How LGBT Professionals Can Stand Out at Work

April 19, 2015, 1:29 pm

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For years, the dominant question for LGBT professionals was whether it was safe to be out at work. Though the battle is far from over -- there are still 29 states where we can be fired for being gay and 32 for being transgender -- the growing acceptance of gay marriage and the coming out of prominent executives like Apple's Tim Cook has moved the discourse to the next level. The new question is, how can we best position ourselves for success as out professionals? In my new book Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, I discuss how to be recognized and respected for your strengths. Here are four strategies you can use to take your career to the next level.

1. Take control of your narrative.

Particularly for LGBT professionals, there are plenty of people who are happy to tell our story for us -- people who might question why "have to be so open about it" or why we're "flaunting our identity." Don't assume that your good work speaks for itself. Instead, take control of your professional narrative by creating a one or two sentence description of where you've been in the past and how it adds value to what you're doing in the present. Your narrative statement doesn't need to involve your sexuality. The reason it's important to have one is that it gives people an alternative story -- the one you choose -- for them to adopt, so that instead of thinking of you as "the gay one," they'll think of you as "the cross-cultural communication expert who's using her skills to help grow our business in China."

2. Build your network.

For professionals in any minority group, it's important to have a base of supportive, trusted colleagues you can turn to. They don't have to be other LGBT people (though they could be). What's of paramount importance is that they accept your sexuality and see you, above all else, as a talented professional. They can give you the feedback and support you need to be successful, and give you an initial boost (through talking you up or helping you access new opportunities) that ensures the rest of the world recognizes your abilities, as well. For more detailed networking strategies, I recommend Never Eat Alone and Who's Got Your Back? by openly gay author Keith Ferrazzi, for a particularly relevant take.

3. Master your online presence.

These days, hiring someone for a job or consulting engagement isn't much different than deciding whether to go on a date with them: in almost all instances, you Google them first. That's why it's so critical to ensure your online presence reflects who you really are and how you'd like to be seen by others. In just an hour or two a week, you can create a robust and professional online presence by, for instance, writing one blog post per week on your LinkedIn account about issues and trends in your profession, or maintaining a Twitter account where you curate and share relevant information about your field. When people look you up, you'll be showing your best self.

4. Become a convener.

In Stand Out, I profile Robbie Samuels, an openly transgender speaker and consultant who simultaneously made a name for himself and brought together the Boston nonprofit community by starting a popular Meetup group called Socializing for Justice. He recognized that nonprofit advocates didn't have enough casual, fun ways to come together, so he created one, launching biweekly events like Cocktails for Justice and Bowling for Justice. Within six weeks, 150 people were coming to each event; today, the group numbers more than 2500 members and has been running for nine years. Through the connections he made because of the group, Robbie was able to launch a side gig consulting, and eventually turned it into a full-time business. When you're a convener, you help others make connections that matter to them - and they're grateful to you for it.

Research by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Karen Sumberg shows that openly gay employees may be more likely to succeed at work compared to their closeted counterparts, who expend too much energy worrying about managing their identity and how they're perceived. Now that it's increasingly accepted to be out, it's time for LGBT professionals to move on to the next challenge: creating a powerful personal brand that marks them as leaders.

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Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist who teaches at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, and you can receive her free Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.

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Grandma's Tales: On Vietnam, Memories and Transformation

April 19, 2015, 1:49 pm

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"Grandma's Tales" is reprinted from Birds of Paradise Lost (Red Hen Press, 2013), my first collection of short stories. It was a finalist for the 83rd California Book Award, short listed for the William Saroyan Award, and a winner of the Josephine Miles Literary Award. It is posted here on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War this April 30, 2015.


The day after Mama and Papa took off to Las Vegas, Grandma died. Lea and me, we didn't know what to do. Vietnamese traditional funerals with incense sticks and chanting Buddhist monks were not our thing.

"We have a big freezer," Lea said. "Why don't we freeze Grandma? Really, why bother Mama and Papa--what's another day or two for Grandma now anyway?"

Since Lea's older than me and since I didn't have any better idea, we iced Grandma.

Grandma was ninety-four years, eight months, and six days old when she died. She had seen lots of things and lived through three wars and two famines. She lived a full hard life, if you ask me. America, besides, was not all that good for her. She had been confined to the second floor of our big Victorian home as her health was failing, and she did not speak English and only a little French. French like "Oui, monsieur, c'est evidemment un petit monstre." And "Non, Madame, vous n'êtes pas du tout enceinte, je vous assure." She was a head nurse in the maternity ward of the Hanoi hospital during the French colonial time. I used to love her stories about delivering all these strange two-headed babies and the Siamese triplets connected at the hip whom she named Happy, Liberation, and Day.

Grandma died a quiet death really. She was eating spring rolls with me and Lea. Lea was wearing this real nice black miniskirt and her lips were painted red and Grandma said, "You look like a high-class whore." And Lea made a face and said she was preparing to go to one of her famous San Francisco artsy-fartsy cocktail parties where waiters are better dressed than most Vietnamese men of high-class status back home and the foods are served on silver trays and there is baby corn, duck paté, salmon mousse, and ice sculptures with wings, and live musicians playing Vivaldi music. "So eat, Grandma, and get off my case, because I'm no whore."

"It was a compliment," Grandma said, winking at me, "but I guess it's wasted on you, child." Then Grandma laughed, her breath hoarse and thinning, her deep wrinkled face a blur. Still, she managed to say this much as Lea prepared to leave: "Child, do the cha-cha-cha for me. I didn't get to do much when I was young, with my clubbed foot and the wars and everything else."

"Sure, Grandma," Lea said and rolled her pretty eyes toward the chandelier. Then Grandma just dropped her chopsticks on the hardwood floor--clack, clack, clatter, clack, clack--leaned back, closed her eyes, and stopped breathing. Just like that.

So we iced her. She was small enough that she fit right above the TV dinner trays and the frozen yogurt bars we were going to have for dessert. We wrapped all of grandma's five-foot-three, ninety-eight-pound lithe body in Saran wrap and kept her there and hoped Mama and Papa would get the Mama-Papa-come-home-quick-Grandma's-dead letter that we sent to Circus Circus, where they were staying, celebrating their thirty-third wedding anniversary. In the meanwhile, Lea's got a party to go to and I've got to meet Kayden for a movie.

It was a bad movie, too, if you want to know the truth. But Kayden is cool. Kayden has always been cool. Kayden's got eyes so green they make you want to become an environmentalist. Kayden's got this laugh that makes you warm all over. And Kayden is really beautiful and a year older than me, a senior. The movie is called Dragon, starring this Hawaiian guy who played Bruce Lee. He moaned and groaned and fought a lot in the movie, but it just wasn't the same. Bruce Lee is dead. Bruce Lee could not be revived even if the guy who played him had all these muscles to crack walnuts and lay bricks with. Now Grandma was dead, too.

So Kayden and I got home and necked on the couch. Kayden liked Grandma. Grandma liked Kayden. Though they hardly ever spoke to one another because neither one knew the other's language, there was this thing between them, you know, mutual respect, like one cool old chick to one cool young dude thing. (Sometimes I would translate, but not always 'cuz my English is not all that good and my Vietnamese sucks.)

What's so cool about Grandma is that she's the only one who knows I'm bisexual. I mean, I hate the term, but I'm bisexual, I suppose, by default 'cuz I don't have a preference and I respond to all stimuli and Kayden stimulated me at the moment, and Grandma, who for some reason, though Confucian born and trained, and a Buddhist and all, was really cool about it. One night, I remember, we were sitting in the living room watching a John Wayne movie together and Kayden was there with me and Grandma while Mama and Papa had just gone to bed. (Lea was again at some weird black-and-white ball or something like that.) And Kayden leaned over and kissed me on the lips, and Grandma said, "That's real nice," and I translated and we all laughed and John Wayne shot dead five mean old guys. Just like that. But Grandma didn't mind, really. She'd seen Americans like John Wayne shooting her people before and always thought John Wayne was a bad guy in the movies and she'd seen us more passionate than a kiss on the lips and didn't mind. She used to tell us to be careful and not make babies--obviously a joke--'cuz she's done delivering them. She also thought John Wayne was uglier than a water buffalo's ass, but never-you-mind. So, you see, we liked Grandma a lot.

Now Grandma's packed in 20-degree Fahrenheit. And the movie sucked. On the couch in the living room after awhile I said, "Kayden, I have to tell you something."

"What?" asked Kayden.

"Grandma's dead," I said.

"You're kidding me!" Kayden whispered, showing his beautiful white teeth.

"I kid you not," I said. "She's dead, and Lea and me, we iced her."

"Shit!" said Kayden. "Why?"

"'Cuz she would start to smell otherwise, duh, and we have to wait for my parents to perform a traditional Vietnamese funeral." We fell silent for awhile then, holding each other. Then Kayden said, "Can I take a peek at Grandma?"

"Sure," I said, "sure you can; she was just as much yours as she was mine," and we went to the freezer and looked in.

The weird thing was the freezer was on defrost and Grandma was nowhere in sight. There was a trail of water and Saran wrap leading from the freezer to her bedroom, though, so we followed it. On the bed, all wet and everything, there sat Grandma counting her Buddhist rosary and chanting her diamond sutra. What's weirder still is that she looked real young. I mean around fifty-four now, not ninety-four. The high cheekbones had come back, the rosy lips. When she saw us, she smiled and said, "What do you say we all go to one of those famous cocktail parties that Lea's gone to, the three of us?"


Now, I wasn't scared, she being my Grandma and all, but what really got me feeling all these goosebumps on my neck and arms was that she said it in English, I mean accentless California English. I mean the way Mrs. Collier, our neighbor, the English teacher, speaks English. Me, I have a slight accent still, but Grandma's was like that of an announcer on NPR.

"Wow, Grandma," said Kayden, "your English is excellent."

"I know," Grandma said, "that's just a side benefit of being reborn. But enough with compliments; we've got to party."

"Cool," said Kayden.

"Cool," I said, though I was a little jealous 'cuz I had to go through junior high and high school and all those damn ESL classes and everything to learn the same language while Grandma just got it down cold--no pun intended--'cuz she was reborn. And Grandma put on this nice brocade red blouse and black silk pants and sequined velvet shoes and fixed her hair real nice and we drove off downtown.

