The Navy Gave a Gay Man a Home—And a ‘Bad Paper’ Discharge That Haunted Him for Decades

A Vietnam War Veteran Reflects on 50 Years of Fighting for People Like Himself and The Group He Loved

I was 17 when I joined the Navy in 1965. My family was poor, and I was failing out of high school. Four years in the Navy felt like my only option.

I’d hoped to avoid ground combat by enlisting in the Navy, but within nine months of joining, I found myself in Vietnam.

During those long 13 months at war, the one good thing was the circle of friends I made, first as a hospital corpsman in an aid station in the jungle, and then onboard the hospital ship Repose.

The first …

Why Oscar Wilde’s Life Was a Work of Art

More Than a Century After His Death, a Paris Exhibition Illuminates Both the Tawdry and the Transcendent

The French have always loved Oscar Wilde, just as he always loved them. Long before Britain sent him to jail for enjoying sex with other males in 1895, he …

Could I Stop Being Gay?

My Parents and I Desperately Wanted to Change My Sexual Orientation. But Therapy Only Made Me Hate Myself.

Would I truly go to heaven, despite being gay?

This question haunted me growing up. My earliest and most influential childhood memory is being 4 years old and “accepting Jesus into …

Gay—and Returning to Mass

How a Funeral, a Pope, and the Passage of Time Brought Me Back to a Tender, More Forgiving Church

I set foot in a Catholic church today for the first time in decades. I am one of those lapsed Catholics you’ve heard about. There are millions of us around …

When My Dad Came Out

I Dealt With It Badly. So Did He.

“Are you gay?” my 12-year-old self asked, as if asking about the weather.

We had stopped in the deli section of a supermarket near my father’s home in metro Detroit to …

Has Obama Given Up On One America?

A Federalist Approach To Gay Marriage May Be Fashionable. It’s Also Sad.

The main news event of today has clearly been the Supreme Court’s forceful Equal Protection decision in the DOMA case. Many view it as a prelude to a future decision declaring a …