As the world continues to learn more about coronavirus and its spread, it's vital to stay up-to-date on the latest developments. However, it's also important to make sure that the information being distributed is from credible sources. To that end, Between The Lines has compiled, [...]
Dear Jody: Who knows what we are?
Q: Last year at the end of summer, my partner "Will" and I bought a trailer and parked it at a gay campground, out of state. Actually, it was in the state that Will is [...]
Cocktail Chatter: Don’t Cry for Me, Margarita
Craig was giddy on the ferry. "Margaritas are my favorite drink!" He clapped his dimpled hands in excitement and began sing-songing, "Goodie goodie gumdrops!" He was still jolly because I had withheld my control-freakish plan. [...]
Book Marks: Like Me, The Lost Library, One Bloody Thing After Another
By Richard Labonte "Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer," by Chely Wright. Pantheon Books, 288 pages, $25.95 hardcover. If you're a country music fan, this is something of a big-deal coming-out memoir, akin [...]
Joan Rivers, Revealed
People roll their eyes at Joan Rivers nowadays. They cringe listening to her raucous rasp. They gawk at the copious amounts of plastic surgery she's undergone and call her a "freak." But close-ups of Rivers' [...]
Paula Cole’s Second Coming
Folk-pop hits - and hairy pits - put Paula Cole's name at the forefront of the late '90s golden age for female singer-songwriters. It wouldn't have been that decade without the "Dawson's Creek" song, her [...]
Deep Inside Hollywood
By Romeo San Vicente James Franco's next gay movie He played Sean Penn's lover in "Milk." He stars as Beat poet Alan Ginsberg in the upcoming "Howl." And he was recently the subject of minor [...]
Q Scopes: Your baby wants to play, Aquarius!
By Jack Fertig Venus in Leo quincunx to Pluto in Capricorn adds awkwardness in trying to manage relationships. A simple seduction, or trying to work out any little problem with your partner, can seem a [...]
Gay and Colorful
Across 1 "___ to differ!" 5 Fairy godmother's stick 9 Endora portrayer 14 Lorca's zip 15 It's for skin 16 Relief that rhymes with "homo" 17 Singer Williamson 18 Jungle transport 19 Composer Copland 20 [...]
A funny, creative look at the dark side
Pretty much everyone knows that Darth Vader is one of the most bad-ass villains in cinematic history. But did you also know that he once wanted to turn over a new leaf and be "one [...]
The force is strong at the Planet Ant
By D. A. Blackburn The time has come to let loose your inner-nerd, dig out your lightsaber, dust off your Darth Vader mask and head to the theater -- Hamtramck's Planet Ant Theatre, that is. [...]
Work makes much comical ado about nothing
By Bridgette M. Redman While life is made of moments, comedies sparkle when those moments are knit by plot or unified by character transformations. Lacking that, it becomes a doppelganger of "Seinfeld"-style situation comedies. "Mr. [...]
3 million at Sao Paulo pride parade
by Rex Wockner International News Briefs Step aside, United States, Toronto and Sydney. Your gay parades are not even close to the biggest. Organizers and media reported that the 14th annual gay pride parade in [...]
CoE human rights head blasts pride incidents
by Rex Wockner International News Briefs The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, says member nations that impede gay pride parades and celebrations are violating European law on freedom of assembly and expression. [...]
Same-sex marriages begin in Portugal
by Rex Wockner International News Briefs Same-sex marriages began taking place in Portugal June 7 when the law legalizing them took effect. The first couple to marry were Helena Pires Paixao and Teresa Paixao Pires, [...]
Michigan Pride: Living out loud
by Jessica Carreras For a gallery of pictures from Lansing, click here. LANSING - Temperatures soared and humidity hung in the air in Lansing on June 12, but it didn't stop thousands of LGBT Michiganders [...]
LGBT leaders head to the White House
by Jessica Carreras At least three leaders of Michigan's LGBT community were invited to an LGBT Pride Month reception June 22 at the White House where they will join other leaders from across the country [...]
New HIV/AIDS advocacy coalition forms
by Jessica Carreras The Michigan Coalition for AIDS Advocates held its first meeting on June 9, where leaders from HIV/AIDS, LGBT and community nonprofits across the state met to discuss possibilities for building not the [...]
Lansing academic researches metro Detroit’s gay history
by Lucy Hough Tim Retzloff, a Lansing resident and Yale Ph.D. student, is researching LGBT history in Detroit and is looking for people to interview to further his knowledge of what LGBT life was like [...]