Boy, you should've seen Lea's face when we came in. I mean she nearly tripped over herself and had to put her face on the wing of this ice sculpture that looked like a big melting duck to calm herself. Then she walked straight up to us, all haughty like, and said, "It's invitation only, how'd y'all get in?"

"Calm yourself, child," said Grandma. "I told them that I was a board member of the Cancer Society and flashed my jade bracelet and diamond ring and gave the man a forty-dollar tip." And Lea had the same reaction Kayden and I had: "Grandma, your English is flawless!" But Grandma was oblivious to compliments. She went straight to the punch bowl to scoop up some spirits, and that's when I noticed that her clubbed foot was cured and she had this elegant grace about her. She drifted, you might say, across the room, her hair floating like gray-black clouds behind her, and everyone stared, mesmerized.

Needless to say, Grandma was the big hit at that artsy-fartsy party. She had so many interesting stories to tell. The feminists, it seemed, loved her the most. They crowded around her like hens around a barnyard rooster and made it hard for the rest of us to hear. But Grandma told her stories all right. She told them how she'd been married early and had eight children while being the matriarch of a middle-class family during the Viet Minh Uprising. She told them about my grandfather, a brilliant man who was well-versed in Moliere and Shakespeare and who was an accomplished violinist but who drank himself to death because he was helpless against the colonial powers of the French. She told everyone how single-handedly she had raised her children after his death and they all became doctors and lawyers and pilots and famous composers.

Then she started telling them how the twenty-four-year-old civil war divided her family up and brothers fought brothers over some stupid ideological notions that proved terribly bloody but pointless afterward. Then she told them about our journey across the Pacific Ocean in this crowded fishing boat where thirst and starvation nearly did us all in, but we survived to catch glimpses of this beautiful America and become Americans.



She started telling them, too, about the fate of Vietnamese women who must marry and see their husbands and sons go to war and never come back. Then she recited poems and told fairy tales with sad endings, fairy tales she herself had learned as a child, the kind she used to tell my cousins and me when we were real young. There was this princess, you see, who fell in love with a fisherman, and he didn't know about her 'cuz she only heard his beautiful voice singing from a distance, and so when he drifted down river one day, she died, her heart turning into this ruby with the image of his boat imprinted on it. There was also this faithful wife who held her baby waiting for her war-faring husband every night on a cliff, and one stormy night, out of pity, the gods turned her and her child into stone. In Grandma's stories, the husbands and fishermen always come home, but they come home always too late and there was nothing they could do but mourn and grieve.

Grandma's voice was sad and seductive and words came pouring out of her like rain, and the whole place turned quiet, and Lea sobbed because she understood. Kayden, he stood close to me, put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed slightly, and I leaned against him and cried a little, too.

"I lost four of my children," Grandma said, "twelve of my grandchildren and countless relatives and friends to wars and famines, and I lost everything I owned when I left my beautiful country behind. Mine is a story of suffering and sorrow, sorrow and suffering being the way of Vietnamese life. But now I have a second chance and I am not who I was, and yet I have all the memories, so wherever I go, I figure, I will keep telling my stories and songs."




The author's clan in Saigon, Vietnam, @1965.

There was this big applause then, and afterward a rich-looking man with gray hair and a pinstripe suit came up to Grandma and they talked quietly for awhile. When they were done, Grandma came to me and Lea and Kayden and said goodbye. She said she was not going to wait for my parents to come home for a traditional funeral. She had a lot of living still to do since Buddha had given her the gift to live twice in one life, and this man, some famous novelist from Colombia, was going to take her places. He might even help her write a book. So she was going to the Mediterranean to get a tan and to Venice to see the festivals and ride the gondolas and maybe afterward she'd go by Hanoi and see what they'd done to her childhood home and visit some long-forgotten ancestral graves and relatives and then who knows where she'll go after that. She'll send postcards, though, and "Don't you wait up."

Then before we knew it, Grandma was already out the door with the famous novelist, and the elevator music started playing, and I swear, if those ice sculptures of swans started to fly away or something, nobody would have been surprised. Kayden and I ran out after Grandma when we got through the hugging frenzy, but she was already gone, and outside there was only this beautiful city under a velvety night sky, its high-rises shining like glass cages with little diamonds and gold coins kept locked inside of them.

Mama and Papa came home two days later. They brought incense sticks and ox-hide drums and wooden fish and copper gongs and jasmine wreaths and oolong tea and paper offerings--all the things that we were supposed to have for a traditional funeral. A monk had even sent a fax of his chanting rate and schedule so we could choose the appropriate time because he was real busy, and the relatives started pouring in.

It was hard to explain then what had happened, what we had always expected as the tragic ending of things, human frailty the point of mourning and grief. And wasn't epic loss what made us tell our stories? It was difficult for me to mourn now, though. Difficult 'cuz while the incense smoke drifted all over the house and the crying and wailing droned like cicadas humming on the tamarind tree in the summer back in Vietnam, Grandma wasn't around. Grandma had done away with the normal plot for tragedy, and life after her was not going to be so simple anymore.


Related stories:

Hear Andrew Lam read another story, "The Palmist" herefrom Birds of Paradise Lost


Andrew Lam on Writing

Read Andrew'sspeech on the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War


Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, which won the 2006 PEN Open Book Award, and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. He's an editor and cofounder of New America Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets. He's been a regular NPR commentator, and his essays have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, and many other journals.

This story has also appeared previously in print in Amerasia Journal (1994) and the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose edited by Barbara Tran, Monique Truong, and Khoi Truong Luu (Asian American Writers Workshop, 1998). You can listen to Andrew Lam read "Grandma's Tales" on The Story, American Public Media (September 13, 2013).

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

How I Learned to Love 40 by Posing Naked

April 19, 2015, 4:54 pm

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Disclaimer: This post may contain NSFW images.

The first time I ever saw what my own bare ass looked like in its entirety was more than a decade ago after visiting a men's gay clothing-optional resort in Fort Lauderdale. A friend snapped a pic of me lounging naked on a raft in the pool and I remember being startled when I had the film developed weeks later (remember those days?) and there I was buoying in the buff above a scribbled shimmer of turquoise water -- like a Hockney painting come to life.

In an era where everyone from out gay teenagers to middle-aged men and even seniors are snapping naked selfies for trade on hookup apps like Grindr, Scruff and DaddyHunt, it's almost quaint to look at that picture now. But at the time it was a revelation. I had never before seen a complete view of my backside bare and knew even then the image reflected the spoils of youth.

Shortly thereafter I began entertaining the idea of hiring a photographer to do a professional nude photo shoot for the purposes of putting together a collection of images that would decades later serve as a time capsule of myself as a younger man. A few years went by... then a few more. Last year I turned 40, and it was official: My youth had departed a long time ago.

Aside from the inevitable anxieties about turning 40 placed upon us all by the culture, I greeted the beginning of my fifth decade with relative calm. My 30s had been quite the run and it was at last time for a new chapter. However, one thing I had let society convince me was that opportunities to make romantic connections would dwindle -- and I resigned myself to that. But to the contrary they expanded exponentially. It was as if 40 was a magical number among guys seeking out older men or so called "daddies" and I had just entered the club.

This very much surprised me. When I was 22 and living in San Francisco, it wasn't an aspiration among guys my age to openly seek out older men. The generation that had come before us had been severely scarred and diminished by the AIDS crisis and the drug cocktail that would transform the disease from a death sentence to a chronic condition was still in its nascent stage. In my youth there simply wasn't a plethora of middle-aged men around to serve as role models, thus I felt emboldened at 40 to renew the idea of hiring a shutterbug to photograph me au naturel. After all, even younger gays who seek older men often fear being one themselves and I saw in this venture a symbolic opportunity to give them permission to age triumphantly.

I discovered Marlen Boro while browsing online and connected to his work right away. He's a Minneapolis-based photographer who calls his portraits "Male Boudoir" in that his work concentrates on naturalistic images of guys of every shape, age, size, color and body type captured mostly at home and at their most relaxed, intimate -- and revealing. On his website I discovered hundreds of guys in various states of undress and erotic expression who were piercingly handsome and desirable whether or not they'd ever stepped foot inside a gym. I felt a kinship with this tribe and knew Boro would "get it right." I contacted him right away.

We agreed upon a punishingly hot late July shoot. I've always loved Palm Springs in the summer when visitors to the region are scarce and the vastness of the Coachella Valley is intensely felt. As it happened, I was going to be working and traveling around California at that time anyway so Boro agreed to meet me at a meticulously restored mid-century home we discovered through AirBnB. It was an ideal setting.

But in the days leading up to our encounter a peculiar thing happened -- I panicked. In the months prior to our shoot I had failed to get to the gym as often as I'd wanted. I felt out of shape, undesirable and old. I kept hoping Boro would flake and that I would be able to cancel and get my deposit back. All along I had convinced myself that the shoot was a hero's journey designed to combat ageism and show our community that we're sexy, vital and important at any age. Turns out it wasn't the world that needed reassurance -- it was me. This was about my own insecurities all along.

Of course, all of these worries turned out to be nonsense much like most of the self-destructive shit that rattles around in the human brain. Boro was a pro and put my fears at ease as we staked out spaces both inside and around the swimming pool to take pictures over the course of two unforgettable days. We even had the pleasure of driving out to the Salton Sea -- a largely forgotten wasteland in the southeast corner of the state that barely registers in the sun-drenched minds of most Southern Californians but is nevertheless one of the most beautiful places on earth -- and snap pics alongside the silver Ford Mustang I'd rented for the journey.

I waited with baited breath for the images to be completed and am happy to say that not only are they as sharp and beautiful as I'd hope they'd be, but also as startling and compelling as that first naked pic taken all those many years ago. It's not my bare bum or any other body part that transfixes me this time around but something else entirely. The passing of years reveal in these images the kind of confidence, wisdom and undeniable sex appeal that comes only with the passage of time and for that I'm grateful (although it helps that my ass still looks amazing).

Welcome to 40. Whenever you get there and whoever you are and when you do, don't forget to snap a few pics. This is one of the greatest eras of life and you're going to want to remember it.

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Meet The Couples Fighting To Make Marriage Equality The Law Of The Land

April 20, 2015, 4:35 am

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If the Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage this year, it will be largely because of a group of gay Americans who were courageous enough to subject their families to public scrutiny in order to become the faces of a movement.



On April 28, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, named for Ohio resident Jim Obergefell, who wants to be listed as the surviving spouse on his husband's death certificate. Obergefell married his partner of 20 years, John Arthur, aboard a medical jet in 2013, while Arthur was suffering from ALS. Arthur passed away in October of that year, three months after the couple filed their lawsuit.

