Last week, President Obama gave a passionate, vulnerable, teary-eyed press conference to announce new guidelines for gun ownership. It provided some of the rawest, most authentic expressions of compassion and grief ever shared by a sitting American president.

It was also another example of a man's religion speaking...

I have a couple of close friends who have struggled for years with undiagnosed chronic illnesses, and they've both shared with me on several occasions how isolating their conditions became because their pain wasn't visible to others.

In the absence of outward, identifiable symptoms, people either questioned the reality or...

연말연시가 돌아왔다...

많은 사람들에게 있어 연말 연시는 마법과 신비의 시간, 희망이 부풀고 평화가 깃드는 시간, 기적이 어디서나 일어나는 것처럼 느껴지는 때이다. 즐거운 만남, 뜨거운 포옹, 떠들썩한 웃음과 붐비는 테이블, 감사의 감정이 넘치는 순간들이다. 대부분에게 크리스마스는 달콤하고 희망으로 빛나는 시간이다.

하지만 당신이 그런 사람이 아니라면 이 시기를 견디기란 정말 함들다. 세상...

'Tis the season...

For many people these are days of magic and wonder, a time when hope rises and peace falls and where miracles begin to feel commonplace. They are moments of joyous reunions and fierce embraces and boisterous laughter and crowded tables, all accompanied by waves of easy gratitude....

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. -- Jesus

Last week, Jerry Falwell Jr, the President of Liberty University (our nation's largest and influential such institution), spoke the following words during the school's convocation, to wild cheers and applause:

If some of those...

I used to think that it was just me, that it was my problem, my deficiency, my moral defect.

It had to be.

All those times when I felt like an outsider in this American Jesus thing; the ever-more frequent moments when my throat constricted and my heart raced and...

You may have seen this video by perpetually bearded, squinting, close-yelling, backward hat-wearing, Christian video guy Joshua Feuersetin or others from him. He's now ubiquitous social media Christian culture.

In this latest parking lot short film, Feuerstein once again rattles off some loud, raw-throated, WWE-style, machine gun pontificating;...

È arrivato il momento di fare una confessione.

Di fronte a tutti i miei fratelli e a tutte le mie sorelle cristiane che insistono sul fatto che l'omosessualità sia una scelta devo finalmente capitolare, e ammetterlo: sono d'accordo con voi.

Anch'io sono assolutamente convinto che si tratti di una scelta,...

Confession time.

To all of my Christian brothers and sisters who insist that homosexuality is a choice, I need to break down and finally admit something: I agree with you.

I believe that it absolutely is a choice too, only not in the way that you may have meant.

But...

Brace yourselves and gird your loins, true believers; I have some earth-shattering news.

I've long heard rumors of the homosexual community's insidious master plan to contaminate and corrupt our sweet straight setup here, and one way or another, I decided I'd get to the bottom of it, once and for...

There are moments when you're absolutely sure that you're standing on holy ground, times when you feel the awe of something so big and so real, that you're driven to your knees and moved to tears.

The Portland Convention Center became such sacred space for me this weekend.

As a...

"Church isn't for me anymore."

I know those words so well, because I hear them every single day in some form or another; in emails, late night Skype sessions, and midday conversations across a coffee table. They're a convenient one-size-fits-all phrase that covers a multitude of meanings for those of...

Manchmal frage ich mich, ob meine Kinder einmal schwul werden.

Keine Ahnung, ob es anderen Eltern ebenso geht. Aber ich denke doch relativ häufig über diese Möglichkeit nach.

Vielleicht liegt es daran, dass viele Menschen in meinem Familien- und Freundeskreis schwul sind. Homosexualität ist Teil meiner Gene und meines Umfelds.

Love doesn't always look like love.

When I published this blog post two weeks ago, I was prepared for some people to applaud it, and for others to condemn it. That's what happens whenever you put an opinion out there.

I was fully prepared for the waves of...

Sometimes I wonder if I'll have gay children.

I'm not sure if other parents think about this, but I do -- quite often.

Maybe it's because I have many gay people in my family and circle of friends. It's in my genes and in my tribe.

Maybe it's because, as...