All posts by Dr. Robert N. Minor

Man holding bible

Stop Supporting Religious Prejudice

I hope by the time this appears, everyone in the LGBT community will have taken deep, cleansing breaths and realized that the blame for the success of California’s Proposition 8 does not belong to the African American community. I hope they’ve paid attention to the

Clothing on rack in store

Beyond a ‘Day Without a Gay’

“Day Without a Gay” on December 10, 2008 was a predictable flop. Beginning somewhere as a last-minute protest against California’s Proposition 8, people were asked to call their employers to tell them that they’d miss work because they’re gay. Then, the theory went, everyone would

Wedding rings on dictionary

Marriage Equality and Everything Else

“Are you excited about Connecticut?” While waiting to enter a radio studio for an hour of give-and-take on hot political issues affecting the LGBT community, it was a question another panelist found central. It was certainly of interest to the program’s listeners. But, surprisingly, I

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

More Faithless-Based Initiatives

I don’t care if Barack Obama changes the name of Bush’s “White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives” to a “Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.” I think most of the thirty evangelical leaders he sat down with in a private downtown Chicago meeting

Man speaking into microphone

Who’s Responsible for What They Say?

When 59-year-old Jim Adkisson stormed into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church on July 27 as an angry unemployed engineer, fatally shooting two adults, most of us were shocked. When 51-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson, fearing he’d been canned by Target, barged into the Arkansas Democratic Headquarters

Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth II

Target Michelle Obama

Even those of us who were disappointed with Hillary Clinton’s campaign can agree with CBS News anchor, Katie Couric: “Like her or not, one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued – and accepted – role of sexism in American life, particularly

Hands doing an explaining gesture

We All Have Histories

We have accepted the dominant line if we believe that only when Barack Obama talks is race an issue or that only when Hillary Clinton speaks is gender involved. We’re not supposed to ask how whiteness is behind what Clinton or John McCain say or

Boy with partially covered face

Why Would a Nice Boy Shoot Up His School?

In February it was a mass shooting at another university by a “gentle, warm, sensitive” young man whom acquaintances described as a student who didn’t fit the profile of a killer. Yet, he was a male in American culture, and therefore the likely gender for

Books

Let Them Hit Bottom

There are clear signs that right-wing dominance is waning. But it’s not time for us to celebrate or think that their fall is irreversible. It’s time instead to make sure we aren’t under them, trying to prop up their egos, while they fall. It’s time