First published as “Angry Lesbians and Right-Wing Nutcases” in Between the Lines on January 26, 2006 In a few weeks I’ll be doing a “Michigan tour” debating same-sex marriage with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family. People sometimes ask me whether I ever encounter hostile audience members at these debates (I do). “Which kind […]
Debating the Indefensible? Read More »
First published in Between the Lines, January 11, 2006 Stanley Kurtz is at it again. In the cover story for the December 26th Weekly Standard—“Here Come the Brides: Plural Marriage is Waiting in the Wings”—Kurtz cites a recent Dutch “triple wedding” as further evidence for the slippery slope from gay marriage to polygamy. (The Netherlands
Kurtz’s Confusions Read More »
First published in Between the Lines on December 22, 2005. It was the kind of film that changes lives. And it changed mine—seeing a true gay love story, playing in major theaters, with a passionate performance by a talented young actor in a role quite different from anything he had tackled before. I’m talking, of
The Brokeback Buzz Read More »
First published October 27, 2005, in Between the Lines. During a recent debate in Bar Harbor, Maine, I was confronted with a seemingly novel argument against same-sex marriage. Rev. John Rankin of the Theological Education Institute of Hartford, Connecticut, claimed that same-sex marriage, far from being a civil right, actually undermines the very foundation of
Same-Sex Marriage: The End of Rights? Read More »
First published September 29, 2005, in Between the Lines Back in the 1980s, I aspired to the Roman Catholic priesthood. After investigating various orders, I eventually gravitated toward the Franciscans, not so much on theological grounds as for having clicked well with the vocation director, “Fr. Larry.” (Or maybe I thought that brown was the
The Church’s Shame Read More »
First published September 15, 2005, in Between the Lines. One of the delights of being a philosophy professor is that I occasionally come across charming texts in the history of ethics. Here’s Mary Warnock in her 1960 classic Ethics Since 1900: Many people…feel strongly that some kinds of behavior, though utterly harmless to other people,
In Defense of Pleasure Read More »
First published July 7, 2005, in Between the Lines. Luther Vandross was the avatar of romance. Other people’s. The famed R&B singer, who died last week at 54, zealously declined to discuss his personal life, telling reporters that it was “none of your damn business.” Indeed, when his biographer Craig Seymour tried repeatedly to broach
Luther Vandross’s Glass Closet Read More »
First published April 28, 2005, in Between the Lines. Although some people would describe me as a fallen Catholic, they’re wrong: I didn’t fall; I leapt. Still, after John Paul II’s death, I followed the papal candidates with an enthusiasm normally reserved for American Idol contestants. Eagerly I scrutinized their biographies on interactive websites, trying
The New Pope: Wrong on Relativism Read More »
First published April 14, 2005, in Between the Lines. In recent weeks I have been traveling the country doing lectures and debates on gay marriage. The first was at Texas A&M University, a school I hadn’t visited since 1992. At that time I was working on my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin,
Marrying Sheep and Cell Phones — Not Read More »
First published January 20, 2005, in Between the Lines Some of the nastiest mail I receive is not from right-wing homophobes, or even bitter ex-boyfriends, but from members of our own community who think I’m not progressive enough. For example, shortly after I argued in Second Thoughts on Civil Unions that we ought to fight
Civil Discourse on Civil Unions Read More »