"The decision to file suit -- I know from John's perspective -- it was a way for him to say, 'Thank you, Jim. You've given me 20 years. The past couple of years have been pretty awful with ALS, and this is something I can do to thank you, to protect you and to just let you know once again, how much I love you.' And I can think of no better reason to be going to the Supreme Court than to remember that and honor that," Obergefell said recently, during a moving speech at the Human Rights Campaign's headquarters.

Obergefell is joined by several dozen other gay plaintiffs from a number of states who are fighting both to be able to marry the person they love and to have their marriage recognized in every state in the country.

Obergefell v. Hodges is actually a consolidation of cases in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. (Because Obergefell's lawsuit had the lowest case number, the cases are grouped under that name, per the court's tradition.)

Most of these plaintiffs had no idea their cases would end up before the Supreme Court. After all, they started off small.

For Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon, it began at Fauver Law Office, a small firm that operates out of a house in Louisville, Kentucky. In July 2013, the couple filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky to have their marriage recognized by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Bourke and DeLeon wed in Canada in 2004, but have not been able to receive the same benefits that heterosexual married couples get in their state.

Four couples eventually joined that case, Bourke v. Beshear. That case was eventually consolidated into the Supreme Court suit, as was Love v. Beshear, a separate case in which two same-sex couples sued for the right to marry in Kentucky.

Shannon Fauver and Dawn Elliott, the two attorneys who originally handled Bourke and DeLeon's case, said it was tough to find plaintiffs who were ready to face all the publicity that comes with such a prominent role. They said many were concerned about how the proceedings would affect their children and family members.

"I thought it would be a whole lot easier to find people who were willing to be involved in the litigation," said Elliott. "But we had to sell it to the plaintiffs in order for them to be involved in this."

Still, she added, "We didn't think it would be as massive as it is."

Watch an interview with Fauver, Elliott and Laura Landenwich, another attorney working on the Kentucky cases, above.

As the cases became increasingly high-profile, more groups signed on to help win the right to marriage equality. In Kentucky, for example, the plaintiffs are now being represented not only by Fauver, but also by the Louisville firm of Clay Daniel Walton and Adams PLC, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.

"The stories of these families, and others all across America, are the reason public opinion is changing so rapidly on marriage," said James Esseks, director of the ACLU's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and HIV Project. "These are just regular parents who want the best for their kids. Marriage will help both them and their children."

Michigan's contribution to the Obergefell suit revolves around just one couple, April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse. Their 2012 lawsuit originally made no mention of gay marriage, and was instead aimed at changing state law so they could both be recognized as legal parents to their four adopted children. The couple only switched course after a federal judge invited them to expand their challenge to target the state constitution's ban on same-sex marriage.

DeBoer and Rowse were initially hesitant to take on the stress and public scrutiny they knew they would come with a bigger case. But they ultimately decided the fight was worth it if it would make their family safer.

"When parents get angry about their children not being treated equally, that’s where you're going to get somebody to react, and that’s when we reacted," DeBoer said.

"If we win," she added, "not only will we be recognized as a full family, but Jayne and my relationship will finally be recognized legally as well."

Dana Nessel, an attorney for the couple, said the judge's recommendation was just one of a series of surprises. For a small legal team with little funding, she said, the last three years have been tough, though ultimately rewarding.

"No one thinks of history-making cases as happening totally by accident," Nessel said.

The Michigan case is unique both in the way it originated and because it was sent to a full trial, according to Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the LGBT project at the Michigan chapter of the ACLU. He said that holding a trial gave Rowse and DeBoer's attorneys the opportunity to present expert testimony and cross-examine the defendants' witnesses.

"It was clear that the state's arguments that were made to support denying same-sex couples the right to marry were not credible," Kaplan said. "I think that makes it a very strong case to be heard by the Supreme Court."

Former Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General Douglas Hallward-Driemeier and Mary Bonauto, an attorney with the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and a pioneer in the gay rights movement, will be arguing the consolidated case before the Supreme Court. A decision is expected in June.

"This is the right time [for marriage equality] -- politically, socially, legally," said Laura Landenwich, an attorney with Clay Daniel Walton and Adams PLC, during a recent interview at the firm's office. "Everything is in place for them to rule in our favor. And I will make the prediction that if we lose, that opinion will get reversed later on. It will be viewed at some point as a mistake."

The Huffington Post interviewed three couples who are plaintiffs in the upcoming Supreme Court case about why they decided to take on this legal battle and what achieving marriage equality would mean for their families. Read their stories below.

Michael DeLeon and Greg Bourke

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse

Paul Campion and Randell Johnson

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'Just As Boring And Crazy And Loud As Any Other Family'

April 20, 2015, 4:37 am

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Shannon Duncan has worked at Big O Tires for 17 years. Over time, he's become friendly with Randy Johnson, a customer who's always stopping by with his kids to have work done one of their five vehicles.

About a year ago, Johnson brought his husband, Paul Campion, to the shop. Until that moment, Duncan had had no idea Johnson was gay. In fact, he didn't even know that he knew any gay people. He grew up in a rural, conservative community that simply accepted that marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman.

"It wasn't that I had anything against gay people," Duncan said. "It's just that maybe I didn't know anybody -- or I didn't know that I knew any."

"It was just really weird for me," he added. "It was like, 'Wow, I'm not as bothered as I thought I would be by this whole situation because they're not different than I am. They're just like me.' For me, it was kind of a big deal. I think that really changed the way I looked at gay people, I guess."

Duncan later saw Campion and Johnson on the local news while he was at home with his wife. They are part of a group of plaintiffs whose cases will be before the Supreme Court on April 28, when the justices are scheduled to examine the constitutionality of marriage equality bans.

Duncan said when he excitedly told his wife that Johnson was a friend from work, she was surprised he knew a gay couple.

"I'm like, 'It's not even like that. I don't even see him as a gay person. He's just a person,'" Duncan said.

"For them to have to go through all the crap that they have to do -- they went out of their way to [adopt] these children and to make sure these children have a place to live and grow and succeed," he added. "And it's not fair for the kids or for Randy and Paul to have to deal with what they have to deal with."

Watch an interview with Campion and Johnson above.

Johnson and Campion have been together for 23 years. They both grew up in religious households -- Campion as a Catholic in western New York and Johnson in the Southern Baptist Church in Kentucky -- and frequently cited "divine intervention" as the reason they found one another.

Randy Johnson and Paul Campion, 2012

During a recent interview at the couple's home, Johnson said he struggled with his sexual orientation until he was in college.

"I knew I was gay but never admitted to myself nor anyone else," he said.

The two met in a bar in August 1991, while Campion, who was a teacher in New York at the time, was visiting his brother in Louisville. He had to fly home the next day.

"I wasn't looking for a husband or anything of that nature," Campion said. "But when I walked in and I saw him, I mean it was -- I know it's kind of like one of those things like it couldn't be that, but it was love at first sight. … Obviously I thought he was the cutest guy I ever met. But also I just loved the way he worked hard. The way he talked about his family was a selling point to me. I was hooked."

By February, Campion had moved down to Kentucky to be with Johnson. They were cautious about their relationship at first, telling people they were just friends from school. But people soon understood they were more than that to each other.

They married in 2008 -- a last-minute decision while visiting Campion's brother in Palm Springs, California. His brother reminded them that same-sex marriage was legal there, so they decided to go for it.

When they saw a friend post on Facebook in 2013 that some lawyers were looking for gay couples to join the same-sex marriage lawsuit, they hesitated. They hadn't really been activists, but they felt like they were ready to take on a more prominent role in advocating for LGBT equality.

"We felt like it was a point in our lives when we could certainly share our story and we thought that it would be valuable to let people know of our 23 years of experience together in hopes of possibly making it a bit easier for other families like ours to come together," Johnson said.

But first, they needed to talk with their four children. It's obvious as soon as you enter their house that they're a tight-knit crew. Family photos -- big and small -- cover the walls of their home. Twins Tevin and Tyler, 20, are sophomores in college. DeSean, 16, is a sophomore in high school, and Mackenzie, 11, is in sixth grade.

The Johnson-Campion children: Tevin, Mackenzie, Tyler and DeSean, 2014

Campion and Johnson said they certainly had concerns about the amount of publicity that their family would have to face if they joined the lawsuit. But the kids were fine with their decision and gave them their blessing right away.

"They were with us when we got married in California," Campion said. "But they don't understand why we can't have the [marriage] benefits here in Kentucky. So they wanted to make sure we would be the face of that change, and they wanted to come along that journey with us."

The Johnson-Campion kids agreed that being put in the public eye wasn't a big deal for them.

"We've always kind of had media around us, ever since we were younger," Tyler said. "Like on Father's Day, the local newspaper would come and interview us and write stories about our family. So we've always been used to having a little bit of publicity and media."

The kids said they've gotten questions their whole life like, "Why do you have two dads?" or "Are you adopted?" But for the most part, it hasn't been an issue.

"My friends think my family's so fun because we're so crazy and really loud and have a lot of pets," said Mackenzie, referring to their two dogs -- one a tiny Yorkie puppy her dads gave her as a gift -- and a cat. "So they come over in the summer and hang out with me."

"We're just as boring and crazy and loud as any other family," Tevin agreed. "So people do see that we're normal."

While it seems clear to anyone who meets them that Campion, Johnson and their children are a family, the Commonwealth of Kentucky doesn't recognize them as one. Johnson is listed as Mackenzie's only legal parent, while Campion is the parent of the other three children.

The Johnson-Campion family, 2010

When Campion and Johnson started the adoption process in 1994, they were told they wouldn't be approved for a child because of their sexual orientation. But they eventually found a private agency that was willing to work with them.

Like others hoping to adopt, Campion and Johnson created a portfolio that would let women putting up their children for adoption learn more about them. Tevin and Tyler's mother chose the couple.

On Feb. 23, 1995, the twins were born, and their two dads were with them in the hospital the next day.

Although they took the babies home, Campion and Johnson had to wait for an official court date to seal the adoption. That didn't come until June. And on that important day, Johnson had to wait in the parking lot.

"We were living in a pretty conservative county at the time," Campion said, "so our attorney had instructed us to not both go into the courtroom. And that was difficult for us. … Randy's sister went into the courtroom with me, and Randy had to wait in the parking lot. But our goal was to get the children adopted."

