Florida Agenda

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR After the dust settled from last weekend’s Stonewall Summer Pride, I had a few minutes to think about what the next three months is likely to hold for the LGBT rights movement. My publisher—and my boyfriend, too—would probably disagree, but I prefer to err on the side of caution, at least insofar [...]

Cliff Dunn – Editor For about five seconds today, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) became my intellectually favorite person. Florida’s junior United States Senator—of which the Republican vice presidential nomination is generally viewed to be his to lose—gave an interview with Christianity Today in which, among other things, he responded to the question, “Are Christians [...]

CLIFF DUNN Being raised by a single mother, growing up I didn’t have a whole lot of use for Father’s Day, and it more or less dropped entirely off the radar screen after my absentee father died when I was 18. Further compounding my estrangement from this “holiday”—which was only signed into official existence in [...]

CLIFF DUNN: EDITOR I suppose that I am just as inclined as the next guy to laugh when I see, I don’t know—something like a bucket of water getting dumped onto some poor, unsuspecting soul’s head. There’s something about the unfairness of it all, I guess, that makes us laugh AT the poor slob’s misfortune, [...]

Cliff Dunn One of my earliest childhood memories is being chased by three kids at summer camp, circa 1972, and being locked in a gym storage room while the trio stood on the other side of a glass window, congratulating themselves on their heroic efforts against a lone sevenyear- old menace. That’s the set up. [...]

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR   “Ye lads of grace and sprung from worthy stock, do not begrudge brave soldiers: speak to them with your beauty. In cities of Chalcis, Love—who spreads legs—thrives side by side with Courage.” Aristotle, 4th Century B.C.E.   I will never forget a moment some years back when I was waiting in [...]

By Cliff Dunn “The modern president is America’s shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He’s also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth.” Gene Healy, “The Cult of the Presidency” President Obama’s historic words last week announcing his support of full marriage equality for gay Americans was as simple as it [...]

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR   “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” Oscar Wilde   I have a vivid childhood memory of my mother which had a lasting impact on the man I would become. Like a lot of kids, I had to endure bullies at various times [...]

By CLIFF DUNN “God is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Anonymous My partner and I were watching a movie the other night. I can’t recall which one, or what it was about, but one thing that stood out was the signage. By this, I refer to signs being carried by one side in the [...]

CLIFF DUNN, EDITOR   “Where they have burned books,        they will end in burning human beings.” -Heinrich Heine   Last week, hundreds of thousands of students at thousands of schools across the U.S. participated in the 2012 National Day of Silence, a day established to draw awareness to the evils of bullying and homophobic [...]