I love the LGBT community. I love our idealism, our optimism, our faith in a future that will get better. I love that we’re not afraid to stand up and fight to make the future better. I love how we look after our own, take kids in off the streets when their own parents don’t want them anymore, and are prepared to do battle all the way through the highest courts in every land to make our voices heard. (more…)
I’m sure we’ve all been agog this week watching the drama in Indiana unfold. Governor Mike Pence signed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (SB 101) on March 26th, and immediately the internet erupted.
Anyone who knows me, knows I love books. I was the child reading by torchlight under the covers when I was supposed to be asleep, I was the kid who took a personal library on camping trips and car journeys. I did two degrees in literature and listen to audiobooks in the car. I have been known to sit outside my destination with the engine running for many many minutes, until my friends send out search parties to find me, because “I’m just finishing this chapter.” I’m also a history geek, a data-sponge. I have the sort of mind which remembers that the fastest human ever recorded lived in Australia 17,000 years ago and could sprint through wet mud quicker than Usain Bolt can run the 100m, but can’t remember whether or not I turned the oven off. (more…)
My patience is wearing thin. I am done with the “reasonable” debate about the rights I “deserve,” if falling in love somehow makes me “less” than other people, if I’m safe to be around children. I’m done debating if my landlord has the right to evict me, if my boss has the right to fire me, if I have the right to be upset about people debating my rights. (more…)
Okay, I’m going to talk about something which is going to make many of us uncomfortable: the gay PDA. More specifically, about the reaction to gay PDAs. (more…)
So marriage equality is sweeping the west. Slowly but surely, state by state and country by country, we are winning, and we are doing so on a platform which says, in effect, “We’re just like you.” Gay couples want to settle down, raise children, say ‘I do’ before their friends and family. They want the white picket fence and 2.4 kids, to work 9-5 at a respectable, responsible job, pay the mortgage, walk the dogs in the park at the weekend, and enjoy lazy Sundays spending quality family time together. It’s a dream many of us, even in my generation, grew up never believing we’d see come true. (more…)
At the beginning of June, opponents of Houston’s recently passed Equal Rights Ordinance submitted a petition containing 50,000 signatures demanding a repeal of the bill. The ordinance bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as sex, race, color, ethnicity, nationality, age, religion, disability, pregnancy and genetic information, as well as family, marital or military status. (more…)
It’s a question I see a lot. Sometimes it’s bandied about as a badge of honour. In any group dedicated to the reading or writing of queer fiction, there’s a thread somewhere asking who’s ‘out’ and who’s ‘closeted’ about what they do. Most people don’t seem to think it’s a big deal, but I do and here’s why.
I’m bored of hearing about the ‘homosexual agenda’. It seems we can’t turn on the TV anymore without hearing someone from the right wing spluttering about agendas and liberalism and the sheer unfairness of it all.