"Of course, having to stand in the parking lot during the adoption, not knowing if I was to become a parent or not, was unnerving, I tell you," Johnson recalled. "But I remember Paul and my sister carrying the twins out with huge smiles on their faces, which allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief."

Campion and Johnson with Tevin and Tyler, 1995

The fact that both men can't be recognized as the kids' legal parents has caused a degree of anxiety along the way as well. Campion said he's "healthy as a horse" now, but at one point, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

They had to look for specialists who not only would provide the best treatment but also understand that Johnson needed to be included in any decision-making.

"When Paul was diagnosed with prostate cancer, that was pretty devastating," Johnson said. "Then on top of that, there was this additional devastation in the potential of legal discrimination. So not only did we have a life-threatening diagnosis, but we were also faced with the challenge of making sure that we were able to navigate a health care system that had the legal right to discriminate against us."

Planning for what would happen to the children if anything ever befell either of them also weighed heavily on the couple. Campion said he had a strained relationship with his family back in New York, but that his relatives would have had more legal right to claim custody of Tevin, Tyler and DeSean than Johnson would.

"When Mackenzie came along and Randy was the legal parent," Campion said, "I started to feel that insecurity of -- if something happened to him, I wouldn't have any legal connection to her. So it's very real, and we're hoping that the next generation doesn't have to experience any of that."

All six members of the Johnson-Campion clan are planning to go to Washington, D.C., this month for the oral arguments in their case before the Supreme Court. They're having to shuffle their schedules -- Tevin is taking his finals early and Tyler has to cut the trip a bit short because he's in a show at school -- but they recognize that it's a big deal for their family.

"We've always considered them married," Tevin said. "This is something they've been working for their entire relationship and building their lives as parents. … I think I'll speak for the four of us when I say we're proud of them beyond words."

Campion and Johnson with their four children, 2011

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'They're Just Good People. And That's Kind Of What It's All About, Isn't It?'

April 20, 2015, 4:37 am

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- On this March afternoon, the smell of fried food hits you as soon as you open the doors of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Catholic parish in Jefferson County that hosts popular fish fry dinners during Lent.

Actually, this is far more than just a dinner. There's a book sale and pint-sized Girl Scouts selling cookies and desserts. Down the hall, there's a DJ hosting a dance party for the energetic kids who manage to stop running around for a few minutes to do the hula hoop contest.

But to get to the main attraction, you first have to hand over some money and place your order with Michael DeLeon, before receiving your food from Greg Bourke.

Bourke and DeLeon are two of the parish's most active members. They're also the lead plaintiffs in one of the same-sex marriage cases going before the Supreme Court this month.

The Catholic Church hasn't historically been a welcoming environment for same-sex couples. But at Our Lady of Lourdes, Bourke, DeLeon and their two children -- Bella, 16, and Isaiah, 17 -- are just like any other family. Bourke, a consultant at the health insurance company Humana, and DeLeon, who works in information technology at General Electric, have been attending the church for nearly 30 years.

"I've been here almost four years, and there might be a handful of people who are uncomfortable," said Father Scott Wimsett, the pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes. "But [Bourke and DeLeon] are loved and respected and people call them. They're involved, and you see how they fit in."

"They're just good people," Wimsett went on. "And that's kind of what it's all about, isn't it?"

Michael Eckert, a member of the parish who was also helping out at the fish fry, has known Bourke and DeLeon for years, since their sons were in Boy Scouts together. Eckert, a former judge, said he's been paying close attention to the couple's Supreme Court case.

"It's hard to fathom how an informed individual could look at what's going on and not have an understanding of the rights of these individuals to be married," said Eckert.

Bourke and DeLeon met nearly 33 years ago as students at the University of Kentucky, at what was then pretty much the only gay bar in Lexington. They started seeing each other regularly and spending time with each other's families.

"His parents and my parents became good friends," said Bourke during a recent interview in their home. "Our families are all very close. Just like any other married couple."

Michael DeLeon and Greg Bourke, 1986.

Bourke and DeLeon live on a quiet street just a few blocks away from Our Lady of Lourdes, in a home filled with family photos. Awards and signs from various marriage-equality events hang in the living room.

Their decision to marry in 2004 was, in part, a reaction to the wave of anti-gay sentiment and legislation then sweeping the country. While some states, like Massachusetts, were heading toward marriage equality, in other states there was a vehement backlash. Conservative legislatures were pushing for state amendments to bar same-sex marriage, and then-President George W. Bush endorsed changing the U.S. Constitution to do the same.

Bourke and DeLeon's own state of Kentucky outlawed same-sex marriage in November 2004. The two men decided to respond with an act of love.

Bourke, DeLeon and their two children took a vacation to Niagara Falls, Canada, since marriage equality still wasn't legal anywhere in the United States. In a room overlooking the falls, they wed in the presence of a few family members who had also flown up for the trip.

"We had a very nice wedding," said Bourke. "Our children were part of it. They were dressed for it as part of the party. And we just really had a great time."

Bourke and DeLeon at their wedding in Niagara Falls, Canada, March 2004.

But their marriage still isn't legal in the state of Kentucky, and that's the issue bringing them to the Supreme Court: Does the 14th Amendment require a state to recognize same-sex marriages that were lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

While they wait, they still have to deal with the very real consequences of having a marriage that's recognized by the federal government but not by their own state. For example, only DeLeon is listed as the legal parent of Bella and Isaiah.

Their Supreme Court brief argues that if "Michael dies, Greg’s lack of a permanent parent/child relationship with the children would threaten the stability of the surviving family."

That legal distinction makes itself felt in day-to-day life in unexpected ways. For example, if Bella and Isaiah need passports, DeLeon will be the one to go with them, because in the eyes of the law, he's their only parent.

"We usually take the path of least resistance. I'm on the birth certificate, so that's going to be my thing to do," said DeLeon. "Whereas if we were both on it, either one of us could do it with no trouble."

Bourke and DeLeon with their children, Isaiah and Bella, in 2003.

Tax season has also been, well, taxing.

Bourke and DeLeon filed a joint return with the federal government, but filed separately with the state government. Last year was the first time they could file their federal taxes jointly, since the Supreme Court overturned the federal government's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages in June 2013.

Bourke calculated that last year, they saved $1,700 in federal taxes by being able to file jointly. This year, it was about $2,400.

It's important to speak out about these inequalities, they say, so the public can understand why same-sex marriage needs to be legalized.

Bourke and DeLeon had their marriage involuntarily thrust into the public spotlight three years ago, when Bourke lost his position as the local Boy Scout leader because of his sexual orientation.

Both men were involved in Scouting growing up and loved it. But when Isaiah came home in first grade with flyers to join Cub Scouts, they were nervous. They knew about the Boy Scouts' policies of non-inclusion and discrimination, and didn't want their son to be part of such a group.

A year later, Isaiah, now in second grade, asked again to become a Scout, since his friends were doing it and having a great time.

"We kind of reluctantly agreed to enroll him in Cub Scouts," said Bourke.

Before he knew it, Bourke was heavily involved in Scouting again as well. He served as a leader for years in both the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Isaiah, for his part, recently became an Eagle Scout.

Bourke and Isaiah in 2013.

At one point, Bourke emailed an executive at the local Boy Scouts Council and informed him that he's gay.

"I wanted to open a dialogue about how we can get the membership policy changed so it's more inclusive," said Bourke, adding that in retrospect, he felt naive not to realize the can of worms he was opening. "And then all hell broke loose. They got very nasty very quickly and did everything they could get to get me out. And ultimately, they were successful."

But the community rallied behind Bourke. His troop and Wimsett, his pastor, stood up for him and refused to make him leave.

"The Boy Scouts did the one thing they could do that was left in their arsenal... Our troop charter would have been revoked if I didn't leave," said Bourke. "So because I love the troop and I love the boys and I love scouting... I resigned reluctantly."

In 2013, the Boy Scouts changed their policy, saying they would allow openly gay Scout members but not leaders. The local council did not return a request for comment on Bourke's case.

Ann Russo, who runs the Girl Scouts at Our Lady of Lourdes, was one of the few people who could keep up with the energetic Daisies and Brownies running around the dessert table at last month's fish fry. She's known Bourke and DeLeon for years and supported them during the Scouting controversy.

At the fish fry, she was looking for Bourke to give him a special Girl Scouts patch for his years of service to the organization.

"I have a lot of admiration for Greg and Michael," said Russo. "They're probably one of the first gay couples that I've gotten to know personally. And the fact that they've been together for so long just -- I mean, they were just meant to be together. It's been fun watching them post on Facebook -- their anniversaries and birthdays and things like that."

She said she was proud to be a member of the parish when Wimsett stood behind Bourke and disagreed with the Boy Scouts' policy.

"I think that any of us, as parents, want to be involved with our kids," she said. "As a Girl Scout leader, I don't talk about my sex life with any other leaders, much less children. That would never have come up."

"Gay people are not pedophiles," she went on. "And I think it's been hard for people that don't know Michael and Greg in particular -- not so much around here, because they're very accepting -- but I think in broader instances, maybe people aren't as understanding."

The Boy Scouts case was heavily covered in the local press, where Bourke found himself increasingly speaking out on issues of equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. He and DeLeon are now both involved in Scouts for Equality, a group that advocates for equal treatment in the organization.

So in 2013, when the Fauver Law Office in Louisville was looking for plaintiffs to challenge the state's marriage equality ban, Bourke and DeLeon seemed like a perfect fit.

"We were out at work. We've both been involved with GLBT alliances at work. We're out with all our family, supported by nearly all of our family, out amongst our kids' friends," said DeLeon. "So it wasn't a big decision -- the coming out. We were already out."

Bella and Isaiah likewise said they weren't worried about being put into the spotlight.

"I don't think we were really nervous about it," said Bella. "Probably more proud than anything, because it's kind of a hard thing to do -- to come out like that to pretty much everyone."

"It's kind of heroic for them to do it," said Isaiah. "They could have just sat by and not done anything. But instead, they're fighting for what they believe in."

The Bourke-DeLeon family, 2014.

On Feb. 12, 2014, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II ruled in Bourke and DeLeon's favor, finding that Kentucky must respect same-sex marriages legally performed in other states. But in November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled in favor of the state of Kentucky, upholding the ban. The issue is now in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Bourke and DeLeon said they haven't had much time to sit back and think about how they could be helping to change history and make marriage equality legal in the United States.

