These Gay Men Frequented Manhattan Piano Bars. So Did Their Killer.
The Townhouse, the gay piano bar where two of the killer’s victims were seen with him. Instead of focusing on the killer, in “Last Call,” the journalist Elon Green opts to humanize the victims. This proves a thorny task when dealing with gay men who led pointedly secret lives.Credit.Edward Keating/The New York Times
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By Christopher Bollen
By Elon Green
On a Sunday afternoon in May 1991, a maintenance worker emptying garbage barrels on the Pennsylvania Turnpike made a grisly discovery: Wrapped inside eight knotted trash bags was the mutilated body of a 54-year-old man, killed by stab wounds to the abdomen, his severed penis shoved in his mouth. In a notable concession to the overriding paranoia of the era, the maintenance worker was advised to take an AIDS test, even though he hadn’t come in direct contact with blood.
For members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and especially people of color, the hesitancy stems, in part, from pre-existing mistrust in the medical establishment, the experts said.
The infamous Tuskegee study, which took place from 1932 to 1972, is one of the most egregious examples of racial discrimination in health care. The researchers recruited African-American men, some of whom were infected with syphilis, to observe the course of the disease. But the researchers did not disclose what they were studying or give the participants proper treatment, even as the men suffered and experienced severe health problems.
The racial bias still found in medical care as well as the modern-day discrimination faced by sexual and gender minorities adds an additional burden.
Major Evangelical Adoption Agency Will Now Serve Gay Parents Nationwide
The decision comes as more cities and states require organizations to accept applications from L.G.B.T.Q. couples or risk losing government contracts.
“We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome,” Chris Palusky, the president and chief executive of Bethany Christian Services, said in announcing that the organization will now serve gay parents.Credit.Elaine Cromie for The New York Times
March 1, 2021
One of the country’s largest adoption and foster care agencies, Bethany Christian Services, announced on Monday that it would begin providing services to L.G.B.T.Q. parents nationwide effective immediately, a major inflection point in the fraught battle over many faith-based agencies’ longstanding opposition to working with same-sex couples.
More Adult Americans Are Identifying as L.G.B.T., Gallup Poll Finds
A survey found that 5.6 percent of adults described themselves as L.G.B.T. in 2020, up from 4.5 percent in 2017.
Supreme Court rulings and a climate that is more supportive of equal rights were cited as factors driving an increase in the percentage of people who identified as other than heterosexual in a Gallup poll.Credit.Calla Kessler/The New York Times
Feb. 24, 2021
A Gallup survey released Wednesday has found that more adult Americans are identifying as L.G.B.T., a shift that pollsters see as driven, at least in part, by people in younger generations who are more likely to consider themselves to be something other than heterosexual.