Growing up in New Jersey, author, editor and photographer Michael T. Luongo traveled very little.

“As a child, my parents never traveled anywhere,” he says. “They couldn’t throw all the kids in the car and come back in the space of a day.”

Instead, Luongo referred to his parents’ art and archaeology books and began to discover a love for foreign places.

“It was something that started to develop ever since I was little,” he says. “I read a lot. I was constantly reading.”

With perennial optimism we always anticipate that monsoon season will end and spring will arrive. This year spring was long and chilly but typical of Indiana weather that fluctuates like the wind. We are now, WHAM, smack dab into summer.

We are always impressed with the determination and bravery of the little spring flowers who weather late season ice and snow to bloom in glorious colors. They are awesome to behold but perhaps paled a bit this year in comparison to the determination of the two Democratic presidential candidates. The change to warmer weather was indeed abrupt and not unlike the end of the campaign between Obama and Clinton.

After months of being drenched in rain and the competitive dialogue, debates, not-so-subtle slandering and then pandering to various groups as well as one another, it’s over, and Clinton has literally disappeared from the scene. WHAM again! Makes us wonder what it was really all about anyway. Seems way too coincidental that for the first time ever we had two candidates from the most disenfranchised groups in our culture taking center stage in a run for the highest office.

Serving in a homophobic military is an experience Mark Brostoff can relate to. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1982 to 2002, before and after Congress implemented "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the military policy that allows homosexuals to serve but honorably discharges them if their orientation is discovered.

America made progress toward removing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on May 21 when three judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a lawsuit that could bring an end to the 15-year-old policy.

The court said military officials must prove that having a gay person in the unit hurts morale and that discharge is the only way to improve morale, according to a May 22 Associated Press story.

Brostoff, the associate director of the Kelley Undergrad Career Services, said he wants the policy changed, but he has concerns.

"I do not want (to) risk moving backwards in the achievements the gay community has gained," he said.

The folks in California are celebrating, and for good reason. Last week the California Supreme Court ruled to overturn the lesbian/gay marriage ban which could soon lead to legalized queer weddings in the nation's largest state. If so, California would be the second state after Massachusetts to allow same-gender marriage.

In a 4-to-3 decision, the state's high court determined that domestic partnerships are not a good substitute for marriage. And while the justices did not say that same gender couples must be allowed to marry, they did determine that same-gender couples must be treated equal to opposite-gender couples. For example, the state could decide that marriage is for churches and offer civil unions to opposite gender-couples.

But then same-gender couples must also be offered civil unions. If the state recognizes opposite-gender marriages, then the state needs to recognize same-gender marriages. Since California already offers domestic partner benefits that include legal rights and responsibilities similar to marriage, it seems only logical that the next step is to extend full marriage rights to all couples.

Matthew Shepard's murder shocked the nation. The 21-year-old gay college student was killed on Oct. 7, 1998, by two men near Laramie, Wyo. After torturing and robbing Shepard, the men tied him to a fence post and left him for dead.

Shepard was discovered 18 hours later by a passing biker in a coma and died shortly thereafter.

Ten years later, Bloomington High School North's (BHSN) Advanced Theatre Production class presented The Laramie Project, a play by Moises Kaufman, that depicts the aftermath of the nation's best-known hate crime.

Shepard's killers invoked the "gay panic defense" during the trial. They said they were driven temporarily insane by Shepard's alleged sexual advances. One eventually pleaded guilty and was given two consecutive life sentences. The other also received two consecutive life sentences after brokering a deal with Shepard's parents.

It seems that folks sure do get worked up over the marriage issue and fret about relationships that exist beyond their own experiences and definitions. Most recently, when the topic of marriage arises in conversation, thoughts no doubt turn to the issues of the LGBTQI community and their efforts to achieve marriage rights.

Especially in the past five or so years, much public and private dialogue has occurred surrounding marriage, but there has been little real change for couples who wish to legalize their unions.

One state has extended marriage rights to LGBT couples, a few others offer domestic partnerships, a couple recognize civil unions, and the rest either have not taken action, have anti-marriage legislation (read that so called 'marriage protection') in process or stand by their existing constitutions that already declare man-and-woman unions as the only legitimate option.

This may be a good year to be a Democrat, but is it a good year to be a woman? Is it ever a good year to be a woman? Now we love being women and have never aspired to be anyone other than ourselves. But it seems that while women have made some progress in achieving equal opportunity in this country, there is still a pervasive sense of inequity in all societal arenas, from business to education.

Our observance of the current political campaign is an example of what we see as an overall attitude toward women that manifests the ugliness of discrimination and demonstrates that women are still not seen as individuals capable of being completely in charge of anything and certainly not as leaders of our government and country.

We must say here that women could certainly do no worse than the men and maybe even better. Perhaps that is a real fear; that women, given the opportunity can do better. Just a musing.

In the grand scheme of things, 40 years is not much more than a blip on the historic radar. However, in terms of an individual life span, 40 years is quite a long time. The other day we were reflecting upon some of our personal experiences over the years and observed what has changed and what has seemed to remain the same.

Four decades ago we were a strikingly different pair. One of us was a university student, an ardent feminist, an antiwar protestor and civil rights activist. The other was a university student who left academics to become a marine in what was then a manifestation of idealistic patriotism with a desire to contribute to society.

While one was advocating on behalf of women, blacks and everyone being discriminated against, as well as marching and organizing against the Viet Nam war (and no, we did not jeer the non-volunteer returning soldiers), the other was carrying 80 pound packs on forced 20-mile marches at 4 a.m. in preparation for defense of country and nation, to death if necessary.

At every turn we hear how things are so much better for the LGBT community. People say that they feel safer, and we hear that many students seem to think that all is well. We also know that there are civil rights and legal protections laws being enacted in various cities and states across the country, and polls seem to support an overall improvement in acceptance of lesbian and gay folks and their families.

While we certainly don't want to discourage anyone, we always keep in mind that students and others of us are currently safe within the walls of an accepting university and academic community, and other employment venues are not so accommodating. And there are still more states without protections and partnership sanctions than there are with them.

Hence, being the skeptics that we are, we wonder if all is as good as it seems on the surface.

The two Crothersville youths who claim they savagely beat a 32-year-old man to death last April over an alleged homosexual advance will be free in less than 15 years.

On Jan. 15, Jackson County Circuit Judge Bill Vance accepted a plea agreement from 18-year-old Coleman King that called for a 30-year sentence. In Indiana, that means King would serve 15 years, with credit for the time he has already served since his arrest last April.

Twenty-year-old Garrett Gray accepted the same deal on Jan. 8. Vance has scheduled his sentencing for Jan. 30.