peddling snake-oil history. The Stonewall Riots...

I’ve often shared emails I receive with you, and one that came in last week remarkably represents how far we have traveled on that road to LGBT equality (yes, that was a plug for my book!). But this is by...

This is a very special week here at Philadelphia Gay News. On Jan. 3, we marked the 40th anniversary of the first issue of PGN. We’ll have an official 40th-anniversary edition and event later in the year; stay tuned for that...

What a year, and what a ride. As we all do, I’m beginning to look back at my year. And for me, it certainly was a special year, one in which I learned a lot. Let me share with you...

This will undoubtedly be the most unusual Christmas column I’ve ever written and it has to do with a hate crime. Last week a jury in Philadelphia found a woman guilty of four charges relating to what has been characterized as...