Andrew Sullivan reacts to the amici brief signed by 75 prominent Republicans in a very moving post at The Dish. If you've ever wondered why he feels so passionately about marriage rights for same-sex couples...

But I never stopped making the conservative case for marriage equality for the simple reason I believed in it. I never thought it would happen to me, but I knew it would have protected so many of my friends who didn’t have to just die agonizing deaths from AIDS but did so stigmatized and alone, their spouses treated often like dirt, their loves publicly repudiated, their dignity grotesquely violated. This was, I believed, a matter of core humanity. It became for me the defining cause of my life.

A friend recalled visiting a man dying of AIDS at the time. A former massive bodybuilder, he had shrunk to 90 pounds. "Do I look big?" he asked, with mordant humor. In the next bed, surrounded by curtains, my friend heard someone singing a pop song quietly to himself. My friend joked: “Well not everyone here is depressed!” Then this from his dying, now skeletal friend: “Oh, that’s not him. He died this morning. That’s his partner. That was their song, apparently. The family took the body away, threw that guy out of the apartment he shared with his partner, and barred him from the funeral. He’s stayed there all day, singing their song. I guess it’s the last place he’ll ever see where his partner actually was. His face is pressed against the pillow. The nurses don’t have the heart to tell him to leave.”

You want to know why this became a life-long struggle? You have your answer.

...yeah, you have your answer.

The freedom to choose your next-of-kin—the right to say this person is my nearest and for your choice to be given the force of law—is an important right for all adults, but it's an absolutely crucial right for LGBT people. So many of us have family members who are homophobic and hostile. To have to live in fear of a parent or a sibling or a distant cousin bursting in and brutalizing your partner after your death is too horrible to contemplate. And soon we may not have to contemplate it anymore. Fingers crossed.

Go read the whole thing.

We have Diana "My Gay Students Have No Purpose In Life" Medley to thank for this: people in Indiana who were upset by the actions of anti-gay bigots in Sullivan—including Diana "My Gay Students Have No Purpose In Life" Medley—came together and created the You Have a Purpose Project, "a collaboration of the Interfaith Coalition on Nondiscrimination, Indiana Equality Action, FairTalk, and Indiana PFLAG."

Maybe Diana "My Gay Students Have No Purpose In Life" Medley's purpose in life was to inspire hoosiers to speak up in defense of LGBT kids in Indiana. The Lord works in mysterious ways, right?

A butch dyke explains why she hates the TSA.

GayStarNews:

Donnie Collins, an Emerson College sophomore pledging the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity, is finding out a lot about the meaning of brotherhood. Collins is a transgender male whose health insurance does not cover his female-to-male top surgery which involves the removal of the breasts. He has paid for his hormone treatment himself.

Now his his new fraternity brothers have stepped in to help raise money for the operation through a page on IndieGogo.com.

"We care deeply about each and everyone, and rely on the entire active brotherhood to stand behind any one individual when they are in need," members state on the page. "We as an organization are told from day one to use our resources. You may not know this gentleman like we do, and we might not even know you, but if it speaks to you then we want to present you with an opportunity to give."

Collins' top surgery is scheduled for May and his frat bros are just $40 short of their $4800 goal. He made a video thanking his frat brothers for their support. It's after the jump.

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