Jewish Press Takes on Gay Suicides

The Jewish Press, a weekly publication focused on the Orthodox Jewish community, has a stinging editorial defending its decision to feature a story about suicide among “religious” Jewish gays. The original story, by Chaim Levin, touched off a great deal of criticism within the paper’s readership and advertisers.  Here’s a bit from the Press’ editorial: [...]

Define ‘The Closet’

I’ve re-read Ian Parker’s skeptical take on the death of Tyler Clementi in the New Yorker a number of times because, quite frankly, I couldn’t quite figure out how he reached the conclusions he did.  I think I get it, but it was hard to piece together. The most interesting question I had was about Parker’s [...]

“Coming Out” for LGBT Youth at NYT

As I mentioned in a previous entry, The New York Times has published a special multimedia “Coming Out” section. Updates to the section are still pending, but it’s off to a good start. Here’s the opening text of the section: Bullying and suicides of gay and lesbian teenagers are in the headlines, the military’s “don’t [...]

NYT “Coming Out” Project

Starting on May 23, The New York Times will begin publishing the results of its “Coming Out” project: The Times spoke with or e-mailed close to 100 gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender teenagers from all of parts of the country — from rural areas to urban centers, from supportive and hostile environments. The newspaper contacted [...]

Bringing Down a Gay Czar: Part 2

A day after I raised concerns about the lack of attention the Kevin Jennings story was getting outside of the conservative press, a number of developments are changing the landscape although there is still a surprising lack of attention to this story by the mainstream media. Progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America issued a [...]