The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, likes to play it safe. Romney avoids controversy, by any means necessary—even if he has to lie, flip-flop for, or somersault.

This spring around the country, LGBTQ communities are celebrating Bayard Rustin's 100th birthday anniversary. But to date, he's still largely an unknown because of the heterosexism that has canonized the history of last century's black civil rights movement.

Cleo Manago is despised by some in the LGBTQ community. Descriptors like "homo demagogue," contrarian, separatist, and anti-white are just a few that can be expressed in polite company.

Seldom do I see my image anywhere, especially portrayed in non-stereotypical and non-heterosexist ways on the silver screen. As a matter of fact, if you Google "black lesbians" or "black lesbians in film" you'll get a plethora of porn sites to visit.

Today's MLK Day.

I am proud to count myself among the many people working for social justice today who stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Too many people think King's statements regarding justice are only about race and the African-American community—thus excluding the LGBTQ community.

Having voice in the Black Community is still an arduous struggle for its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) community. As we cross over into 2012, one of our biggest accomplishments in 2011 has been the various ways in which LGBTQ of African descent have employed different public venues to be heard. These following venues will be used as instruments of change in our future struggle.

Just last month, Gay Black Men News (GBMNews.com) folded. It was a unique online eZine because it brought a perspective of the news as it related specifically to gay men of African descent. And its circulation was global.

Homophobia runs deep! So deep that it also impinges on the animal world.

Toronto's zoo is splitting up a pair of same-gender penguins. These "Happy Feet" males, Pedro and Buddy—jokingly referred to as "Brokeback Iceberg"—have been nesting with each other for a year.

The reason for the boys' split-up, a zoo official says, is because African penguins are an endangered species. The pair has what's known as a "social bond," but it's not necessarily a "sexual bond," Tom Mason, the zoo's curator of birds and invertebrates told the Associated Press.

In the African American community we desperately need public role models denouncing anti-homophobic bullying, vitriol, and discrimination.

Since too few role models come from the Black Church, many of us lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)  brothers and sisters of African descent look to black role models, especially males, in the areas of entertainment and sports. But sadly that list too is short. Tim Hardaway, a retired NBA All-Star player, has recently stepped forward.

More than 30,000 people packed Houston’s Reliant Stadium to attend Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s mega prayerfest, “The Response,” a clarion call to all Christian Americans for a national day of prayer for our troubled nation.

But lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) American―Christians―were not invited.

Though you wouldn’t have known it from Gov. Rick Perry’s remarks:

“I’m so humbled to be in the midst of men and women who have answered the call to prayer and fast for our nation. ...Like all of you, I love this country deeply, thank you all for being here.”

But the American Family Association (AFA), one of the largest and most influential traditional family values organizations in the country that has over two million online supporters, financed the event. This Tupelo, Miss.-based Christian group has actively lobbied against the acceptance of LGBTQ Americans by publicly stating, “We oppose the homosexual movement’s efforts to convince our society that their behavior is normal.” The AFA unapologetically promotes the idea that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice that can be cured through religious teachings in ex-gay ministries. The organization focuses its anti-gay crusade primarily through television and other media, both nationally and abroad.

For example, in 2007, the AFA spoke out against IKEA for featuring lesbian and gay families in their television ads. In June 2008, the AFA protested a Heinz television ad, shown in the U.K, for featuring two men kissing, and Heinz withdrew the ad. And in July 2008, the AFA boycotted McDonald’s because McDonald’s had a director on its board from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

But AFA wasn’t the only anti-LGBTQ organization at the rally. Representatives from Tony Perkins’s Family Research Council and Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family also attended.

Perry stated “The Response” wasn’t a disguised platform for his political aspiration to run for the presidency in 2012, but rather a simple Christian rally praying for all Americans, even Obama, during these difficult times.

“We pray for our nation’s leaders, Lord, for parents, for pastors, for the generals, for governors, that you would inspire them in these difficult times,” Perry told those gathered at Reliant Stadium. “Father, we pray for our President, that you would impart your wisdom upon him, that you would protect his family.”

However, I am confused about Perry’s role serving the American people. If Perry were a minister who had the backing of anti-gay organizations, I wouldn’t be so troubled. But Perry is a governor, whose oath to office is to represent not simply his evangelical conservative base, but rather every citizen in the Lone Star State.

Who would have ever thought that the hard-earned gains that have been won to separate the church―an institution that summarily can and has excluded LGBT people from the state,―an institution that we have leverage to be included in would once again be violated by an elected official, and a Texan no less?

Perry states if he considers a presidential run it will be done in part out of a religious calling. And no doubt, a calling to bow to the Christian Right.

And would we, LGBTQ Americans, not re-experience the Bush era?

Baby Bush (George Walker) unapologetically espoused a theocratic model for government to effect laws and government structures according to his Christian ideal―an ideal that never worked, on the best of his days in office―that egregiously violated the civil rights LGBTQ Americans.

Did I wish Bush had concealed his zeal as a born-again Christian? Not at all!

“Freedom of religion is a good thing. So is freedom from the religion others may wish to impose on those who differ,” wrote Charles Kimball, author of “When Religion Becomes Evil”.

