Activism

  • Living at a Safe Distance

    I left the United States eight years ago. People ask me why, and the answer is simple. Until you are part of a minority that is under attack, it is hard to understand what it feels like to wake up every day in that kind of world. You learn to live with a weight in

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  • To be a gay father raising three children in the nineties was to live in quiet. Only the closest people to me knew the truth, because protecting my children mattered more than my own openness. I came out at twenty-nine, but even then it was carefully measured, told only to those who needed to know.

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  • One Life

    The world is restless.The walls speak in riddles of decline.I have lived enough unfairnessto know it rarely gives back what it steals. But I am not alone.I sit in the quiet with Rick’s laughterstill echoing in the room,a thread of warmth that refuses to break.Happiness is not a thunderclap.It is the brush of his hand

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  • Testing Ground?

    This week Trump authorized the mobilization of National Guard troops in 19 states. Officials say their role is limited to administrative support for DHS and ICE, not direct policing or arrests. At the same time, separate deployments are already active in Washington, D.C. with talks of expanding into cities like Chicago. On paper this is

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  • The Boiling Point

    I have been saying this for a year and as I see things ramp up it becomes even more serious. Right now I am looking at the United States from the outside and what I see is alarming. The censorship you are experiencing is indescribable. It is happening in a slow boil and that makes

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  • Because of my last name, LaChance, people usually assume I have French roots. And they’re right. My lineage traces back to France and to Quebec, Canada. But that’s only part of the story. On the other side of my family, I’m Irish and Scottish. Like a lot of people in the United States, I’m made

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  • Faith

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what faith really means. Not the version wrapped in rules or ritual, but the kind that grows quietly inside you. The kind you don’t always have words for, but you feel it. It shows up in how you love. In how you choose kindness. In the way you

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  • “I am German and am waiting for the Germans to come back; they have gone to ground somewhere,” Victor Klemperer wrote in his diary. He was the son of a rabbi and a World War One veteran who chose to stay and somehow survived. The warning signs were there then. They are here now. Trump’s

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  • Single Gay Father

    When I was raising my three children as a single gay father in a small Midwestern town, I had to hide being gay. It wasn’t something I ever wanted to do, it was something I had to do. I had come out at 29 to the people in my life who truly mattered, but to

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  • Shrink for Who?

    Growing up gay meant learning how to scan a room before you ever opened your mouth. You became fluent in body language before you even understood your own. A wrist held too loosely. A vowel dragged too long. A laugh that felt too bright. You noticed what made people flinch. What made them stare. What

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