LGBT Issues

Attorney General Greg Abbott Rules that Domestic Partner Benefits are Barred by Texas Constitution

Voters didn't mince words in 2005, when they added Article I, Section 32 to the Texas Constitution. "Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman," it says. "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical ... More >>

LGBT Advocates Vow to Protest until DART Quits Stalling on Domestic Partner Benefits

In February, a DART committee gave preliminary approval to a plan to extend employment benefits to employees' domestic partners, both gay and straight, and their children. It was a welcome decision, and it gave hope that, after six month of debate over costs and morality, approval by the full DART b ... More >>

Aggie Jokes: A&M Student Senate Looks Ready to Pass a Bigoted Anti-Gay Bill

Every week, managing editor Patrick Williams disappears into his office and reemerges a cranky, nicotine-addicted, third-person-referring superhero we like to call Buzz. Awwww, man. Why Texas? Why must you always be the turd in the punch bowl of progress? Buzz is talking -- this time -- about Tex ... More >>

As Supreme Court Debates Gay Marriage, Texas Politicians Explain How it Violates God's Law

The attention of the country, or at least that segment of it that's politically aware enough to pay attention, is focused squarely on the U.S. Supreme Court,which this week is debating a pair of potentially momentous cases. Hollingsworth v. Perry, which was argued today, could do away with Californi ... More >>

Mayor Rawlings Says Real Men Don't Hit Women. They Don't Beat on Gays Either.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has scored points in disparate places with his man's man campaign against woman-beating, from New York Magazine to the metro page of today's Dallas Morning News -- all of it much deserved, if you ask me. A guy like Rawlings, Class of '76 at Boston College where he playe ... More >>

Adam Medrano, Candidate for Oak Lawn's Council Seat, Won't Say If He's Gay. Should He?

In her time in office, Councilwoman Pauline Medrano has established herself as a staunch ally of the LGBT community. That's more or less a requirement for election in District 2, which includes much of Oak Lawn and has a sizable, and politically active, gay population, and there's no reason to think ... More >>

State Rep. Rafael Anchia Hopes to Repeal Texas' Gay Marriage Ban

In 2005, Texas voters considered adding an amendment to the state constitution declaring that marriage "shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman" and forbidding any formal recognition of same-sex unions ratified elsewhere. The measure, controversial only insomuch as some conservativ ... More >>

Dallas City Employees Make "It Gets Better" Video, But What is Mike Rawlings Doing In It?

This week's edition of the Dallas Voice features a long article about the video you see above, an "It Gets Better"-themed compilation featuring a whole bunch of LGBT city of Dallas employees, including city spokesperson Frank Librio, assistant city manager Joey Zapata, asisstant city attorneys Melis ... More >>

Merck Suspends Funding to Boy Scouts of America, Citing BSA's "Policy of Exclusion"

Back in July, the Irving-based Boy Scouts of America reiterated that it won't be having any openly gay folks in its organization. Now, they've lost another corporate sponsor as a result of that policy, the American Independent reports. The Merck Foundation issued a press release on December 5, say ... More >>

State Senator John Carona is Backpedaling Wildly on His Support for Gay Rights

Republican state senator John Carona got himself into a bit of hot water with fellow conservatives last week, after he told Dallas Voice senior editor John Wright that he would support several LGBT rights bills during the upcoming legislative session. Those bills would ban employment discrimination ... More >>

Dallas Senator John Carona Declares Support for Gay Rights, Gets Pilloried By GOP

If you were to put money on which Republican politician in Texas would publicly express support for gay rights, John Carona, the state senator from Dallas, would be a good bet. He's always been about as pragmatic as Texas Republican come. But it was still a surprise when, earlier this week, he told ... More >>

The NFL's Game Changer

Chris Kluwe is prying open America's last closet: major-league sports.

Ted Cruz Gets His Honeymoon -- But Only in the Straight, Godly Meaning of the Word

Basic rule of American democracy: Anybody who wins an election gets 10 seconds of credibility. Let's hope in the case of Ted Cruz, lionized today in The New York Times as "A Republican Voice With Tea Party Mantle and Intellectual Heft," we can make it to the second 10 seconds without throwing up. ... More >>

Former Cop Wants DART to Offer Domestic Partner Benefits

Offering benefits to the partners of LGBT workers is gradually becoming a standard thing for large public employers in North Texas. The city of Dallas included domestic partner benefits in 2004, DFW Airport in 2010 and Parkland this year. Dallas County is poised to follow suit at the first of next y ... More >>

City Leaders Kick Off Gay Pride Month With No Mention of Gay Green Lantern

Going in, I was assuming the Pride Month event at City Hall was for celebrating the previous days' revelation that the Green Lantern is gay. It's not Batman or Superman, but baby steps, right? But no one -- not Councilwoman Delia Jasso, not any of the half dozen speakers, not the Turtle Creek Chora ... More >>

The Gay Selma

Schools ignore gay bullying at their own peril

In Completely Unsurprising News, Protesters Protest Exxon Mobil Shareholders Meeting

There are many reasons lots of folks hate Exxon Mobil: It makes about as much profit in 35 seconds as the average U.S. household makes in a year; it gets humongous tax breaks from the U.S. government; it bankrolled anti-climate change "research" that set debate on the issue back decades; it charges ... More >>

DISD's Next Superintendent Needs "Cultural Competency in LGBT Issues"

Back in January, Robert watched as the DISD board, which has the amazing skill of stretching out any conversation to 10 times its natural length, debated the qualities they'd like to see in a new superintendent. Last night, Resource Center Dallas CEO Cece Cox sent the board an open letter, reminding ... More >>

Tom Leppert and Jesus Christ -- Why, Why, It's Like Looking at Twins!

