Gays

Tell us how your family reacted upon learning that a member of the family was gay, lesbian or bisexual. Looking back, is there anything you would change about the way it was handled? Send essays of 300 words by Nov. 20, including a phone number for verification, to Community Voices/Families at the addresses listed in the Where to Write box above. Questions? Call Kevin Ferris, readers' editor, at 215-854-4543.

RE THE GREATER Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.'s new ad campaign targeting homosexuals ("New tourism ads: Come out and visit," Nov. 14) and Lisa Doan's letter in protest (Dec. 1): Funny, whenever someone tries to discriminate against gays, the phrase "It is not that I am against gays" always seems to pop up, to quote Ms. Doan's letter. Kudos to the GPTM for recognizing that gays are a viable tourism force! This campaign isn't about making gays feel good - it is about getting revenue to Philadelphia.

BY DEFENDING Sen. Santorum in his letter of June 6 on the walkouts at the St. Joseph's commencement, T.A. Spina appears to suggest that bigotry and intolerance towards homosexuals are qualities to be admired and rewarded within a "venerable Catholic institution" - not protested. Shouldn't we, in this great nation, be above that sort of primitive, uncivilized bigotry? Didn't the Matthew Shepard incident teach us anything? Shouldn't we be working from the belief that all people truly are created equal, and be spending our time striving to protect the human rights and civil liberties of all our citizens?

RE BRYAN M. Kilpatrick's response to Michael Ginsberg's March 12 letter on the Bible and homosexuality: It's my take that Ginsberg's use of the Old Testament examples were to refute another earlier letter-writer's comments. Therefore, Mr. Kilpatrick needs to take the earlier writers comments into account before criticizing Ginsberg's. As for the comment about people using the Bible to fit their own agenda: I agree. But it goes both ways. So-called devout Christians use the Bible's words to judge and persecute others.

WASHINGTON - The ban on gays in the military has stood for nearly a century. In 60 days, after decades of discharges, lawsuits and lobbying, that will change. President Obama fulfilled a 2008 campaign pledge yesterday, formally ending the ban. After meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, the joint chiefs of staff chairman, the president certified to Congress that repealing the ban would not jeopardize the military's ability to fight. "As commander in chief, I have always been confident that our dedicated men and women in uniform would transition to a new policy in an orderly manner that preserves unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effectiveness," Obama said in a statement.

DEB Woodell's op-ed comparison of racism to the plight of gays and lesbians at the Phillies game is out of left field. African-Americans were denied the right to vote, the right to eat at the same restaurants as whites, the right to use the same water fountains and bathrooms. Tell me, Debbie, has this ever happened to you or your grandparents? Homosexuality is a lifestyle, and nobody should be discriminated against for this. The same goes for people who are obese. But please do not compare racism to your situation.

New York Mayor David Dinkins yesterday announced a settlement of the troubles between Irish-American homosexuals and organizers of the Big Apple's St. Patrick's Day parade. Dinkins, who had threatened to become the city's first mayor within memory to boycott the event if the issue wasn't resolved, said the gays and lesbians had been invited to march up Fifth Avenue tomorrow by a group already in the parade. In addition, Dinkins said he would march with the gays and give up his traditional post at the head of the parade.

ARENEWED debate on "don't ask, don't tell" is just what al Qaeda ordered. Somewhere in north Waziristan, there's a tall guy on dialysis laughing his turban off at our preoccupation with fighting ourselves instead of hunting him. And yet that is what Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, ignited when he told the Chicago Tribune that homosexual acts "are immoral," like a member of the armed forces conducting an adulterous affair with...

MIKE RICCHINI was still upset when I spoke to him a few days ago about something that happened just before Christmas. His daughter, Jenna, a 9-year-old third-grader at Vanzant Elementary in Evesham Township, came home and reported to her parents that her class would be watching a video the next day about children with "two mommies and two daddies. " Ricchini was angry and told the school principal so. "These are third-graders. There is no reason they should be watching videos on same-sex marriage," he told me. He also said he thought the parents were given insufficient notice of the showing of the video.

NEW YORK - The Boy Scouts of America faces intensifying criticism from the left and right over a proposal to move away from a mandatory no-gays membership policy and to allow troop sponsors to decide the matter for themselves. The Human Rights Campaign, a major gay-rights group that initially welcomed the BSA's possible shift, said Thursday that it was inadequate, and demanded that the Scouts adopt a nationwide policy to accept gays as Scouts and adult leaders. The HRC said that corporations that continued to donate funds to the Scouts if any troops were allowed to discriminate would lose points in an annual evaluation of how major employers deal with gay-related workplace issues.

