The theme of Maurice can be described as essentially the search for a compatible social construct by which the protagonist can understand himself and go on to self-actualization.

HAUTE COUTURE took a distinct “downtown” turn in the 1980’s with

the emergence of Stephen Sprouse, who set the fashion world on fire as

the first designer to successfully merge street culture, punk, and high

fashion in edgy clothing designs incorporating graffiti, vibrant and at

times even garish colors, plus a fine arts sensibility.

“LINCOLN’S SOUL MATE and the love of his life was a man named Joshua Speed,” John Stauffer writes in his dual biography of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Stauffer refers to carnal love, not to one of those asexual “romantic friendships” in vogue with certain scholars. He chairs the History of American Civilization Department at Harvard; Stauffer’s perspective can’t be easily dismissed as fringe. But that did not deter Sean Wilentz.

CONSERVATIVE FORCES in the U.S. have succeeded in shifting the debate about same-sex unions from a question of equal protection under the law to one about protecting the meaning of the word “marriage.” The phrase “defense of marriage” emerged as a touchstone in the conflict after passage of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which limited marriage to heterosexual couples in matters under federal jurisdiction. Since then-spurred by the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2003-many states have moved to ban same-sex marriage by enacting laws or amending their constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND why historians and academics, including many gay ones, refuse to believe that homosexuality has been pretty much the same since the beginning of human history, whether it was called homosexuality, sodomy, buggery, or had no name at all. Isn’t it time for us to put a stop to this nonsense …

FOR QUITE A FEW YEARS, the rallying cry of those attempting to prevent

marriage equality has been that allowing gay marriage will undermine

traditional family values. If this is true, traditional family values

should be showing substantially frayed edges in Massachusetts, where

gay marriages have been taking place for over five years. … It turns out that family values have not come apart at the seams since

same-sex marriage came to Massachusetts. Even more surprising and

intriguing is the fact that gay marriage and strong families actually

go statistically hand in hand.

Little Ben was an active, well-nourished baby who had had an unusually tumultuous gender history. After the physical exam was completed and the room cleared out, I got to talk to Mr. Jones privately. The Joneses had been told they had a baby boy when he was delivered at a small, rural hospital. But a few days later they received a panicked call from the hospital: “Your child’s a girl! Take him to UCLA right away for surgery to become a girl!”

AS THE SUN SET in Riverside, California, on Election Day 2008, Matthew Lawrence anxiously watched as the presidential election returns came in. Trying his best to relax, the 28-year-old Lawrence reclined on his second-story apartment balcony while numbing his nerves with cigarettes and screwdrivers. Time seemed to stand still until a reporter on his 52-inch TV panel delivered the news: the election had been called for Barack Obama, who would be the 44th president of the United States. “It was a beautiful and powerful moment,” he said.

DURING the Spring 2009 semester at Princeton University, my students in “Queer Theory and Politics” and I staged a demonstration on campus against the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a Princeton-based nonprofit organization whose self-described mission is “to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.”