"It hasn't really sunk in," said Bourke.

But the two are already getting invitations to talk to the media and speak at events. They're also going to be grand marshals at the Louisville Pride Parade this spring. They'll be in Washington, D.C., for the April 28 arguments at the Supreme Court, but as of now, they're planning to stay in Kentucky for the actual decision and attend local events.

Bourke and DeLeon have always been optimistic that same-sex marriage would become legal during their lifetimes. When they wed in Canada in 2004, they said, their hope was that it would just be a matter of time before their home state recognized their marriage.

"And sure enough," said Bourke, "that's the way it looks like it's going to work out."

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'An Ordinary Family Who Would Do Anything To Protect Our Kids'

April 20, 2015, 4:37 am

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DETROIT -- On a Monday last month, Michigan couple Jayne Rowse and April DeBoer were camped out at their kitchen table, using one of the few afternoons they both had off work to deal with family business. DeBoer was on the phone, sorting out a health care issue for one of their kids. She and Rowse were also chatting and joking with Dana Nessel, sounding more like old friends than an attorney and her clients preparing for a U.S. Supreme Court case.

Rowse and DeBoer first met Nessel in 2011 to file what they assumed would be simple paperwork. After facing a driving scare when a truck nearly collided with their van head-on, they felt new urgency about drawing up plans for what should happen to their children if one or both of the women were to die.

But they quickly learned that, as lesbian parents of adopted children, standard estate planning wouldn't be simple. There was no legal assurance that their kids, each adopted by only one parent, would be allowed to stay with the other if the official parent died, Nessel explained. This set off the chain of events that will take Rowse and DeBoer to the Supreme Court this month for a landmark marriage equality case.

Justices will hear their case challenging the constitutionality of Michigan’s gay marriage ban, as well as related complaints from couples in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Unlike many states, Michigan's adoption code doesn't allow for joint or second-parent adoption, which also affects heterosexual unmarried couples. Some lawmakers have attempted to change the restrictions over the years, with no success.

Rowse and DeBoer never imagined their case would reach the highest court, and were initially reluctant plaintiffs -- Nessel was the one who encouraged the couple to take the approach of suing the state, and their 2012 lawsuit was only intended to address adoption, not marriage.

“It’s been a journey, an accidental journey. We’re accidental activists,” DeBoer told The Huffington Post. “We're just an ordinary family who would do anything to protect our kids.”


Jayne Rowse, April DeBoer and their four children.

The DeBoer-Rowse family lives in a modest home in Hazel Park, a Detroit suburb. The nurses work at two different hospitals on midnight shifts; DeBoer's mother, Wendy, helps out with the childcare.

When Wendy DeBoer arrived at the home, grandkids in tow, cheerful chaos interrupted the grownup business. Nolan, 6, was asked to produce a folder from his backpack. "Bribery snacks" were evenly distributed. Rylee, 2, clung to April DeBoer, but was persuaded with a hug and a warning countdown to play in the other room with 6-year-old Jacob and 5-year-old Ryanne. A rescue bulldog is the final member of the DeBoer-Rowse clan.

Rowse is the legal parent of the boys, and April DeBoer is the legal parent of the girls. They adopted their first child in 2009, 10 years after they met. They kept their relationship friendly for several years while they each attended nursing school, but started dating seriously in 2005 and then fell in love. They held a commitment ceremony in 2008 that they consider as serious as a marriage.

“It’s been that long?” DeBoer asked Rowse, the one who keeps track of meaningful dates. “Time flies when you’re having lots of kids,” Rowse replied.

Adopting their third child, Jacob, after two years as his foster parent, was one of the moments DeBoer regards as pivotal to her decision to take an active role in the fight for LGBT rights.

“The night before we adopted him, I sat in my room and I cried,” she said. “Although he would be ours, I would lose all legal rights to him at that point. So what should have been the happiest day of our lives -- which it was -- [also had] a sad undertone.”

Jayne Rowse and son Jacob attend a news conference on March 6 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)

The legal relationship is important for a variety of things most parents would take for granted, and not having it could prevent a parent from things like putting their child on their health insurance, making medical decisions or signing a school permission slip.

Nessel said it’s a “bizarre irony” that adoption restrictions coexist with laws that allow her clients to jointly foster, and with a state agency that often asks for their help when foster children require special care.

DeBoer and Rowse have fostered children who require special care, and two of their children have developmental disabilities. Rylee, who spent less than an hour playing with her siblings that Monday before she crawled back into DeBoer’s lap, has some difficulties hearing and is still learning to talk, though her parents have seen improvement each month since they adopted her in the fall.

“These are people who just can’t say no to a child in need,” Nessel said. “If these women jointly are good enough to be foster care parents to these children, why are they not both good enough to be adoptive parents?”


Jayne Rowse gets a hug from her attorney Dana Nessel while attending a rally on Oct. 16, 2013, in Detroit.


DeBoer and Rowse are hopeful about the outcome of their case, but careful not to get overeager after experiencing a series of unwelcome surprises from the courts.

“We felt that [U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman] ... would just see our way and abolish it and be done, and we would walk out all happy and go about our merry lives," Rowse said.

Friedman instead suggested their case actually hinged on same-sex marriage, and invited them to amend their complaint to challenge the ban voters enshrined in the state constitution in 2004.

Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan's LGBT Project, said his organization was also caught off guard by Friedman’s move. At the time, national marriage equality advocates didn’t consider Michigan a viable place for a lawsuit, Kaplan said, in part because of the conservative-leaning appeals court. Those factors made some worry about what precedent would be set for future case if the court ruled against DeBoer and Rowse.

“It was something new, and it was hard to predict what might happen,” Kaplan said. “It was great to see a judge wanted to address the issue of marriage equality, but it was also scary.”

DeBoer, Rowse and their attorneys -- a small team working pro bono -- felt they had little choice but to do as Friedman said, and the lawsuit went to trial last year. For several days, the plaintiffs sat quietly in court as experts for the state explained research that implied their children would be better off with heterosexual parents. Friedman ultimately decided in the plaintiffs' favor, refuting much of the state's expert testimony and the argument that the gay marriage ban was enacted by voters and therefore shouldn't be decided in the courts.

"In attempting to define this case as a challenge to 'the will of the people,' state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people," Friedman wrote in his decision.


Photo of Jayne Rowse, April DeBoer and three of their children.

Same-sex couples had a brief window to legally marry before the case was appealed the following day. Several county clerks performed more than 300 weddings on a Saturday. Those newlyweds marked their one-year anniversary last month.

DeBoer, Rowse and Nessel can't hide their disappointment about having spent years on a case that has yet to change to their situation or change the law that won’t let them jointly adopt. The couples who married last year, however, are a tangible reminder of why their effort has been worthwhile.

“The driving thing is the people who say, ‘Thank you for allowing us to get married on that one day, to show the world our 27 and a half years counted,’” Rowse said.

She, DeBoer and their children will all go to Washington to hear oral arguments in the Supreme Court case.

“The closer we get to the arguments and the decision, the more emotional it gets for both of us,” DeBoer said. “Jayne usually keeps me grounded. I’m known to be the one who cries. … To get her to cry is very, very unusual, and we have succeeded twice in the last couple weeks.”


Jayne Rowse looks at April DeBoer as she reacts during a news conference in Ferndale, Michigan, after a federal judge struck down the state's ban on gay marriage on March 21, 2014.

The kids are too young to understand exactly what’s at stake, but they know enough to be filled with anticipation for the day when, as they think of it, the whole family will get married -- preferably at a big party with clowns and balloon animals.

“Every time we leave the house dressed up, Ryanne asks, ‘Is today the day? Are we going to get married today?’” DeBoer said. “We’re like, ‘No, we’re just going to a meeting,’ and she’s like, ‘Well, when is that day?’”

“Now we get to tell her, ‘Hopefully in June.’”


April DeBoer holds up a sign in Detroit as she and her partner Jayne Rowse attend a rally in favor of same-sex marriage on October 16, 2013.

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12 Mother's Day Cards For Cool Moms, Not Regular Moms

April 20, 2015, 6:31 am

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Mother's Day is coming. Back away from the corny Hallmark cards.

For everyone celebrating the mothers (and/or mother figures) in their life this year, we've got your back. Here's a selection of funny, cute and cheeky cards for any mom with a sense of humor. Because who wants rhyming prose when you could have pug puns?

Here are 12 funny Mother's Day cards we love:

1. An apology for the rough times:
"This Mother's Day, I Would Like To Apologize For.."



2. An appreciation of the important skills she taught you:
"Thanks for teaching me how to use a big-girl potty."




3. A serious understatement:
"I suppose you're a reasonable mother"




4. An acknowledgement of what she just can't say:
"I love how we don't have to say out loud that I'm your favorite child."




5. A much-needed thank-you:
"Thanks for not psychologically damaging me."




6. An admission she's been waiting to hear:
"You were right about everything."




7. A tribute to "Mean Girls:"
"You're a cool mom."




8. A nod to all the roles she plays:
"My cheapest therapist."




9. A punny endearment:
"Nothing beets you."




10. A "Gilmore Girls" reference:
"You're the Lorelai to my Rory."




11. A "Puggin'" cute card:
"I puggin' love you."




12. A congratulatory note:
"Great job Mom, I turned out awesome"



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Chef Daisy Martinez Talks Dining Out for Life to Fight HIV/AIDS (AUDIO)

April 20, 2015, 7:40 am

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This week I talked with Chef Daisy Martinez, television personality, author and spokesperson for Dining Out For Life the HIV/AIDS fundraiser. Dining Out For Life hosted by Subaru will take place Thursday April 30th in 60 cities across North America. The event was conceived 25 years ago in Philadelphia and the concept is quite simple. As I noted in my previous post, "More than 3,000 participating restaurants donate a generous percentage of that day's proceeds to support service providers in their region to fund care, prevention, education, testing, counseling and other essential HIV/AIDS services. An estimated $4 million will be raised in just one day of dining." Last year Dining Out For Life assisted over 350,000 people, delivered over 1.8 million meals and provided housing for 8,097 clients. It also fulfilled vital health services with 5,572 patients receiving health insurance, 5,491 receiving pharmacy assistance and 1,948 were provided with dental aid.

