Gay Community

Barney Frank is in love. This is not exactly news — he's getting married in July — but it's still striking, the way a congressman who has cultivated a reputation for prickliness can be so publicly, sweetly sentimental. "It's funny," Frank said last week, musing about his relationship with his fiance, Jim Ready. "I used to listen to these songs about love and . . . they didn't mean anything to me. I would almost be kind of annoyed by them, you know — it's like I was left out. The whole thing takes on a meaning it didn't have.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Max Hirsh says he sensed something was not quite right when the psychiatrist focused on his failures with sports and teenage girls, as well as his deficient relationships with older men, particularly his father. Hirsh became convinced of the psychiatrist's rationale for those questions by the fourth session, when he essentially told the openly gay Hirsh that his true sexuality was in the closet. "But you're heterosexual," Hirsh recalls the psychiatrist telling him. Hirsh insisted he was gay; the psychiatrist wasn't buying it. "He said ‘No,'...

Robin MacCormack had a gift for blending in. With a neat dark haircut, a winning smile, and the cachet of his Irish-Catholic surname, City Hall's first liaison to the gay community was an ally to politicians, a buddy to police officers, and a trusted resource to the city's gays and lesbians. But just a few years after he was appointed by Mayor Kevin H. White in 1979, MacCormack melted out of public view. And on April 6, after years without contact with family or friends, he was discovered dead by police in his Dorchester apartment with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Some might say that Dharun Ravi, the 20-year-old defendant from Rutgers University, got off easy this week. Ravi faced 10 years in prison after being convicted of 15 counts — including invasion of privacy, intimidation, and anti-gay bias — related to the suicide death of his roommate, Tyler Clementi. But on Monday, a New Jersey judge wisely sentenced Ravi to 30 days in prison, along with probation, counseling, and 300 hours of community service. It seems unlikely that Ravi will now be deported to India, where he hasn't lived since he was a young child.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Tourism officials have worked for years to make this beach town a gay-friendly destination. Now their biggest obstacle could be the mayor himself. Mayor Jim Naugle has made a string of recent comments that critics say were blatantly homophobic. He portrayed city park restrooms as popular gay sex spots, opposed a plan to house a gay book collection in a public library, and insists on using the word "homosexual" because many of them "aren't gay, they are unhappy.

Eziah Karter-Sabir Blake swiped the play debit card through a plastic reader during a game of Monopoly recently. Another multimillion-dollar sale. The buyer, Giftson Joseph, rubbed his hands together, a glimmer creeping in his eyes as he playfully nudged the Rev. Catharine A. Cummings. The three - one gay, one transgender, one straight - sat around a table at a new youth drop-in center at Union United Methodist Church, a historically black congregation in the South End, the heart of Boston's gay community.

A series of killings of gay men and women by their partners has alarmed advocates, who say the deaths reflect a serious problem of domestic violence in the gay community that draws scant attention from many in law enforcement. Since 2010, there have been seven killings as a result of domestic violence, a sharp increase from prior years when advocates reported one to three such homicides. Last month, a 47-year-old man was accused of stabbing his boyfriend then burying his body beneath a porch in Winthrop.

In an effort to boost tourism and show that it is a welcoming and tolerant city, Salem is reaching out to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities with an “Out Night’’ on June 30. “We want gay and lesbian travelers to choose Salem for their vacations and excursions, because once they arrive they will find that lifestyle is not an issue,’’ said Kate Fox, executive director of Destination Salem, the nonprofit that promotes...

On a cool August evening, a man was walking on a paved path through the Medford section of Torbert MacDonald Park when he locked eyes with a stranger. The man, a computer technician who is gay, believed that the look suggested that the stranger wanted sex, according to gay-rights advocates. But the stranger was an undercover state trooper, who arrested the technician - not for a sex crime, but for trespassing - after he wandered 50 feet off the path, according to a police report.

GOING MAINSTREAM: The Actors Studio of Newburyport presents "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove," by the late lesbian playwright Jane Chambers, for three weekends opening Friday. When a straight woman on vacation unexpectedly enters a close-knit lesbian community, her presence challenges the group. There are issues of differences, trust, and fears of being revealed as gay, which portray the reality for lesbians in the 1970s. "When the plays of Jane Chambers were first produced 30 years ago, they were performed by all-lesbian casts with an almost...