Lansing Police Dept. appoints first-ever LGBT liaison
LANSING - When Capt. Ray Hall of the Lansing Police Department was a patrol officer, he was assigned to Lansing's Old Town area. At the time, it was mostly a run-down commercial zone, with empty [...]
Between Ourselves: Terri Dinsmore
by Jessica Carreras Terri Dinsmore is a 40-year-old activist from Montrose. She now serves as the president of the Genesee County chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, which serves the Flint-area [...]
Ruth Ellis Center to participate in skill-building initiative
HIGHLAND PARK - Southeast Michigan's own Ruth Ellis Center, which is one of the nation's three agencies dedicated to LGBTQ homeless youth, was selected among 24 Michigan sites that were interviewed to participate in the [...]
Riot Youth receives grant for theater project
ANN ARBOR - Riot Youth, a program for LGBT teens run out of Ann Arbor's Neutral Zone, has received a grant from the Mukti Fund for its Gayrilla Theater Troupe. The grant of $15,000 will [...]
Granholm to be honored at Washtenaw Dems’ annual dinner
The Washtenaw County Democratic Party will be hosting their annual dinner at 5 p.m. June 19 with a special guest: Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The host committee for the dinner includes state Sen. Liz Brater [...]
Rep. Baldwin stumps for Dems in Michigan
FERNDALE - U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), the only openly lesbian member of Congress, was at Affirmations June 14 to support U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer (D-Battle Creek) in his reelection bid. "We need Mark Schauer [...]
Competing casino proposals race to get on Nov. ballot
One group is charging toward the finish line while the other appears stuck in the starting blocks as two groups race to get their casino gaming proposal on the November ballot. The two groups, Michigan [...]
U.S. adopts new policy on trans passports
by Rex Wockner The U.S. State Department on June 9 altered its policy on transgender people and passports. State said it was "pleased to use the occasion of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month to [...]
HUD establishes gay protections
by Rex Wockner The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced June 7 that it will require applicants for HUD funding to comply with state and local anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBT people. "We're [...]
More gays than straights oppose Arizona immigration law
by Rex Wockner LGBT people are much more likely than straight people to oppose Arizona's controversial new law targeting undocumented immigrants, according to a Harris Interactive poll. The statute, enacted in April, requires police to [...]
Lesbians raise better kids, says U.S. study
The longest-running study ever conducted on American lesbian families has found that the 17-year-old sons and daughters of lesbian mothers, all conceived through donor insemination, rate higher than their peers in social, academic and overall [...]
On the shoulders of giants
"If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." This phrase, famously written in a letter from Sir Isaac Newton to his rival Robert Hooke, applies well to [...]
Creep of the Week: Pastor Martin Ssempa
There are a lot of arguments against gay rights out there, some crazier than others. But Pastor Martin Ssempa, the chairman of the National Task Force Against Homosexuality in Uganda and a preacher with celebrity [...]
Parting Glances: Not a full deck
I've been going to Chicago regularly since 1960. It's my Second City, with lots of wonderful memories. Museums. Restaurants. Friends. Lovers. Gay bars. The Lawson Y. (Youth gone for good with the Lakeshore wind.) During [...]
S/he said: Prom, Stonewall and Gaga
compiled by Howard Israel "To those who still believe that we should stay out of the cultural war, I have a question: How is that working out for you? We now have two generations who [...]
The Gay Moralist: Lesbian parents and the right to marry
by John Corvino Opponents of marriage equality often refer to the "untested experiment" of same-sex parenting, asserting that we just don't know how children in these families will fare over the long haul. They point [...]
Voices from an Urban Bush Sistah: A love song for summer
by C. Imani Williams Happy June! I greet you in peace and love and the sassy sweetness of sun-filled days and nights that encourage creativity and love. I am a June 1 baby so summer [...]
New York Senate passes enumerated anti-bullying law
NEW YORK - The New York Senate on the night of June 22 passed the Dignity for All Students Act, an enumerated anti-bullying bill that includes protections from bullying and discrimination on the basis of [...]
New York Senate passes enumerated anti-bullying law
NEW YORK - The New York Senate on the night of June 22 passed the Dignity for All Students Act, an enumerated anti-bullying bill that includes protections from bullying and discrimination on the basis of [...]
Scene Check: Rainbow Room
Kim, Andrea and Lois Alan and Mel Renee, Angelina and Dawn Carly, Ivy and Allison Dawn, Marla and Debbie