Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Sports No Longer Last Bastion of Homophobia

April 30, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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So, are sports fans ready to cheer on openly gay players? A body of recent research suggests they are. A number of studies published over the last three years have found a steep decline in homophobic attitudes among both athletes and fans. There’s no question that NBA player Jason Collins took a risk in telling the world, via this week’s Sports Illustrated, that he is gay. But that risk is far less than it would have been even a decade ago. “Research on masculinities and homophobia today shows that, even in the traditionally conservative institution of sport, matters have ... Read More

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Fighting Words

April 29, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Let me preface this by noting that I know next to nothing about sports, in America or elsewhere. I blindly cheer for my teams back home—the Chicago Bears, the Chicago Bulls, and the Chicago White Sox—with the same intensity I bring to a lot of other aspects of my life. (I've been accused of jingoism on more than one occasion.) But as a gay atheist who grew up in a not-immediately-tolerant environment (atheism wasn't seen as a lack of belief, but an absence of morals), I do know something about intolerance. This morning, I shrugged off the news that Jason Collins, who has already spent ... Read More

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NBA Player Jason Collins Becomes First Openly Gay Major American Athlete

April 29, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay." Those are the first three sentences of this week's Sports Illustrated's cover story, written by Jason Collins, a 34-year-old black NBA center most recently of the Washington Wizards. Collins played four years of basketball at Stanford and was drafted by the Houston Rockets with the 18th pick of the 2001 NBA draft. He's played for six teams over his 12-year career, scoring over 2,500 points and grabbing over 2,600 rebounds. In the essay, co-written with the help of SI's Franz Lidz, Collins talks about when he realized he was ... Read More

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The Evolution of Gay Sex in Comic Books

April 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Apple made more than a few new enemies yesterday—and this time the tech giant wasn't the one that did something wrong. On Tuesday, April 9, Brian K. Vaughan, creator of the popular comic book Saga, released a statement on Tumblr claiming that the newest issue of his series was blocked from the App Store because of some potentially offensive imagery. "Fiona and I could always edit the images in question," Vaughan wrote, referring to Fiona Staples, his co-creator, herself a popular comic book artist since the mid-2000s, "but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not ... Read More

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Why Are So Many People Changing Their Mind About Same-Sex Marriage?

April 10, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Yesterday, I did a live chat at The Huffington Post about why politicians—and the rest of America—suddenly seem to be “evolving” on same-sex marriage. It’s true that we’ve seen a real shift in support for the issue and acceptance of homosexuality in general; since 2011, the majority of Americans are in favor of extending marriage to same-sex couples and the trend has continued. What is behind that change? The Pew Research Center asked 1,501 respondents whether they’d changed their minds about same-sex marriage and why. Here’s what they found. The overall trend toward ... Read More

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Uganda: The Number One (Anti-Homosexuality, Anti-Women) Place to Visit

April 8, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Here's Lonely Planet on Uganda, its number-one country to visit for 2012: It’s taken nasty dictatorships and a brutal civil war to keep Uganda off the tourist radar, but stability is returning and it won’t be long before visitors come flocking back. After all, this is the source of the river Nile—that mythical place explorers sought since Roman times. It’s also where savannah meets the vast lakes of East Africa, and where snow-capped mountains bear down on sprawling jungles. Not so long ago, the tyrannical dictator and ‘Last King of Scotland’ Idi Amin helped hunt Uganda’s big ... Read More

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Gay Men, Straight Women: What’s the Attraction?

February 18, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Chris Colfer as Kurt and Lea Michele as Rachel in 'Glee'

From the title characters of Will and Grace to Kurt and Rachel on Glee, television comedies have picked up on an apparently widespread phenomenon: intense friendships between gay men and straight women. But in real life, what cements this often-close bond? Newly published research provides a plausible, albeit partial, answer: their unique ability to provide clear-headed counsel regarding romantic relationships. “Our results suggest that straight women and gay men perceive mating advice provided by each other to be more trustworthy than similar advice offered by other individuals,” a ... Read More

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Modern Marriage: Standing on Ceremony

May 9, 2012 • By • 1 Comment

This story was originally published on July 21, 2008. President Barack Obama, who has said his views on gay marriage have been evolving, said today he is personally in favor of allowing same-sex couples to marry. Tuesday, North Carolina became the 29th U.S. state to ban gay marriage in its state constitution. As California last month became the second state in the union (after Massachusetts) to legalize marriage for lesbian and gay couples, opponents of same-sex marriage have warned of dire consequences to the institution of marriage. Depending on one’s point of view, the Rev. Louis ... Read More

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Prop 8 May Be Same-Sex Couples’ Least Worry

February 7, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: On Tuesday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling that California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, was unconstitutional. Backers of the proposition vowed to appeal. In this December 2008 interview, law professor Jennifer Drobac outlines why lawsuits over Prop 8’s constitutionality aren’t vital to the legal rights of same-sex couples. November’s passage of California’s Proposition 8, which amends the state’s constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage and which the state Supreme Court upheld today, is the latest flashpoint in ... Read More

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Gay Neighbors Impact Property Values

November 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

When gay people move into a neighborhood, do property values go down? Newly published research suggests the answer is yes — but only for neighborhoods with negative attitudes toward gay people. A look at sociopolitical attitudes and home prices in a major Ohio city finds “an increase in the number of same-sex-couple households is associated with an increase in house prices in more liberal neighborhoods, and a decrease in house prices in more conservative neighborhoods. “This suggests that gay and lesbian coupled households do experience prejudice in conservative ... Read More

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