RE " ON gay marriage, Obama is on the right side of history " (Editorial, May 10): I find it hard to believe that the president would take this stand regarding the gay community during an election year. I would assume that the overwhelming majority of gays would vote Democratic at any cost. When states have voted on the legality of gay marriage, they have voted against it. Only when the liberal judiciary gets involved, it seems, has the law changed. It would seem that Barack Obama should be focused on increasing his voting base.

DENVER - Gay couples who watched as Colorado lawmakers rejected a civil unions measure are taking comfort in the bill sponsor's mantra: It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when civil unions become law. The most emotional issue - some call it divisive - at the Legislature came to an end late Monday in front of hundreds of observers at the Capitol, during a special session. It was the second time within a week the bill failed. The first was after a Republican filibuster. Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, had said the second go-around was needed to address a...

Barney Frank is in love. This is not exactly news — he's getting married in July — but it's still striking, the way a congressman who has cultivated a reputation for prickliness can be so publicly, sweetly sentimental. "It's funny," Frank said last week, musing about his relationship with his fiance, Jim Ready. "I used to listen to these songs about love and . . . they didn't mean anything to me. I would almost be kind of annoyed by them, you know — it's like I was left out. The whole thing takes on a meaning it didn't have.

President Obama's decision to publicly support same-sex marriage comes amid a furious fund-raising battle with Republican Mitt Romney and has the potential to generate significant contributions from wealthy gays and lesbians and take the place of Wall Street donors who backed the president in 2008 but have become disaffected this year, according to campaign analysts and Obama supporters. At the same time, a failure to back gay marriage could have discouraged the youthful volunteers who form an important part of the president's political base, jeopardizing his...

Americans react after President Barack Obama voiced his support for gay marriage: "It definitely felt a like an important moment. For someone who's been fighting in this movement for a long time … it's overwhelming. Wow!" — Chris Seelbach, a gay rights activist elected last year as Cincinnati's first openly gay city councilman. "I'm not really for gay marriage. I think a man should be with a woman in God's eyes and a woman should be with a man. But to each his own. " — Joanie Taylor, 55, who works in the medical field and lives in Utica, Mich.

Robin MacCormack had a gift for blending in. With a neat dark haircut, a winning smile, and the cachet of his Irish-Catholic surname, City Hall's first liaison to the gay community was an ally to politicians, a buddy to police officers, and a trusted resource to the city's gays and lesbians. But just a few years after he was appointed by Mayor Kevin H. White in 1979, MacCormack melted out of public view. And on April 6, after years without contact with family or friends, he was discovered dead by police in his Dorchester apartment with a self-inflicted gunshot...

President Obama's decision to publicly support same-sex marriage comes amid a furious fund-raising battle with Republican Mitt Romney and has the potential to generate significant contributions from wealthy gays and lesbians and take the place of Wall Street donors who backed the president in 2008 but have become disaffected this year, according to campaign analysts and Obama supporters. At the same time, a failure to back gay marriage could have discouraged the youthful volunteers who form an important part of the president's political base, jeopardizing his chances of...

RE " ON gay marriage, Obama is on the right side of history " (Editorial, May 10): I find it hard to believe that the president would take this stand regarding the gay community during an election year. I would assume that the overwhelming majority of gays would vote Democratic at any cost. When states have voted on the legality of gay marriage, they have voted against it. Only when the liberal judiciary gets involved, it seems, has the law changed. It would seem that Barack Obama should be focused on increasing his voting base.

LONDON - Americans watching the latest push for social change in Britain might feel as if they had stepped into an alternative political universe: Here, the Conservatives are leading the charge for same-sex marriage. Gay couples in Britain won the right to civil partnerships in 2004, which granted them nearly the same legal status as married heterosexual couples while avoiding the controversial use of the word "marriage. " But Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative-led coalition have launched a historic drive to grant gay men and lesbians the option of also entering into...

KAMPALA, Uganda - Four years ago, Frank Mugisha begged his colleagues to join him for his first demonstration in support of gay rights in Uganda. Only four came along. Last week, during a march against gender-based violence led by the gay advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda, the Ugandan activist saw more than 30 colleagues walk the streets of Kampala holding gay rights posters. "For us, this is a sign of progress," Mugisha said, pointing to the white tarpaulin under which his group assembled after Monday's hourlong march.