Lauren Hough grew up in the infamous, apocalyptic Christian free-love and -sex cult The Family, formerly The Children of God. Her pacifist father had joined the cult in 1970 or so to dodge the Vietnam War. At 18, partly to spite her dad, Hough enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, where she got death threats and her car was set ablaze because she s lesbian.
The Air Force court-martialed Hough, accusing her of setting her own car on fire. The military s Don t Ask, Don t Tell policy, in place from 1994 to 2011, kept her from citing the homophobic death threats in her defense. Her new book of essays, Leaving Isn t the Hardest Thing, details this and other horrors with scathing critiques on U.S. society, lightened occasionally by her sardonic wit.
Husbands Sam Butarbutar and Wenter Shyu, co-owners of Berkeley s Third Culture Bakery, are using their culinary skills to stand up for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.