Via.C'mon, Tom, show us the part where you walk on water.​Oh, oh, oh -- now I get it. All this time former Mayor Tom Leppert sure seemed to be just a stinking hypocrite, a back-stabbing, forked-tongue phony who turned all anti-gay and old-time religious-y after leaving office and deciding to r ... More >>

Like His Pastor Friends, Perry Thinks Hanging Gay People is a "Traditional American Value"

"Dear Lord, please put your hands on those gay people, and then just, you know, twist at the neck."​Here's the president yesterday, decrying not-minor human-rights violations against gays overseas (from the Washington Times):"I am deeply concerned by the violence and discrimination targeting [ ... More >>

SMU Not Happy About Landing on Princeton Review's "LGBT Unfriendly Schools" List. Again.

​While Dallas ISD is debating a change to their rules in order to make their campuses more gay-friendly, two local universities have landed, once again, on the Princeton Review's list of "LGBT Unfriendly" schools. Released last week as part of Princeton Review's mammoth collection of college ranki ... More >>

Resource Center Dallas Happy, For the Most Part, With "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Report

U.S. Navy Petty Officer Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeleyRobert Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at today's press conference​The Department of Defense today released its 247-page Report of the Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with a Repeal of ... More >>

Resource Center Dallas Wants Dallas ISD to Define Students Protected by Bullying Policy

​Yesterday we spoke with Dallas Independent School District trustee Edwin Flores about a proposed policy before the board tomorrow: "Freedom from Bullying." Which is great news, says the Resource Center Dallas. But the center's higher-ups believe the bullying policy doesn't go far enough, especial ... More >>

You May Find It Trans...cendental

Sure, a Downtown March Won't Solve Gay Community's Problems. Still, It's Fun to March.

Photos by Andrea Grimes​Folks started showing up at Founder's Square downtown even before 6 last night, carrying Harvey Milk posters, rainbow flags and equal rights stickers. The Texas Evangelical Republican Caucus And Barn-Stomping Jesus Revival was in full swing. Elizabeth Pax, one of last night ... More >>

DART Struggles With Discrimination Policy, And Gay-Rights Advocates Aren't Happy At All

Incidentally, kudos to Erik Garcia, a third-grader at Harrell Budd Elementary School, for his winning entry in the Student Poster Contest​The Dallas Voice has been all over Dallas Area Rapid Transit's rewording of its discrimination policy, which has been altered, it appears, to exclude protection ... More >>

As Judges Heard Arguments For and Against Same-Sex Divorce, the World's Tiniest Protest Took Place Outside

Patrick MichelsMichael Robinson, left, and David Bowling were the sole protesters at today's same-sex divorce hearing downtown.​So much for the media circus outside today's highly anticipated (judging by the advance news coverage, anyway) hearing at the George L. Allen Sr. Courts Building, where t ... More >>

A Brief Summary of the Hubbub Surrounding Dallas Director Israel Luna's Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives

​For those not paying attention, there's been quite the firestorm in recent weeks surrounding Dallas filmmaker Israel Luna's Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives and its inclusion in the Tribeca Film Festival, which kicks off April 21. At the end of last week, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Def ... More >>

The police raid on the Rainbow Lounge has rocked the world of Fort Worth gays

Teenage and Transgendered

Liz and Amber were just friends until Liz became Jay

Locker Rooms Talk

Patricia Nell Warren discusses her new book

God Grief?

Gay Orthodox Jews engage in more than just Trembling Before G-d

Get Used to It

Councilman John Loza plans to fight for a city ordinance banning discrimination against gays

Mr. Fixit

"Ex-gay" minister Randy Thomas prays to put gays and lesbians on the straight and narrow

The other F-word

Eminem's mind-blowing Marshall Mathers LP promises to spark feverish free-speech debates

Air homophobia

A gay-bashing pilot prompts a change at Southwest Airlines

Real, reel gay

Out Takes, Dallas' newest gay and lesbian film festival

Edifice complex

Michael Piazza wants his proposed $20 million cathedral to send a message to the world -- gays can go to heaven too

GOP to gays: Butt out

Texas' Log Cabin Republicans find themselves the ultimate outsiders--vilified by both the GOP and fellow gays

Straighten up and fly right

American Airlines refuses to let a threat from the religious right steer the company off its gay-friendly course

School's out

Walt Whitman Community School in Oak Lawn is America's first private high school for gay and lesbian students. Despite some grim personal stories, the kids are all right.

The Wallflower

When is a movie about two women in love not "lesbian" enough? Ask Dallas filmmakers Gretchen and Julia Dyer, whose embattled indie gem Late Bloomers finally makes it to the national screen.

Letters

Late Bloomer

When Pat Stone learned her daughter was a lesbian, she helped start a support group for parents of gay and lesbian children. Then, after 35 years of marriage, Stone realized she had her own journey to make.

Love story

Beautiful Thing shimmers with quiet joy

Letters

Classless act

Star-Telegram knuckles under to Christian group, reassigns gay editor

Young, gay and thrown away

Hope House struggles to provide a refuge for some of society's most vulnerable people

Events for the week

Rushes