I talked to Daisy about being a spokesperson for this fabulous event and her spin on our LGBT issues. When asked what her personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Martinez stated:

I was a child of the seventies so I lived through losing too many friends to the AIDS scourge. In addition I have various family members that are gay that I support 120%. It's really funny because in my circles I'm know as 'The Lady of The Gay' because most of my friends are gay, I think I have one token straight friend. The LGBT community has been very supportive to the Daisy brand. They come to my classes; they buy my books; they show up for book signings. I get tons of fan mail from them. It's gotten to the point where I don't like to differentiate. I don't like to say LGBT because they're my friends and I don't make that distinction. They're my friends and that's it.

LISTEN:


Daisy Martinez attended the French Culinary Institute in New York to study Culinary Arts where she received first prize for her final project "The Passionate Palate". Upon graduation, Daisy worked as a prep-kitchen chef on the set of PBS' Lidia's Italian American Table for her long time mentor chef and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich as well as a private chef in New York City and as the owner of a small, boutique catering business also called The Passionate Palate. In 2005 Daisy launched her new career with Daisy Cooks! on PBS and her cookbook Daisy Cooks! Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World was an IACP nominee and American category finalist, as well as the winner of the Best Latino Cuisine Cookbook in the world by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. As Daisy's star ascended she met Rachael Ray at an event which led Ray's production company to produce Viva Daisy! which debuted on the Food Network in January 2009. 2015 will mark Daisy's fourth year as spokesperson for Dining Out For Life. She's joined by three other celebrity spokespeople for this fabulous fundraiser including actor Pam Grier (Foxy Brown, The L Word), designer Mondo Guerra, winner of Project Runway All-Stars and Ted Allen host of the Food Network series "Chopped".

For More Info: diningoutforlife.com

Listen to more LGBT Leaders, Allies & Celebrity Interviews: OUTTAKE VOICES™
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Time to Start Over Again

April 20, 2015, 8:11 am

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I have a spring in my walk as I soak up the emerging buds and light green sheen cloaking dormant trees and shrubs; the promise of new life emerges. And I muse, isn't life all about starting over again and again?

Every time I meet an unexpected, even shocking change to the illusion of my predictable life I initially panic, but intuitively know I'm facing an opportunity to create. It's a starting over point.

I know I'm not so different from most other lesbians. I started out straight- isn't that how we are all labeled from day one? Maybe I carried this idea further than many others, but I believed I was straight for at least thirty years of my life...until I fell in love with a woman. Since I had no idea how it feels to be a lesbian, I had to craft my own vision of this new identity. It seemed the obvious, but formidable first step was to leave my heterosexual marriage. Should I wear flannel shirts? Join a softball team? Remove all make-up? Shed my few dresses? I was an awkward observer in a foreign land.

My creation gradually fell into place. I discovered my new self was merely a more open, more real and more expressive version of what was hidden inside me from the beginning. In a surprisingly short amount of time I fell in love and created a happy family life with a wonderful woman and my two precious daughters.

When Judy, my partner of 31 years, died and left me alone in my mid-sixties, I knew I was facing yet another new start. How will I handle this? I am too young to be widowed, I thought, and I am too old to start over. I had to learn how to live as a single lesbian.

Of necessity, I became more outgoing and more independent. I developed new interests --writing for fun, meditation for survival, yoga, taking in the arts and traveling to new places. Most of my best friends became people who never even knew me as part of a couple. I entered the realm of online matchmaking. My initial attempts at dating were unconscious steps to move back to my old identity. I thought happiness was elusive if I remained uncoupled. That motivation changed as I moved through my grief.

Now I'm dating to enhance my new life as a wiser, more experienced single lesbian. What will the new me in this realm ultimately be? The search for a partner, or quite-simply for happiness can often be frustrating and painful. Such seeking eventually requires an adjustment.

I've let go of old ideas of how a relationship is supposed to look. It may not be with one significant person. I may not want to live full-time with a partner. I may not live in just one place. Or I may. The lessons of my Buddhist-oriented meditation practice help me to accept, even embrace, the reality of uncertainty. Not knowing creates so many possibilities. I've had more dating experiences than I ever expected. And I'm finally learning that my happiness doesn't depend on a particular outcome. Finding joy or peacefulness is sometimes as simple as walking outdoors with a spring in my step, noticing the rebirth of spring, breathing the promise of change in the air.

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Sam Smith Doesn't Mind The Word 'Faggot' But Hates The Word 'Fat'

April 20, 2015, 8:21 am

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Sam Smith just laid down the law for his haters.

The singer opened up about his dramatic weight loss on Australian TV show "A Current Affair," and discussed how he has used food as a coping mechanism. Smith, who has lost 42 pounds since January, admitted to having felt "controlled" by food from a young age.

''When I was at school and wasn't having a great time or when music wasn't going very well, I would eat... eating would make me feel better, when I felt lonely I would eat. If someone calls me a 'faggot' it's like, 'I am gay and I'm proud to be gay', so there's no issues. But if someone calls you fat, that's something I want to change. That's something I can change so that affects me more," he said.

Smith shed the pounds in the weeks after being lampooned by Howard Stern for his weight. The move also came shortly after the star split with boyfriend Jonathan Zeizel, whom he dated briefly in the beginning of the year.

In March, the "Stay With Me" singer took to Instagram to share that he had lost 14 pounds in 14 days. He credited nutritional therapist Amelia Freer for the transformation, saying, "Three weeks ago I met a woman who has completely changed my life. Amelia Freer has helped me lose over a stone in 2 weeks and has completely transformed my relationship with food."

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Dude Catcalls Women During Anti-Catcalling Report

April 20, 2015, 8:24 am

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Buzz60’s Patrick Jones recently took to the streets of NYC to see what people thought of a new anti-street harassment campaign. Jones, however, got a lot more than he bargained for when he ran into a vocal proponent of the practice who was willing to be interviewed.

The catcaller proudly proclaimed that he whistles at women, even when Jones points out this is the same way one might whistle at a dog. His impressive repertoire of creepy pick-up lines also includes "alotta 'sweethearts'" and yelling at women down the street. “Even if it’s far away, it’s even better because [the women] aren’t that scared. Sometimes you gotta have a little distance," the catcaller added.

When the dude finally figured out that Jones was reporting on street harassment as a negative issue, the catcaller responded: “We’re just acknowledging that [a woman] did a good thing today getting up out of bed." Yea... no.

Jones signs off with a fitting response:




H/T Cosmopolitan

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A Gay Father's Advice Regarding Anti-Gay Store Owners: Ignore the Tantrums

April 20, 2015, 8:26 am

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When my daughters were toddlers they would sometimes throw tantrums. Maybe they were tired or hungry or simply stressed about something like a new school or moving into a new home. Like most parents, we began to recognize the warning signs and acted accordingly, ignoring the bad behavior and never giving in to their demands. We did not give them what they were looking for, which was attention for their bad behavior. It occurred to me recently that we have a population of toddlers who are stressed about moving into a new home and they are acting out, but we are giving them exactly what they want, attention.

Consider the pizza shop owner in Indiana and the owner of the garage in Michigan.

"I won't serve gays and you can't make me!"

That is what they are saying. Is it really because it is against their religion? Maybe, but how about the divorced patrons, the lazy customers, the gluttonous shoppers, aren't they all sinners in their eyes? Of course they are, but you can't reason with a toddler, nor should you. They are afraid of something new or frustrated because they can't comprehend and the best tact to take when a toddler is throwing a tantrum is to ignore the bad behavior and praise the good, but we are doing the opposite.

When the pizza shop owner contacts the news and says she won't make a pizza for a gay wedding and there is not a thing you can do to make her, we splash it across headlines and share it on Facebook and social media. A gofundme page gets created and she gets a reward. We're doing this all wrong, people. It's time to ignore the bad and praise the good.

We're asking people to tie their own shoes, but they don't have the necessary skills to perform this task and when they scream and shout because they are frustrated, we're giving in. We need to teach them how to be a grown up and the best way to do that is by showing them what well behaving adults act like. We should be highlighting and praising the Mom and Pop shops that do tie their own shoes and accept all customers. Where are the stories about the bakeries with heterosexual owners making cakes for the gay couple and the straight grandfather taking photographs at a lesbian couple's wedding?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have rules. All children need and crave structure. We need to put anti-discrimination laws into place locally and nationally and make the punishment known and then we need to follow through. Because as a parent the worst thing you can do is to say you are going to do something and then not do it. Politicians are infamous for doing this and look at what a nation of spoiled, rotten children we have become.

When my oldest daughter was five, she used an ink pen to write her sister's name on the back of seat of our minivan in an attempt to incriminate her younger sister, who was only three. Of course we knew who the real culprit was. Her younger sister couldn't write. Many religious zealots are complaining that they are only exercising their freedom of religion when they attempt to deny service to gays and that they are now the minority who are being discriminated against. Good try, but bad execution. You are not a minority and you can still practice your religion. We are not taking anything away from you, but you are attempting to take away our rights.

It's time to take away the pen, lay down the rules and ignore the tantrums. They always complain the loudest in the beginning. Let's show them who the adults truly are.

William Dameron's personal blog is The Authentic Life

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Lily Tomlin's Long Road To Publicly Discussing Her Sexuality

April 20, 2015, 1:28 pm

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Today, Lily Tomlin is both an icon of comedy and a figurehead for lesbians in Hollywood, but even once her comedy career had taken off, it took years for her to fully own her sexuality in public.

The actress discussed how she dealt with her sexual identity in the 1970s during a conversation with HuffPost Live's Alyona Minkovski about her new film "Grandma." Tomlin said things sometimes got awkward because of what she wasn't comfortable saying, like during an appearance on "The Tonight Show" when Johnny Carson asked Tomlin about being unmarried and childless. When she said she wasn't interested in having kids, the audience went "deathly still" because Tomlin was going against the norm for women at the time, she remembered.

"So finally I broke the ice. I said [to Carson], 'Well, who's got custody of yours?" Tomlin said. "And he laughed. He said 'touche' or something like that, and he got off of it."

Incidents like those kept Tomlin from revealing her full self even though she was confident with who she was.

"I wasn't totally forthcoming. Everybody in the business knew I was gay, and certainly everybody I worked with and everything like that. I just never had a press conference to announce it," she said.

She had the chance to announce it in 1975, when TIME magazine approached her to be on the cover -- if she would publicly come out of the closet in the story. Tomlin declined, later telling The Washington Post, "I wanted to be acknowledged for my work. I didn’t want to be that gay person who does comedy.”

