Wednesday, May 20, 2026
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
May 20Born  1952 - TRAVIS JOHN KLUNE, born today, is an American author who writes under the name TJ Klune. He writes fantasy and romantic fiction featuring gay and LGBTQ+ characters. His fantasy novel The House in the Cerulean Sea is a New York Times best seller and winner of the 2021 Alex and Mythopoeic Awards. Klune has spoken about how his asexuality influences his writing. His novel Into This River I Drown won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance in 2014. Klune was born in Roseburg, Oregon. He was eight years old when he first began to write fiction. His young work in poetry and short stories were the first to be published. Klune's writing influences include Stephen King, Wilson Rawls, Patricia Nell Warren, Robert McCammon, and Terry Pratchett. Klune has been open about his lived experiences with asexuality, queerness In 2013, Klune proposed to author Eric Arvin at the GayRomLit Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The two had met for the first time in person one year earlier at the 2012 GayRomLit Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Arvin endured many years of health struggles and passed away in December 2016. Klune's Young Adult debut, The Extraordinaries, is praised by Kirkus for its use of superhero and fan fiction tropes, while Publishers Weekly compliments Klune on writing a teenaged character with ADHD in a positive and supportive light. His stand-alone fantasy novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea, is a New York Times Best Seller and has been named by The Washington Post as one of “2020’s Best Feel-Good Reads”. Publishers Weekly calls it a “thought-provoking Orwellian fantasy” in its starred review. It was named one of Amazon's Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2020. Klune was nominated as an all-time favorite M/M author on the book review website Goodreads in 2017. He is also an advocate for better LGBTQ2+ representation in novel, wishing to see more asexual characters like himself reflected in books. |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 | |||
Via Daily Dharma: The Dalai Lama’s Life
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\\ Words of Wisdom - May 20, 2026 🍒
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Via FB \\\ The Little Prince
He wrote The Little Prince, disappeared during a reconnaissance flight in WWII, and had multiple affairs with men. Somehow, that last part frequently gets left out.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry gave the world a beloved book about a tiny blond alien who wandered from planet to planet asking lonely adults uncomfortable questions. What usually gets left out is that Saint-Exupéry’s own life was full of the same contradictions, longing, and emotional chaos that pulse through the book.
He spent years drifting through intense relationships with men and women alike, building a reputation in Paris and New York as charming, emotionally elusive, and impossible to pin down. Friends described him as deeply affectionate with certain men. His letters could turn intimate fast.
Even The Little Prince reads differently once you know that context.
It is a story obsessed with hidden identity. With love that cannot quite be explained. With feeling out of step from the world around you. The prince leaves his tiny planet because staying still hurts too much. He searches for connection everywhere and rarely finds adults capable of honesty. The fox teaches him that love means creating ties that change you forever. Then the prince disappears before anyone can fully understand him.
That is not exactly the emotional blueprint of a tidy heterosexual war hero.
Saint-Exupéry married Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, and their relationship was famously volatile. They separated repeatedly. Both had other relationships. Friends described their marriage as theatrical, passionate, and exhausting. Meanwhile, rumors and coded references followed him for years, especially in artistic circles where queer identities often survived through implication instead of declaration.
Disappearing during a flight in WWII made him a hero, but his politics were messy. He wasn't a Nazi sympathizer or a Vichy collaborator, but it took him a while to come around to the Free French movement under Charles de Gaulle. His other books were a little too friendly with colonialism as well, but those works are far lesser known than The Little Prince.
Queer history is full of people whose lives got flattened into “eccentric genius” because the full story made later generations uncomfortable. Publishers cleaned things up. Biographers got cautious. Fans preferred symbols over actual humans.
But queer people have always recognized ourselves in stories about outsiders searching for home.
Via True Stories \\ Obergefell
Jim Obergefell sat beside the man he loved while his body was shutting down from ALS and realized something horrifying:
The federal government was preparing to treat their marriage like it never existed.
Not because they were strangers.
Not because they lacked commitment.
Because they were two men.
By the time Jim Obergefell became the name attached to one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases in American history, he was not trying to become activist, symbol, or political lightning rod.
He was trying to keep the man he loved from disappearing legally after death.
Long before the courtrooms and headlines, Obergefell lived a relatively private life in Ohio where he eventually met John Arthur, a quiet, funny, deeply loved partner who became the center of his emotional world. Their relationship lasted decades through a period when same-s3x couples in America often built entire lives together without basic legal protections heteros3xual couples received automatically.
That invisibility carried constant risk.
Hospital access.
Inheritance.
Medical decisions.
Marriage rights.
Everything could collapse legally during crisis.
Then came ALS.
Arthur’s diagnosis changed time itself inside the relationship. The disease slowly destroyed his physical body while leaving his mind painfully aware of what was happening. Watching someone you love disappear physically while remaining emotionally present creates a kind of grief many people cannot fully imagine.
And Obergefell lived inside it daily.
Then the couple made a decision.
In 2013, with Arthur severely ill and unable to travel easily, they flew to Maryland where same-s3x marriage was legal. Arthur, physically fragile and dependent on medical equipment, boarded the plane because they wanted their relationship recognized before death separated them permanently.
The image haunted people afterward:
a dying man traveling to marry the person he loved before time ran out.
They married on the airport tarmac shortly after landing because Arthur’s condition made ordinary ceremony logistics nearly impossible.