Sixtysomethings Jewel Haines and Kay Brown had never been to a gay pride parade, but on Sunday, the friends from Philadelphia sat in folding chairs beneath a tree near Fifth and Market Streets as a show of support. It was all for their crochet teacher at the St. Charles Senior Community Center. Somewhere along the 1.3-mile parade route, the seventysomething instructor was riding a float. "In this country, how long have people been biased and prejudiced against us as black people?"

In suburban Atlanta, northern Idaho, and a number of other places, churches have moved swiftly to sever ties with the Boy Scouts of America in protest over the vote last month to let openly gay boys participate in scouting. It's far from the mass defection that some predicted before the vote by the BSA's National Council. But the exodus could soon swell, depending on the outcome of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting next week in Houston. Baptist leaders say the agenda is likely to include a resolution encouraging SBC-affiliated churches to phase out their sponsorships of scout units.

PACERS CENTER Roy Hibbert apologized yesterday for using profanity and a gay slur after Saturday's Eastern Conference finals win over the Heat. After the game, which forced tonight's Game 7 in Miami, Hibbert was asked why he finished 10th in Defensive Player of the Year Voting. "I mean, you know what? Cuz y'all [incestuous expletives] don't watch us play throughout the year, to tell you the truth," Hibbert said. "Alright? So that's fine, you know. I'm going to be real with you, and I don't care if I get fined.

NFL MVP Adrian Peterson said he has family members who are gay whom he loves and respects, but regarding gay marriage, the Minnesota Vikings running back said, "That's not something I believe in. " Peterson made his comments in a recent interview with Sirius/XM NFL radio. He was asked his thoughts on the Vikings cutting longtime punter Chris Kluwe, an outspoken advocate for gay rights and gay marriage. Peterson said he considers Kluwe a good friend. "I have relatives who are gay," Peterson said.

Mack Finkel remembers when the Boy Scouts' ban on gay members morphed for him from an abstract concept into a palpable reality. It was a few years ago, when Finkel, now 17 and an Eagle Scout, was in eighth grade. On the last night of a camping trip with his troop, Finkel's friend, during a private conversation, came out. If his friend did so publicly, however, he risked being kicked out of the troop. "That's when I realized that scouting was forcing him to hide that part of his identity," Finkel said Thursday, without identifying the friend because of privacy concerns.

GRAPEVINE, Texas - The Boy Scouts of America threw open its ranks Thursday to gay scouts but not gay scout leaders - a fiercely contested compromise that some warned could fracture the organization and lead to mass defections of members and donors. Of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the BSA's National Council who cast ballots, 61 percent supported the proposal drafted by the governing executive committee. The policy change takes effect Jan. 1. "This has been a challenging chapter in our history," the BSA chief executive, Wayne Brock, said after the vote.

Can anything in theater still make audiences uncomfortable? In Bootycandy , playwright Robert O'Hara thinks vulgarity-laced, brazen explosions of gay and racial stereotypes can do the trick by shocking our diaphragms into eruptions of raucous, if somewhat shamefaced, laughter. He'd be wrong. O'Hara's 11-scene work loosely focuses on a handful of characters, including Sutter (Phillip James Brannon). First a precocious child in the 1970s asking his mother the meaning of dirty words, he later appears as a Michael Jackson-obsessed, sexually abused teen in the 1980s-era sketch "Happy Meal," then grows into a gay adult dealing with badly requited hetero-love in the late-1990s' "Drinks and Desire" and 2000s' "The Last Gay Play," in which he reverses a drunk's gay-baiting with tragic consequences.

PARIS - France will see its first gay weddings within days, after French President Francois Hollande signed a law Saturday authorizing marriage and adoption by same-sex couples and ending months of nationwide protests and wrenching debate. Hollande's office said he signed the bill Saturday morning, a day after the Constitutional Council struck down a challenge to the law and ruled it in line with France's constitution. Hollande, a Socialist, had made legalizing gay marriage one of his campaign pledges last year.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Six months after Minnesota voters turned back an effort to ban gay weddings, lawmakers are poised to make the state the first in the Midwest to pass a law allowing them. The shift comes amid a rapid evolution of public opinion nationally. But with Minnesota and possibly Illinois set to broaden the definition to include same-sex couples, coastal states may soon have some company. In November, voters unexpectedly defeated a measure that would have banned same-sex marriage in the Minnesota Constitution, even after more than two dozen states passed similar bans.

Delaware is the 11th state to allow same-sex marriage after a divided state Senate gave its approval Tuesday. Less than an hour after the 12-9 vote, Gov. Jack Markell signed the measure into law. "I do not intend to make any of you wait one moment longer," Markell told about 200 supporters who erupted in cheers and applause after the Senate vote. "I am elated," said Scott Forrest, 50, of Newark, who entered into a civil union last year with his partner of almost 21 years, Kevin.