The coming-out cover of TIME eventually happened, albeit with a different comedian -- Ellen DeGeneres in 1997. But Tomlin told HuffPost Live her career could have been very different if she'd taken the chance to be on the cover "just for being gay."

"I wonder if I'd come out on that '75 cover of TIME if I would have had as long a career as I've had, because it would have been an inopportune time to make such a grand statement," Tomlin said. "I mean, Ellen didn't really come out until 20 years later."

Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation with Lily Tomlin and "Grandma" director Paul Weitz here.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before.

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Giorgio Armani Says Gay Men Shouldn't 'Dress Homosexual'

April 20, 2015, 1:59 pm

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Fashion icon Giorgio Armani has come under fire after claiming in an interview that gay men "do not need to dress homosexual."

The 80-year-old Italian designer told the Sunday Times magazine that gay men are men "100 percent," and then noted, "When homosexuality is exhibited to the extreme -- to say, 'Ah, you know I'm homosexual,' -- that has nothing to do with me. A man has to be a man."

Armani didn't mince words when it came to women who have had plastic surgery or muscular men, regardless of their sexuality.

"A small breast does not have to become bigger," he said. Later, he added, "I don't like muscle boy. Not too much gym! I like somebody healthy, somebody solid, who looks after his body but doesn't use his muscles too much."

The remarks were quickly challenged on social media. "I'd rather be dressed in drag than spotted in Armani Xchange or any of his other vile labels," one Twitter user wrote, according to The International Business Times.

Added another user, cited by The Independent: "What a plank."

Although various media reports have identified him as gay or bisexual, the notoriously private Armani has remained mostly tight-lipped about his own sexuality, but told Vanity Fair in 2000, "I have had women in my life. And sometimes men."

Armani's remarks follow those of Dolce & Gabbana, who suffered a backlash after claiming that children born though IVF are "children of chemistry, synthetic children" in an interview with the Italian magazine Panorama.

“I am gay, I cannot have a child," Domenico Dolce added. "Life has a natural course, some things cannot be changed. One is the family.”

It isn't the first time that Armani has made headlines in recent months for outspoken remarks. After Madonna took a tumble at the Brit Awards when an Armani-designed cape failed to detach from her Spanish-style ensemble, he labeled the Queen of Pop "very difficult" to work with.

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The 'Utah Compromise' as Seen After the Indiana Tipping Point

April 20, 2015, 2:40 pm

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When the news of the "Utah compromise" was broadcast in March, many LGBT activists, including me, were taken by surprise. It was shocking in and of itself -- Utah (Utah!) had become the 19th state with trans-inclusive protections in employment and housing -- but coming out of secret negotiations, and shortly after the community's failure in Arkansas, which had preempted local antidiscrimination protections, it was stunning. And before we had the chance to process the surprise, the Indiana super-Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was upon us, and our attention was diverted.

This legislative compromise (S.B. 296/297) in Utah, coming soon after the multiple losses in Arkansas and just months before the Supreme Court rules on marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, raises fascinating questions. Those questions become even more interesting now a month later, after the significant (though limited) LGBT victory in Indiana. What to think about the progress in the second-most-conservative state in the nation in light of Indiana being penced?

I see two major points to highlight, and one critical conclusion:

• While this has been called a general antidiscrimination law, it is a limited one in that it does not cover public accommodations. All the laws that protect trans and gay residents in the states include public accommodations as well as employment and housing; only Massachusetts and now Utah do not cover public accommodations. Given the religious-refusal campaigns occurring today, with fights over providing cakes, flowers and photography for gay couples, as well as trans bathroom access, Utah successfully dodged the very difficult conversations on these acutely emotional issues.



• Utah has more sweeping protections for religious belief than any other state and has had those protections since before the state RFRA laws came to legislative attention beginning in the late '90s. This law adds the LGBT community to the protected classes already covered in Utah, but those protections are severely limited by religious carve-outs already in place.



• The most important conclusion to me, particularly post-Pence, is that the actions of the local LGBT and Mormon communities over the past six years created an environment of growing trust where agreement, though limited, could occur. Gay people talked with religious Mormons and got something done, and the Mormons overcame their prejudices and did the same. That can only be a harbinger of better things to come elsewhere if we take advantage of the opening.

What this compromise is not is a model for other states. Utah, as previously mentioned, is a unique entity, and offering ever-increasing room for religious exceptions elsewhere would undermine the value of all antidiscrimination laws. Utah was not going to step back from its broad religious-liberty exceptions, but other states shouldn't expand theirs. What Indiana showed the country is that in America the dollar reigns supreme. This is not a news flash, but while corporate support for equality has been growing steadily and manifested its strength in Arizona in defeating their RFRA last year, the overwhelming show of support for the LGBT community in Indiana was exponentially more significant. The community catalyzed the effort, but once that was done, the reaction ran by itself. Why should the LGBT community now go back to February and take so much less than it deserves, now knowing how the culture has suddenly changed? Government officials are speaking out in some surprising places, such as North Dakota, Louisiana, and Georgia, not wanting to be seen as bigots by the business community. That is a huge change in the civil rights landscape in America.

There are several other factors about the bill itself worth noting. The first deals with freedom of speech, which annoys my friend Walter Olson, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Walter highlights this paragraph from the bill:

An employee may express the employee's religious or moral beliefs and commitments in the workplace in a reasonable, non-disruptive, and non-harassing way on equal terms with similar types of expression of beliefs or commitments allowed by the employer in the workplace, unless the expression is in direct conflict with the essential business-related interests of the employer.

As he points out, this is a novel addition to American law, and quotes The New York Times:

The bill also would protect employees from being fired for talking about religious or moral beliefs, as long as the speech was reasonable and not harassing or disruptive.

Walter is primarily concerned that this law will infringe on an employer's ability to manage his workforce, and while I agree with that concern, I am more concerned about the free-for-all that will occur when the guy in the next cubicle starts preaching to you and claims protection under S.B. 296. What is "reasonable and not harassing or disruptive" to a conservative Mormon may not jive with the feelings of a secular Utahn. This is an invitation to chaos.

As far as the debate within the LGBT community goes, there has been precious little of it. HRC grabbed control of this bill and has been promoting it as a great compromise. Referencing the panel at the Brookings Institute where the legislation was recently discussed, Jonathan Rauch, long-time conservative gay activist, points out:

[HRC's] Warbelow said (I'm paraphrasing) that she can support religious-freedom protections that track with existing law and don't impose special burdens on LGBT people, and Diament [of the Jewish Orthodox Union] said (again I paraphrase) that he can support LGBT antidiscrimination protections that track with existing law and don't create special carve-outs for LGBT people. The devil is in the details (same-sex marriage, to name an obvious example, raises issues that don't apply to other minority groups), but the agreement on a neutral baseline seems like a good place to start talking.

Clearly, most will agree that any time you can get Orthodox Jews and HRC speaking civilly to one another, that's a good thing in and of itself, but, as Rauch says, the devil is in the details. Rauch also points out that simultaneity was key, but it took years to get there. When there was recently an opportunity in Indiana to add LGBT protections as the super-RFRA was being amended, the governor and state legislature demurred. So much for even an acknowledgment of the possibility of simultaneity.

Jay Michaelson takes the law to task by pointing out that this law, if applied elsewhere, would be a disaster for women and other minorities. It would downgrade the protections for race and sex that are already in place in other states that currently don't have LGBT protections. And HRC is imposing on the community its conception of how a religious exemption should look, a notion last summer vociferously opposed by most other national LGBT organizations.

Still, looking at the historic nature of the passage of this bill in a state where none thought it possible, most observers focused on the positive. The Boston Globe opined:

The bill shows that free-speech rights of religious Americans and the civil rights of gay people do not have to be in opposition to each other. Just as important, the Utah legislature just reminded politicians across the country that, in fact, half a loaf is often better than no loaf at all.

K. Hollyn Hollman, General Counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, wrote positively:

It appears many in Utah did the hard work of listening, explaining, writing and compromising, so that different groups could get things they needed. If Utah is a pathway for other states, it will be because those who care about statutory protections for religious liberty work diligently and honestly to explain what and why legislation is needed and how others will be affected. That is an example worth following.

Bill Galston, a fellow congregant who works at the Brookings Institute, writing in The Wall Street Journal, adds:

In an interview after the event, Gov. Leavitt discussed the circumstances that made agreement possible. The threshold condition was a shared belief that the status quo was intolerable: "There was a lot of pain in Utah on both sides of this issue."

There is a lot of pain on both sides, but far more for the LGBT community, which still suffers disproportionate discrimination and abuse, compared with religious conservatives, who now enjoy portraying themselves as victims, harkening back to the early centuries of the Christian Church. That might have worked in Byzantium, but it ultimately won't work in America. My Jewish denomination taught when I was a youth, "Be a Jew at home and a man out in the world." These Christians should hew to their universal ethical principles and leave their particularism behind when they're in the workplace. That way we can all get along and not become smothered in resentments. As the Jewish Sages said, "Meet every person with graciousness" (Pirkei Avot 1:15).

And then added, "And be humble when you're preparing their wedding cake, and be grateful to share in its enjoyment. It tastes really good!"

Or maybe not, but they could have.

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11 Images Capture The Emotional Stages Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship

April 20, 2015, 3:06 pm

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The bond between a mother and daughter changes over time, facing new challenges at every life stage. Whether your mother-daughter relationship is loving, fractured, fraught or all of the above, it's always going to be complex.

Photographer and artist Julia Fullerton-Batten tackles these relationship complexities in her 2012 photo series "Mothers And Daughters." Although Fullerton-Batten debuted the images a few years ago, the emotions they capture still resonate with any woman who has a strong relationship with her mother and/or daughter.

The series features 20 real mother and daughter pairs at multiple stages of life, with varying degrees of closeness and distance. Each photo shows a pair of women in their own environments in order to capture the true emotional bond between the two. "I realized how much the fragility and vulnerability of females is exposed fully in the mother-daughter relationship," Fullerton-Batten told The Huffington Post.

Fullerton-Batten said she gave some direction to the two women in each image, but also let the relationships of each mother and daughter inform the poses they ended up in. The final photographs expose a beautiful synthesis of Fullerton-Batten's perspective as a daughter and granddaughter, and the relationship of each pair of women.


