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The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

Today, Wednesday October 28th, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.  This is the first major step in fulfilling his campaign promises to the LGBT community.

LGBT activists have been and continue to complain about the “slow pace” at which the Administration has addressed LGBT concerns, despite that the President has only been President for about nine months.  Hopefully, this event proves his true commitment to our community.

A Matter of Timing -  Dan Choi’s Decision to Come Out of the Military Closet

This past March, Army First Lieutenant Dan Choi, of Korean descent, a West Point graduate, who served in Iraq as an Arabic translator, outed himself on the Rachel Maddow Show, hosted by openly-gay, Rachel Maddow.  This was a brave move intended to draw attention to the plight of the tens of thousands of troops discharged under the Don’t Tell, Don’t Ask policy since 1993.  However, given the history of the policy and the political drama surrounding its enactment, was it too soon?

By b brian topaz

Your most recent and ongoing Fearless project is a great example of community activism by showcasing photographs of out and proud young athletes in the very schools in which they attend.  What was your inspiration for this project? Were you or someone you knew involved in high school or college sports as an out (or closeted) athlete?

My inspiration for the project was mainly based from my own experience as a very closeted athlete.  I played competitive tennis as a junior since I was 7 years old and tennis was a large part of my identity growing up.  I was incredibly closeted about my gay identity through high school, and being an athlete had a lot to do with this.  It wasn't until college, when I was at Harvard University, after I had quit playing the sport, did I finally begin to allow myself to accept my sexuality.  Incidentally, during this time, my first relationship with another guy happened to be with someone on the water polo team who was also very closeted.  We were in a relationship for about 6 months, and then broke up, and many of our problems came from the fact that I was coming out and was more visible than he was.  He actually eventually came out two years later to his team, and they not only accepted him, but voted him to be the team captain for his senior year. 

Citing an urbandictionary.com definition, “whitewashed” is “a person of an asian heritage who have completely forgotten their culture. they have been influenced by the white people in their immigrated country. they are verbally impaired of their mother's tongue….”

Recently, while visiting with family in northern California, one of my cousins that I had not seen in years referred to me as “whitewashed.” When I asked her what that meant, she said, “You’re so whitewashed, you don’t even know what whitewashed means!” When she told me that it was an Asian that acted white, there was no logical reason to have taken offense because it was basically true. I did not take offense to what my cousin said to me because I did not believe she said it to be offensive or derogatory. I believe she was merely making an observation after not having seen me for so long. At least, I hope that was the case.

A few days ago, Yamamoto87' wrote,

The "Act" he was referring to is the Uniting American Families Act which, if passed, would allow American citizens and residents to sponsor their same-sex "permanent partners" for American residency possibly leading to citizenship, significantly reducing fear of separation or deportation.

With the very real possibility of a Democrat as President to succeed Republican George W. Bush, coupled with what is predicted to be an even more Democratically-controlled Congress, immigration equality for same-sex partners could become a reality. If so, Yamamoto87''s Thai friend could eventually find himself on the path to American citizenship.

When it comes to gay rights, Clinton and Obama are virtually the same: gay-friendly... to a point.

They scored the same on an HRC (Human Rights Campaign) questionnaire on LGBT political issues, both supporting everything except same-sex marriage.  While Obama cites his Christian beliefs for not supporting same-sex marriage, it was Clinton's husband Bill (while otherwise gay-friendly) that signed DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act - federally recognizing marriage as only between a man and a woman) when he was President back in 1996. Hillary supports the repeal of some of DOMA, while Barack reportedly supported the repeal of all of it, then seemingly changed his mind by not addressing it in the HRC questionnaire.

*The following continues a series of fictional installments of a yet untitled work. for the previous chapters please click here .

I didn’t know what to think. Was the sword his? I thought maybe it was his roommate’s, although I could not imagine anyone else living in that rat’s nest. Maybe it was given to him by a friend, or left to him by a relative? Or, could he actually be a devil dog… and an officer? If he was an officer, there was no way he was on active duty. He was either out on medical leave or disability, or something.

Then I wondered whether he noticed I was a Marine? He must have at least noticed my buzz cut? Should I be worried? Then again, why should I be worried? If I am, he is… but still. All these questions darted into my head in rapid succession, and pondering on them even for a few seconds caused me a sharp headache. I was curious to know the answers, but could not muster enough courage to keep myself from walking out the door.