The national media over the past 20 years have carried stories about two Laramie men who left Matthew Shepard to die on a Wyoming fence; the assailant who beat James Sappalorti to death on a lonely Staten Island beach; the two God-fearing Alabamans who took Billy Jack Gaither to a remote forest in Coosa County, Alabama, beat him to death with ax handles, and burned his body on a pile of trees; the hunter who stalked and gunned down a lesbian hiking with her mate on an Appalachian Trail; the gang of several men who lured Julio Rivera into an alley in Queens, NY and killed him with a claw hammer; the Vietnam veteran who was so ashamed that his last name was "Gay" that he opened fire in a Roanoke bar, killing Danny Lee Overstreet and wounding six others; the two Nebraska men who shot Brandon Teena to death in a wheat field; the New York man who shot and killed his nineteen year old step-son, Steen Keith Fenrich, for being gay, and then wrote "Gay Nigger #1" on the boy's decapitated skull; the two teenagers in Fairmont, West Virginia who stomped Arthur Warren to death, then drove over him repeatedly in an effort to mask the crime; the Oregon man who murdered a lesbian couple in their pick-up truck; the two young men in Happy Valley, California, who entered the home of a middle-aged gay couple who had befriended them and killed the middle-aged men in their bed; the gang of Idaho men arrested by the FBI as they attempted to blow up a Seattle gay bar with a pipe bomb; the two Oregon men who firebombed a Portland home, burning to death the young gay man who lived there; the three men in Tyler, Texas, who took twenty-three year old Nicholas West to a remote gravel pit and pumped nine fatal gunshots into him. And just the most recent killings this past winter in Queens, NY where a group of thugs with baseball bats beat to death a young Latino man who was walking down the street arm in arm with his brother to stay warm. The shouted anti-gay slurs as they murdered him. This is just a sampling. In the same sampling period that these stores were pulled from the national media, the same database contains no article about an event where a gay man, whether singly or in a pack, murdered a heterosexual for being that way.

The only people ruining gay lives SoberNut are people like you.

AND we get the first black presidink. Such a deal. What a joke!(?) But can the nation survive until 2010 or even 2012 when the neo-Marxist gets thrown out?

What is the murder and assault rate against gays, compared to the rest of the population?

cuz we can't make it to 2012 intact with our Commie prez. Very scary.

We need to know this about these "prominent" gays. Do they have to show their "prominence?"

Who else has done this? Clinton stumped for votes, and did show support by nominating some out government officials and defeating some anti-gay legislation. But he held gays at a distance publicly and ultimately signed DOMA.

Now we have a president meeting with gay and lesbian groups after gaining office. Saying "I hear you." Opening a dialogue. Proceding more cautiously than many might like, moving more slowly than most are comfortable with. But still reaching out. Not "thanks for the votes and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" which is ultimately how I felt about Clinton.

I think this is a good guy. I think we can expect good things from him.

I am an avid supporter of gay rights as well as a huge supporter of the president. As a black woman, though I am far too young to have experienced any of the civil rights movement, I identify with the gay struggle for equality as there are so many parallel's with the historical struggle of my own race.

I think most articles discussing Barack Obama's relationship with the gay community miss what really is going on and why trust in the president has deteriorated so quickly among that constituency. It all actually goes back to the huge tone deaf mistake of Rick Warren and has only been exacerbated by the 250 service members discharged and the hideous derogatory DOMA brief. I think there would be a lot more patience from the gay community toward the administration if slowness to move was the only problem the previous mentioned occurrences are actually seen as worse than doing nothing they are an affront to the community. Until this month the negatives produced by the Obama administration far outweighed any positive effort symbolic or otherwise. If you look at things within that scope you see that gays and lesbians are not simply being impatient after 6 months they are only responding to seemingly direct attacks on their lifestyle by someone who promised to be a fierce advocate.

One two deaths-- even one or two hundred deaths, whether true or made up, is nothing compared to millions and millions who died from the diseases passed by homosexual sex. Persons who engage in homosexual activites have real problems that dwarf anything an orderve will fix. The media ignores those problems and they pretend that a cure is just around the corner because the media want people to die-- especially homosexuals. But you don't see it because you are deluded. Homosexual's problems begin with the homosexual activity, and don't end until they die from it.

Most assaults on homosexuals are by other homosexuals, whether by violent act, or by injection of a virus by means beyond the scope of this post.

President Obama should take advantage of his Harry Truman-like moment to make history by ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and thus ending discrimination against U.S. soldiers who just happen to be gay. And in so doing, Obama keeps a promise and attains a legacy distinction. If Obama waits too long, the issue could be seized upon by moderate Republican candidates, looking for an issue to broaden the Republican Party appeal and to show its tolerant side. Then Obama might be seen as following Republican lead, rather than leading with his own ideals. It really is a national security and defense issue when you think about it. As all industrial democracies have accepted gay soldiers into their military ranks, why does America lag behind in intelligent enlightenment and not see the thousands of gay soldiers, in the U.S. military right now, as a worthy group of patriots serving their nation? I spoke to a father recently whose daughter was heading into the military. He said he worried about his daughter in usual ways, worrying about war and about enemies. But he also was concerned about the military lowering the qualifications for new recruits, to the point of acceptance of former felons, while tossing gay soldiers out. He wondered who would be safer for his daughter to be around--gay soldiers or felonious soldiers. Democratic politician Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, a retired Navy vice admiral, who is looking more and more like a good progressive candidate for the future presidency, stated it well yesterday on TV when he said that most U.S. soldiers are young and have lived with the issue of gay students and friends through high school and college without angst or fear. To them, it is a non-issue. It is only an issue to the old guys, set in their fearful, discriminatory ways. The old guys are missing the great American boat.