"Third Time Around"


"Over passage of time the [mother-daughter] relationship changes significantly. The babe-in-arms is fully dependent on the mother, but at the other end of the age scale, the mother often becomes dependent on her daughter to satisfy her emotional needs," Fullerton-Batten wrote in her artist statement. "In the adult relationship the intimacy of the bond is established on the love, struggle and rivalry of a shared life-time, leading to a mature understanding and acceptance of each other. Between childhood and adulthood, the full spectrum of emotions is played out. My images try to capture all of these very different stages in this extremely special relationship."

Fullerton-Batten said the project is "both documentary and biographical," as the series also illustrates her memories of her and her two sisters' relationships with their mother, and the relationship between her mother and grandmother.

Check out 11 images from Fullerton-Batten's series below.


"The Party Is Over"



"The Divorce"



"Alabaster Doll"



"Pretty New Things"



"Intimate Moments"



"Teenage Reflection"



"Inner Tensions"



"Memories"



"Burning The Past"



"Alone Again"


Head over to Fullerton-Batten's website to see the rest of the series.

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Poll Shows We Need to Come Out on Climate Change

April 20, 2015, 3:09 pm

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A new poll released this week by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication reveals that Americans rarely--very rarely--hear people they know talk about climate change and surprisingly few hear about it on a weekly basis in the news media.

Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D., Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, writes:

"Our survey finds, for example, that only 40% of the American public says they hear about global warming in the media at least once a month and only 19% hear about it at least once a week. Further, only 16% say that they hear people they know talk about global warming at least once a month, with only 4% reporting they hear other people talking about it at least once a week."

Only 4 percent of Americans hear people they know talk about climate change on a weekly basis.

Is it any wonder that Congress is not treating climate action as a priority?

Or, despite positive actions from the White House and many cities and a growing number of businesses, that the United States has yet to definitively rally around what is if not the biggest threat, certainly one of the biggest threats to human health and well-being?

My research, like that of others, has shown that there are many psychological and even cognitive reasons we humans, perhaps Americans in particular, resist thinking about climate change.

• It triggers fear and anxiety.

• It appears overwhelming.

• It makes us feel relatively powerless in comparison.

• It has been made confusing.

• It still appears as a deceptively distant threat (although, here in California, that is changing by the day.)

• And, in many ways, the story of what is happening in our world has yet to be told in a manner that, rather than sounding depressing, inspires a sense of conviction and the will to act.

But if the vast majority of Americans are still not even talking about climate change, we will never break through these obstacles and put irresistible pressure on Congress and every other opponent to stop fighting all reasonable actions to combat climate change and finally take positive action-for the sake of their own children and grandchildren if no one else's.

So how does this change? How do we change it?

As I have written elsewhere, the model of gay and lesbian Americans "coming out" is a good one. Not perfect but we don't need perfect. We need action. And what gays and lesbians proved is that one-on-one communication is a deeply powerful tool for creating social change.

The teenager, the mother, the husband, the actress, the Congressman, the Olympian, the football star-all the many people who said simply, "I'm gay," changed the world. Their world, and our world. By making their issue personal, and taking one small brave step, they moved hearts and minds that may never have opened and changed in any other way.

That is what I believe all of us who are concerned about climate change need to do--in addition to all the other necessary political and practical actions.

Teenagers, parents, celebrities, politicians, teachers, sports stars, everyone needs to find a way to say what they think about climate change to someone else: friends, family members, clergy, neighbors, representatives.

It can be as simple as: I am worried about how climate change will affect my kids.

Some people hesitate about saying even that because they think they will then need to have answers to questions such as: So what can we do about it? But getting more of a public conversation going on climate change doesn't require having all the answers (although they are there to be had for those who want them.)

It's enough to know this: Our nation needs to do more to transition off the oil and coal that cause climate change and transition to solar, wind and other forms of clean energy.

That's it. We don't all have to be experts. Few of the people who helped change society for gay and lesbian Americans were experts. After all, sometimes keeping it simple works. And they knew, quite simply, what mattered and what was right: Equality.

On climate change, we can also know what matters and what is right-which is again: Fairness. Every generation has a responsibility to preserve a healthy world for every future generation.

And then we need to say it--not as a final step, of course, but as a necessary first step--so many more than 4 percent of Americans will hear people they know talking about the need for climate action, and join in.

An earlier version of this post appeared on Lisa Bennett's blog.

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Aging in Gayville

April 20, 2015, 4:08 pm

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My 44th birthday is approaching. I sense shadows in the distance. They're looming; ominous. I question what they are. I squint into the rainbow-hued sunlight, my hand perched at my brow to block the sun from my eyes. It's then that I can fully see them: buzzards. The shadows are buzzards. They're circling, soaring in a loop, waiting for me. They're anticipating the death of my relevance and desirability as a gay man. Wait, what? What's going on here? I won't star in this scenario. I will not accept this! This is not my story. Yet sometimes when I allow myself to just wallow in the loneliness and depression that inevitably affects all of us from time to time as we get older, those thoughts run through my mind.

We all get older. At least we better hope we get older. The alternative is death. The older I get the wiser I get. I'm still learning, growing, changing. I'm making better decisions these days. It's become less about right and wrong and more about choices -- making the best ones in the moment with regard to the situation I'm in. As for me personally, I have a great job that I love. I'm saving money. I have a fantastic apartment to myself. I'm eating clean and working out with a personal trainer. Some of my favorite clothes actually fit me again. I've never looked better in my life. My salt 'n pepper beard has just the right amount of salt to look sexy. (I actually like all the white in it.) Why is it then that it frustrates me so much to not turn the head of some random 20-something that I don't even care about? It's a gut punch from karma. Yes, as the saying goes, karma is a bitch, and she's having her bitchtastic way with me like you wouldn't believe.

I turned 26 a mere week after moving to New York City. I felt the freedom to be myself -- to be gloriously gay, to drink, to smoke, to live. I felt the city was my oyster and wanted to shuck it in as many ways as I chose as often as I chose. However, I couldn't be bothered to give a second glance to an older man (that would have been a man in his mid 30s or early 40s) or return a smile with sincerity for that matter. Now I'm the older man and I'm receiving that very same treatment. Ah the evolution that continues to be the same.

I already mentioned that I'm wiser now, but in other ways I don't really feel that much different from my 20-something self who moved to NYC in the late 90s. Sure, there are some aches and pains that weren't present then. There are some lines that I wish time hadn't left across my face. But even those elements of aging aren't bad enough to make me feel old. I still love New York City and the energy that comes with it and that 20-something still lives inside me. There are traces of him in my youthful yet appropriate for my age clothing choices. There are traces of him in the nail polish that I wear on the index finger of my left hand. There are even traces of him in the reflection I see staring back at me in the mirror. I am older though and in a city thriving with youth -- a city where young gay men are now even freer to express themselves and live life on their own terms than when I got here -- all it takes is a rebuff from one 20-something to make me feel like an aging parent that can't be carted off to Shady Pines fast enough.

Cue wallowing in loneliness and depression. You see, when things like that happen to me, my brain convinces me that no one wants me, that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life, that I should stop trying, that my time has past. But on this day, without warning, my iTunes playlist (on shuffle) started to play "Man in Motion" from St. Elmo's Fire. First I started smiling and then I started to laugh. This was one of those moments where the universe gave me exactly what I needed and I am so thankful I was aware enough to hear it.

My mood shifted. So I'm getting older. Thank goodness. That means I'm not dead. I have to deal with aging in Gayville just like every gay man before and after me. As I mentioned above, I don't even want the 20-something so why does he matter? What matters is that I can't turn his head anymore. Or the head of any age man who is not interested in me. (#GayManProblems!) OK. So what! Here's where I have to make a choice and the choice is clear: piquing someone's interest, while exciting, isn't really what matters most to me. Sure, I want to be found desirable (don't we all?), but ultimately my What Matters Most list includes: being happy, being healthy, being financially stable, having good friends and living my life as contentedly and openly as possible in the greatest city in the world.

In the song "Man in Motion," John Parr sings, "Just once in his life a man has his time, and my time is now." I'm here, I'm queer and really, I'm sexier as a 40-something than I've ever been at any other age in my life. He also sings about new horizons, eagles flying high, climbing mountains and crossing a wild sea. It's a journey. Life is a journey. Getting older means I'm still on my journey and there's so much more to it than turning the head of a 20-something. The fire burning in me might not be St. Elmo's, but there is a fire. It's the desire to live my life without regret and without wondering what could have been. There is no what could have been. There is only what was and what is. There's more sunshine to feel, more flowers to smell, more music to hear, more art to collect, more food to eat, more wine to drink, more laughter to laugh, more love to give and accept. And for that matter... more men to see. Maybe if I take a second look those shadows are actually eagles instead of buzzards.

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Michele Bachmann: The Rapture Is Coming And It's Obama's Fault

April 20, 2015, 5:11 pm

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Michele Bachmann says the rapture is coming, thanks to President Barack Obama’s policies on Iran’s nuclear program and marriage equality.

In a radio interview last week, Bachmann, the former Minnesota Republican congresswoman, told "End Times" host Jan Markell, “We need to realize how close this clock is getting to the midnight hour.”

“We in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the rapture of the church,” Bachmann said. “We see the destruction, but this was a destruction that was foretold.”

Bachmann cited the Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations with Iran as a cause. The U.S. and five partner nations are discussing a deal with Iran that would prevent the country from developing or obtaining nuclear weapons.

“We are literally watching, month by month, the speed move up to a level we’ve never seen before with these events," Bachmann said. "Barack Obama is intent. It is his number one goal to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

Later in the interview, Bachmann again tied her rapture prediction to Obama’s foreign policy.

“If you look at the president’s rhetoric, and if you look at his actions, everything he has done has been to cut the legs out of Israel and lift up the agenda of radical Islam,” she said.

Obama has said repeatedly that the goal of the nuclear talks with Iran is to prevent the country from developing a nuclear weapon.

Bachmann also blamed abortion and gay marriage, arguing that God is punishing the United States for “embracing a pagan view.”

“Any nation that accepts God and his principles is blessed, and those who push away are cursed. That’s what we’re seeing happen to the United States,” she said. “We will suffer the consequences as a result.”

Some Christians believe those who are saved will be transported to heaven just before armageddon, which they call the rapture.

This is not the first time Bachmann has predicted extreme consequences from the Iran deal. Earlier this month, she claimed the deal would lead to "World War III." And in a Facebook post, she compared Obama to Andreas Lubitz, the pilot who crashed the Germanwings airliner into the French Alps in March.

Listen to the interview below:



H/T Right Wing Watch

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.