Then Ohio refused to recognize the marriage.
That refusal became devastatingly personal.
Because Arthur wanted Obergefell listed as surviving spouse on his death certificate. Ohio law said no. The state intended to erase the marriage legally once Arthur died, reducing decades of shared life into nonexistence under official paperwork.
That cruelty changed Obergefell permanently.
He sued.
And suddenly one grieving husband became central figure in a constitutional battle over same-s3x marriage rights across the United States. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court as Obergefell v. Hodges.
Meanwhile, Arthur’s health kept deteriorating.
He died in 2013 before the Supreme Court ruling arrived.
That loss sat underneath everything afterward.
Because while media networks turned the case into political warfare, Obergefell himself often spoke less like activist and more like widower carrying unfinished grief publicly. Supporters saw civil rights struggle. Opponents saw constitutional controversy.
He saw John.
That difference mattered emotionally.
Then came June 26, 2015.
The Supreme Court ruled same-s3x couples had constitutional right to marry nationwide. The decision transformed American law permanently and ignited enormous celebration, fury, relief, and political backlash across the country.
And suddenly Jim Obergefell became historic figure whether he wanted the role or not.
But perhaps the strangest part of his story is how ordinary its emotional center remained.
Not abstract politics.
Not theory.
Love.
Loss.
Fear of erasure.
The terror that somebody you built an entire life beside could die while institutions pretend the relationship never mattered officially.
Years later, Obergefell often spoke publicly about grief and visibility with unusual emotional clarity because he understood something many political debates erase completely:
Rights become most real during moments of vulnerability.
Hospitals.
Funerals.
Death certificates.
Final goodbyes.
That is where inequality stops feeling theoretical.
And maybe that is why Jim Obergefell’s story still hits people so hard emotionally now.
A man watching his husband die discovered the government planned to erase their marriage afterward...
so he carried his grief into the highest court in America and forced the country to look directly at what legal invisibility actually does to human beings once love collides with death.
The federal government was preparing to treat their marriage like it never existed.
Not because they were strangers.
Not because they lacked commitment.
Because they were two men.
By the time Jim Obergefell became the name attached to one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases in American history, he was not trying to become activist, symbol, or political lightning rod.
He was trying to keep the man he loved from disappearing legally after death.
Long before the courtrooms and headlines, Obergefell lived a relatively private life in Ohio where he eventually met John Arthur, a quiet, funny, deeply loved partner who became the center of his emotional world. Their relationship lasted decades through a period when same-s3x couples in America often built entire lives together without basic legal protections heteros3xual couples received automatically.
That invisibility carried constant risk.
Hospital access.
Inheritance.
Medical decisions.
Marriage rights.
Everything could collapse legally during crisis.
Then came ALS.
Arthur’s diagnosis changed time itself inside the relationship. The disease slowly destroyed his physical body while leaving his mind painfully aware of what was happening. Watching someone you love disappear physically while remaining emotionally present creates a kind of grief many people cannot fully imagine.
And Obergefell lived inside it daily.
Then the couple made a decision.
In 2013, with Arthur severely ill and unable to travel easily, they flew to Maryland where same-s3x marriage was legal. Arthur, physically fragile and dependent on medical equipment, boarded the plane because they wanted their relationship recognized before death separated them permanently.
The image haunted people afterward:
a dying man traveling to marry the person he loved before time ran out.
They married on the airport tarmac shortly after landing because Arthur’s condition made ordinary ceremony logistics nearly impossible.
Then Ohio refused to recognize the marriage.
That refusal became devastatingly personal.
Because Arthur wanted Obergefell listed as surviving spouse on his death certificate. Ohio law said no. The state intended to erase the marriage legally once Arthur died, reducing decades of shared life into nonexistence under official paperwork.
That cruelty changed Obergefell permanently.
He sued.
And suddenly one grieving husband became central figure in a constitutional battle over same-s3x marriage rights across the United States. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court as Obergefell v. Hodges.
Meanwhile, Arthur’s health kept deteriorating.
He died in 2013 before the Supreme Court ruling arrived.
That loss sat underneath everything afterward.
Because while media networks turned the case into political warfare, Obergefell himself often spoke less like activist and more like widower carrying unfinished grief publicly. Supporters saw civil rights struggle. Opponents saw constitutional controversy.
He saw John.
That difference mattered emotionally.
Then came June 26, 2015.
The Supreme Court ruled same-s3x couples had constitutional right to marry nationwide. The decision transformed American law permanently and ignited enormous celebration, fury, relief, and political backlash across the country.
And suddenly Jim Obergefell became historic figure whether he wanted the role or not.
But perhaps the strangest part of his story is how ordinary its emotional center remained.
Not abstract politics.
Not theory.
Love.
Loss.
Fear of erasure.
The terror that somebody you built an entire life beside could die while institutions pretend the relationship never mattered officially.
Years later, Obergefell often spoke publicly about grief and visibility with unusual emotional clarity because he understood something many political debates erase completely:
Rights become most real during moments of vulnerability.
Hospitals.
Funerals.
Death certificates.
Final goodbyes.
That is where inequality stops feeling theoretical.
And maybe that is why Jim Obergefell’s story still hits people so hard emotionally now.
A man watching his husband die discovered the government planned to erase their marriage afterward...
so he carried his grief into the highest court in America and forced the country to look directly at what legal invisibility actually does to human beings once love collides with death.
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