By Joel P. Engardio -- Are show tunes the best way to reach Americans on the fence about gay marriage? One San Francisco family – a gay couple, their adopted daughter and a goldendoodle – hopes their story will win over the remaining hearts and minds.
Read MoreJoel Engardio speaks to the wedding guests after marrying Lionel Hsu on February 21, 2015.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Life got better for gay firefighters in San Francisco last year. The fact it took until 2014 for this gay awakening shows how long the journey to diversity has been for the San Francisco fire department.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Seoul mayor Park Won-soon leads a city of 10 million people and has a good chance to become South Korea's next president. His staff invited me to meet with him during his recent San Francisco visit. I asked about his views on LGBT rights and Park made news in the exclusive interview.
Read MoreJoel Engardio speaks about LGBT rights in relation to Title VII and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) at a panel hosted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in San Francisco. This was part of a celebration of 50 years of the Civil Rights Act. June 2014.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Keith Baraka left his family in Ohio for an easier gay life, but he said nothing was tougher than the decade he spent being a gay firefighter in San Francisco's Station 6.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- While Cher and Elton John debated the best way to protest Russia’s anti-gay laws (she wouldn’t sing there and he was willing), my stand for LGBT equality in Russia was limited to likes on Facebook posts. Then I received a surprise email from a Russian television channel. They wanted permission to broadcast a documentary I made for PBS. Now I had to decide: Be like Cher and refuse to do business with a country that discriminates? Or follow Elton John’s example and be a gay man who supports gay Russians by trying to engage the nation?
Read MoreJoel Engardio introduces first-ever meeting of the Alice B. Tolkas LGBT Democratic Club on San Francisco's historically conservative Westside. October 7, 2013.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Gays are discovering the historically conservative San Francisco Westside as a nice place to settle down. “A traditional neighborhood is blending into a 21st Century version of Mayberry,” said Mark Norrell, a business owner on West Portal Avenue. “We haven’t lost our small town feel. We’re just updating it. You could call it Gayberry.” But there’s some resistance to Norrell’s push to modernize the area's shopping experience. "Our meetings can be soap opera dramatic," said Maryo Mogannam, president of the West Portal Merchants Association. "Get the popcorn."
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- Beware the new social fax pas in the age of same-marriage equality: Asking gay friends when they are getting married.
Read MoreJoel Engardio interviewed on ABC 7 News San Francisco on eve of Supreme Court ruling against Proposition 8 to make same-sex marriage legal in California. June 25, 2013.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- The students at San Francisco’s Lowell High School weren’t entirely bored with my guest lecture on the history of media and political campaigns. They laughed at the vintage TV ads, especially the “I Like Ike” cartoon from 1952. But they had no idea who President Dwight Eisenhower was. Hormones and a warm, spring day can explain the lack of interest in dead presidents. Two boys in the front row held hands the entire time I spoke.
I wanted to stop the lecture and tell the affectionate boys they should thank Eisenhower if they’re going to the prom together. The Glee-era high school experience they enjoy today is connected to Eisenhower’s purge of gay people from the U.S. government 60 years ago.
By Joel P. Engardio -- On the same week the Supreme Court heard its two historic cases on gay marriage, Google announced the first lucky test subjects who would get to try Google Glass -- history-making eyewear that puts the Internet in your field of vision. None of the justices were selected, but maybe Google should lend them a pair before they reach a decision in June.
Read MoreBy Joel P. Engardio -- I'm a gay man inspired by Harvey Milk, but renaming SFO after him is a bad idea.
Read MoreJoel Engardio tells the story of Harvard's infamous gay purge. Graduation week falls on the purge's anniversary. Engardio imagined how a commencement speech could acknowledge the injustice and subsequent rainbow. The text was published in USA Today, a few days before Engardio graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School on May 26, 2011.
Read MoreJoel Engardio's video submission to the "It Gets Better Project" dedicated to giving hope to LGBT youth confronted with harassment and thoughts of suicide. It was created in 2010 in the wake of a rash of LGBT suicides across the United States. This video is from October 2010.
Read MoreMormons took a lot of abuse for helping pass Proposition 8 in California, where 52% of voters banned the right of gay couples to marry in 2008. But will anyone thank Jehovah's Witnesses for their role in getting the law declared unconstitutional?
Read MoreJoel Engardio's NPR essay "Learning True Tolerance" broadcast on Weekend Edition Sunday as part of the "This I Believe" series.
Read MoreWhen Gilbert Baker set out to create the first gay pride flag in 1978, his vision of the rainbow was a little different than what everyone else sees in the sky. Baker saw fuchsia. And turquoise, too. So he went to his sewing machine and made an eight-color rainbow flag with hot pink at the top. But for two decades, Baker's famous flag only had six colors. Find out why and what the flag — regardless the number of stripes — means for LGBT history.
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