Defining Marriage - Gay/LGBT News & Chat

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore has come to resolve an attack on our sovereignty now! He's very upset that homosexuals are getting married, and he's written hundreds of pages to explain his feelings. So very many feelings. This particular bout of impotent rage was touched off by a ruling that Alabama does indeed have to obey rulings from the Supreme Court of the United States, for a variety of reasons including and not limited to the fact that Alabama is a part of this country. Gays can get married, even in states where people do not like them.

Many Things Go

This week, we're talking about some unsettling comments on marriage equality from a former boxer/current politician. Should we be taking our sexy-time cues from animals? Also, at last you can hear what it sounds like when my brain stops working.

This week we'll be talking about some surprise changes coming to the US Supreme Court.

For the last few episodes, I've been revisiting the marriage work that I did as an reporter and activist over the last decade. And this week we'll be talking about 8 the play, the dramatic interpretation of the prop 8 trial. I worked behind the scenes on mounting the star-studded premieres in New York and LA, and here to talk about it with me this week is the delightful James.

For the last few episodes, I've been revisiting the marriage work that I did as an reporter and activist over the last decade. Believe it or not, there are still some people trying to undo marriage equality, and generally make life unpleasant for gay people. And also, it turns out, for straight people. I'm joined once again by my very special guest, James, to talk about this weird situation. Hello there.

The work on marriage equality is pretty much wrapped up in this country, but every now and then, anti-gay activists manage to find their way into the news by trying to roll back progress and stop LGBTs from getting married. What are their chances of success? Well let's talk about it this week.

This week, I'm talking to Davina Kotulski, a crucial figure in the modern marriage equality movement. Davina appears briefly in my book, but she played a key role in securing marriage in California and nationally. I spoke to her this week about what it was like to not just be a witness to history -- but to have an opportunity to shape it.

This week, I'm looking back at a 2011 interview with the folks behind the webseries Husbands: Jane Espenson, Brad Bell, and Sean Hemeon. When it was created, the world in which Husbands took place was kind of a fantasy realm: marriage equality was just a fact of life. It's just five years later now, and it's a bit strange to think how recently that had to be speculative fiction.

This week, let's take a look back at Proposition 8. That's the fight that got me engaged with marriage, back in 2008. After the marriage ban passed, I started making YouTube videos to update people on what was happening with marriage. I'm going to play the audio for you, but if you want to watch the videos, some of which are a bit visual, you can find them in the shownotes for this episode at DefiningMarriage.com.

This week, we're looking to the recent past. At the end of 2011 and 2012, I produced "year in review" videos that summed up everything that happened with marriage equality those years, and looked ahead to what was coming next. Each one's a fascinating little time capsule, and I'm happy to say that most of my predictions came true.

This week I'm looking back at my 2012 interview with Josh Snyder and Steve Hill. Steve was the soldier who asked a question about Dont Ask Don't Tell at a Republican debate, and was booed by a few people in the audience. None of the Republicans on stage reacted to the booing, and Rick Santorum responded to the question by dismissing Steve's military service. And so, before he knew it, Steve had become a minor celebrity in the presidential race. Everyone was talking about Steve Hill the soldier. But what most folks didn't know about was Steve the husband. He had recently married his partner, Josh, in an intimate ceremony at a meaningful gravesite. Here's my conversation with them from January of 2012, just a few weeks after the debate that changed their lives.

This week I'm looking back at my 2011 interview with Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine, a couple about to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their meeting. Back in 2011, they'd just written a book about their time together called Double Life, and it is an absolutely amazing story. Alan's career took him from acting on Broadway to running Warner Brothers Television; Norman is a celebrated painter and ad executive. Together they were first-hand witnesses to the monumental changes in how our culture views gay couples. Here's our interview from 2011 -- it was conducted over Skype, so the audio quality is a little scratchy, but it's worth sticking around for.

Last week, I covered three misleading national ads that the National Organization for Marriage ran after Prop 8 passed. This week, we'll take a look at some ads that the anti-gay industry targeted to specific states -- and we'll talk about why, in every case, they failed to have the impact they were supposed to.

starting with this episode, I'll be revisiting the marriage work that I did as an reporter and activist over the last decade. I've gathered some historical news clips, as well as interviews I conducted, and analysis from the dark days of marriage inequality. I'll play them for you, and then afterwards, I'll pop back in to talk about what was happening back then, which predictions came true and which were a little off the mark, and what's changed in the intervening years.