American democracy suffers when people have to be closeted about their faith because it fosters a climate of religious intolerance. And while our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and not freedom from religion, it prohibits the establishment of a state religion. Bush, however, molded his presidency into that of a Christian church-state. And in so doing, his theistic imperative was solely to do the will of God and not the will of the American people.

And in so doing, Bush’s eliding of church and state boundaries diminished not only his political authority as a world leader that he so cherished, but it also diminishes one of the central objectives he wanted to obtain during his presidency―moral authority.

Perry’s rally positioned him as having moral authority, but he’s no friend to LGBTQ Americans. He opposes same-sex marriages, and he vehemently opposed the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence vs. Texas, which struck down a Texas same-sex anti-sodomy law.

However, for Perry to have moral authority, he cannot as a governor call Americans to a Christian rally that by its invitation and sponsors exclude LGBT people, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and many others. And he cannot impose his religious views into the fabric of American democracy.  n

Last month, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans and our allies celebrated New York State becoming the sixth and largest state to allow same-sex marriage.

And, of course, it sent an urgent message to Obama.

But what does it signal to us LGBTQ citizens when the first African American president wants to employ states’ rights—which once upon a time in this country federally mandated racial segregation and sanctioned American slavery—to address the issue of same-sex marriage?

The gay-friendly beach town shows its shady side

At the tip of Cape Cod is the LGBTQ-friendly haven Provincetown, fondly called P-town, and known as the best LGBTQ summer resort on the east coast.

The twenty-third annual Lambda Literary Awards, LLA, (also known as the “Lammys”) took place at New York’s School of the Visual Arts Theatre on May 26. This red carpet event brought out our finest in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) literature and publishing traditions.

CNN’s Don Lemon has penned a memoir titled “Transparent” that will come out in September. In writing his book, Lemon said “the decision to come out happened organically.”

The long-awaited film “Becoming Chaz,” a documentary about Chaz Bon’s female-to-male (FTM) gender reassignment, aired this month on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. And it captures not only the arduous trek of coming out as transgender, but it also captures the universal experience we all face of coming out as our true selves.

Black History Month is that time of year when the achievements and courage of people of African descent are acknowledged and celebrated. However, for decades now, Black History Month has not acknowledged or celebrated the contributions of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities.

Our omission from the annals of black history would lead you to believe that the only shakers and movers in the history of African Americans were and still are heterosexuals. And because of this heterosexist bias, the sheroes and heroes of LGBTQ people of African descent – like Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Essex Hemphill, Joseph Beam, and Bayard Rustin, to name a few – are only known and celebrated within a subculture of black life.

Along with the pantheon of noted black heterosexual leaders who will be lauded this month, I want to personally celebrate one of my queer and crossover sheroes, renowned writer and poet Alice Walker, for giving black women everywhere around the globe a new name we all can embrace: "Womanist."

While "sistah girl" is my favorite term for black women, no word captures the totality of women of the African Diaspora in popular culture today than this Pulitzer Prize winning author’s choice.

Walker coined the term “womanist” in her 1983 collection of prose writings, “In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens.” The term comes from African-American women’s folk expression, “You are acting womanish.” It describes the precociousness of little African-American girls as they attempt to comprehend and overcome the challenges their adult counterparts face as they struggle for survival in an oppressive society.

Walker defines a “womanist” as a black feminist who continues the legacy of “outrageous, audacious, courageous, and willful, responsible, in charge, serious” African-American women as agents of social change for the wholeness and liberation of their entire people, and by extension the rest of humanity.

A womanist can be a lesbian, a heterosexual, a bisexual, or a transgender woman. She celebrates and affirms African-American women’s culture and physical beauty. A womanist “loves herself. Regardless.”

Walker specifically devised the term in response to literary historian Jean Humez’s  introductory statement in "Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress." Humez suggested that Rebecca Jackson and Rebecca Perot, who were part of an African-American Shaker settlement in Philadelphia in the 1870’s and lived with each other for more than thirty years, would be labeled lesbians in today’s climate of acknowledging female relationships. Humez supported her speculations of the Jackson-Perot relationship by pointing to the homoerotic dreams the women had of each other. But, Walker disputed Humez’s right, as a white woman from a different cultural context, to define the intimacy between two African-American women. “Womanist” was coined as a term that was both culture specific and encompassed a variety of ways in which African-American women support each other and relate to the world.

Although the words “religion” and “Christian” do not specifically appear in Walker’s definition, there are both religious and secular usages for the term “womanist.” Because Walker emphasizes African-American women’s love for the Spirit, African-American Christian women have used “womanist” to articulate their witness to and participation in God’s power and presence in the world. “Womanist” in the religious sense is often used by African-American women who are Christian ministers and seminarians, as well as by feminist scholars in the field of religion.

Womanist Christian thought began to flourish in the mid-1980s as a way to challenge racist, sexist, and white feminists’ religious practices and discourses, which excluded African-American women’s participation and ignored their experiences in church and society.

For womanist Christian ministers and seminarians, Walker’s definition serves as a springboard for their preaching style, liturgy, and pastoral ministry. For womanist Christian academicians, the definition shapes and frames their analytical and theoretical

What better way for two lesbian priests of the Episcopal Church to demonstrate their commitment to each other than in holy matrimony.  

As Americans we have a hard time talking about race in this country when the n-word is not involved. And when this epithet is, predictably, we behave schizophrenically.