Oscar Winner Dustin Lance Black on Mormonism, Prop 8, Sarah Palin and the Challenges of Being Gay in America

Last year screenwriter Dustin Lance Black earned an Oscar for “Milk,” a biopic of Harvey Milk, the nation’s first openly gay politician, elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November 1977, assassinated one year later. 

During his life, Milk called on gays to come out of the closet and be proud, a message that resonated with Black, who grew up in a conservative Mormon home and felt ashamed of his sexuality.  Today Black is taking Milk’s message on the road, traveling from school to school, speaking with students about gay rights.   

'God Hates Fags': Q&A with Pastor Fred Phelps

The Rapture is coming, says Pastor Fred Phelps, and the country is drowning in the sin of homosexuality. For 55 years, Phelps has led the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, which gained notoriety in recent years for picketing the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The pastor and his congregation stand outside the cemeteries, singing about the downfall of America, lifting signs that read "God Hates Fags," "Fags Die, God Laughs," "AIDS Cures Fags," "Fag Sin = 9/11," "Thank God for 9/11" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."

Phelps was at the center of the media spotlight this week when a federal judge struck down two Missouri laws restricting his funeral protests, saying they violated his Constitutional right to free speech.   

An Intimate Look at Female Soldiers:
Q&A with Laura Browder

Author Laura Browder has been thinking about women and war.

In 2006 she wrote "Her Best Shot," a historical look at women and guns in America. This year she's back with a sequel to that project: "When Janey Comes Marching Home," a book that tells the stories of women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. A collaboration with photographer Sascha Pflaeging, the book features dozens of large-scale color portraits of female soldiers, with candid interviews about what it means to be a woman in the U.S. military.

Browder, a professor at University of Richmond, says she was compelled to create the book when she realized Jessica Lynch and Lynndie England had become the war's most famous soldiers.   

Petraeus' Vow to Protect Soldiers

General David Petraeus stepped before Congress last week and vowed to protect our soldiers. "I see it as a moral imperative," he said, "to bring all assets to bear to protect our men and women in uniform."

Sergeant Chuck Luther listened to Petraeus' words in disbelief. Days earlier the Army had dealt him a devastating blow: it officially rejected his appeal for a medical discharge, despite the mortar blast that tossed him to the ground, slammed his head against the concrete and left him with severe migraines, dizziness, vision and hearing loss, and piercing shoulder pain.

Luther's case made national news when he was then tortured by Army officials.   

Facebook Members Rally Around Tortured American Soldier

He was a soldier before he was a salesman. Charles Nicholson joined the National Guard in 1975, served six years as a telecommunications specialist before moving on to a life as a traveling salesman, driving the interstate from Charlotte to Greenville, South Carolina, pitching transmission fluid and coolants to car dealerships along I-85.

"It's a fine job as far as it goes, but honestly, I felt like there was something I was supposed to be doing to make a difference, to touch people's lives," he says.

Then Nicholson read my article in The Nation, the story of Sergeant Chuck Luther, who had been badly wounded by mortar fire while serving in Iraq, then held in a closet by the U.S. Army. 

When the Army Uses 'Enhanced Interrogation'
on an American Soldier

I had been covering veterans' issues for several years and thought I'd developed a thick skin. But the pain on the other end of the telephone line was difficult to stomach. Sergeant Chuck Luther, now back from Iraq, was describing his journey to hell and back.

The worst part, he said, wasn't battling insurgents or even the mortar blast that tossed him to the ground and slammed his head against the concrete — it was the way he was treated by the U.S. Army when he went to the aid station and sought medical help.

In gruesome detail, Luther described what happened to him at Camp Taji's aid station.