John’s column “The Gay Moralist” appeared bi-weekly in Michigan’s Between the Lines from 2002-2007, and then weekly at 365Gay.com from 2007-2011. His columns and op-eds have also appeared in other venues, including the Independent Gay Forum, The Advocate, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic and the New York Times. Most of these columns are archived here.
Why are some people so quick to latch on to bold claims about the biological origins of homosexuality? I think it’s because they believe that we need to show that we’re born gay in order to establish that our sexuality is a deep, important and relatively fixed part of who we are. But that’s simply not true.
Read the full column at HuffPost.
For me, being gay means that I like guys. It means that I like guys: I have crushes on them, I fall in love with them, I want to “get physical” with them. It doesn’t specify how I should do this.
Read the full column at HuffPost.
Of course argument is not always sufficient to do the job, and no one denies the powerful role that personal visibility plays in combating anti-gay stereotypes. But to acknowledge that people’s minds are changed mainly through knowing flesh-and-blood LGBT people is not to deny that argument has an important task as well.
Read the full column at HuffPost.
The interracial marriage analogy is actually a collection of analogies, some of them stronger than others. One can, for example, analogize race to sexual orientation, as Craig does here. But one can also analogize it to sex or gender.
Read the full column at HuffPost.
But let’s not miss the grain of truth in both Agema’s and Daniels’ position: Gay life is indeed risky. The main source of that risk? People like Agema and Daniels.
Read the full column at HuffPost.
It’s certainly true that many people claim that they find all they need to know within the Bible: God said it, I believe it, that settles it! There are at least two major problems with this approach. First, most people don’t know what the Bible actually says. And second, when one examines what it actually says, the results can be rather embarrassing for the “God said it” crowd.
Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director of the gay Catholic group New Ways Ministry, called [Cardinal] Dolan’s remarks “nothing short of an Easter miracle.”
Really? Rising from the dead is an Easter miracle. Marshmallow Peeps are an Easter miracle. (You can put them in your pantry for a decade, and they won’t decay. It’s true.) But a Christian leader saying “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t attack gay people”? That’s just common decency, not to mention good strategy — especially in a world where a majority of American Catholics support equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.
Read the full column at HuffPost.
At the New York Times “Room for Debate”:
The point is not so much sacrifice as recalibration: not giving something up, so much as embracing something in its stead. You don’t need to believe in God in order to believe in the need for self-improvement — although it certainly helps to have a community, religious or otherwise, to back you up in your efforts.
Full article here.
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At the Family Scholars blog, John participated in a forum on “Advice for the New Marriage Conversation,” David Blankenhorn’s initiative to move past the same-sex marriage debate to a common-ground effort strengthening marriage. From his post:
Good conversations involve both talking and listening. The marriage conversation, especially when focused on “gay marriage,” has involved scant little listening. This must change.
Read John’s full post here.
From my New Year’s column:
2013 should also be a time to explore more deeply the significance of marriage: Now that we have it (in 9 states and counting), what should we do with it? What does it mean to aspire to it? What does a healthy marriage culture look like, and how can LGBT people make a distinctive and valuable contribution to that culture?
Read the full column at PrideSource.com.