Ethics

  • The Elephant in the Room

    The Elephant in the Room

    We need to talk about the elephant in the room, and that elephant is Donald Trump. For months now, it seems that every morning we wake up to a world a little less stable than the one we went to sleep in. Another crisis, another threat, another reminder that the international order we have depended…

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  • Treason in the Age of the Cold War

    I’ve been seeing something lately that I don’t remember seeing quite so frequently before. Americans are calling the president of the United States a traitor. Not simply a liar, a criminal, or a corrupt politician. A traitor. That’s a serious word. It’s one of the most serious accusations an American can make against another American,…

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  • Ten Years Is Enough

    Ten Years Is Enough

    Ten years of this has been enough. Ten years of the hate is enough. Ten years of the division is enough. Ten years of seeing the worst of humanity brought to the surface is enough. I’ve told this story before, but I’m going to tell it again. Within the first half hour of Donald Trump’s…

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  • Quite Passive, Not Thinking

    What do you suppose Christopher Isherwood meant when he wrote these words? “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” The beginning is easy enough to understand, and it is the part most often remembered. I am a camera. Isherwood was a writer observing the world around him, recording the…

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  • You Were Never Broken

    You Were Never Broken

    Can you imagine being a kid, going to church, doing your best to be good, and then hearing something that changes your world? The very thing you were born to be, they are saying, is unholy. That you are unholy. You go to school, so happy to make friends, and that’s when you’re called “fag”…

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  • Every Life Has Value

    Every Life Has Value

    Every human life should matter equally, but if we are honest with ourselves, that is not the world we have created. What unsettles me is that most people already know this is true, but somewhere along the way we trained ourselves to accept it as normal. A wealthy or famous person is murdered and the…

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  • Five in the Morning

    Five in the Morning

    I sit on the edge of the bed at 4:30 in the morning and think about all of the fractures in a life. There is something about this hour that strips away distraction. The world is quiet enough that truth begins rising to the surface whether you want it to or not. I think about…

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  • Never a Mystery

    Never a Mystery

    I always hated the game that was being played around me. “Is he or isn’t he?” It was never anyone’s business to begin with, and if it mattered that much, all they had to do was ask. I would have answered. The truth is, the people who needed to know, knew. I was always resentful…

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  • The Punchline Was on Him

    The Punchline Was on Him

    You know, I came out to my parents before anyone else. My mom was the first to know. Then again, a mother always knows. I believe that is true. It was not easy being the odd man out in a family. You learn to adjust. You learn to pay attention. Every time I encountered homophobia…

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  • Nothing Else Should Matter

    Nothing Else Should Matter— Steven A. LaChance How did we learn to live like this,in a world that leans so easily toward hate? Where did it begin,this quiet beliefthat we are somehow betterthan the person standing beside us,to the right,to the left,close enough to touchbut kept at a distanceby nothing more than an idea. What…

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