By Jeff Walsh

Truth isn't stranger than fiction for Wilson Cruz.

When Cruz portrayed Rickie last year on the acclaimed-albeit-canceled television show "My So-Called Life," truth doubled as fiction as he brought his own painful and sometimes repressed memories of growing up gay to the screen.

The show was lauded by critics for its honesty and willingness to talk about real issues concerning teenagers. And as many television shows spent the holiday season making oh-so-hip references to "It's a Wonderful Life" while showing family togetherness scenes that would make Newt Gingrich feel all warm inside, My So-Called Life told a bitter truth as it followed Rickie, who ran away from home before Christmas because he was having problems with his sexuality.

A new book examines a gay son's suicide, and his mother's new life.

By Jeff Walsh

Bobby Griffith's four-year struggle with being gay and trying to live a Christian life ended on Aug. 27, 1983.

On that day, the twenty-year-old California man backflipped off a freeway overpass in Portland, OR., timing his leap so his body would be struck and killed by an oncoming tractor-trailer.

By Jeff Walsh

To this writer, gay pride always seemed an uneven mix of sex and politics. But that all changed when I went to the 1994 Pride Parade in New York City. I had written against gay pride parades before attending that event, but my viewpoint changed when I saw the school bus come down the street.

It's all kind of surreal now, so I don't know if it was a real school bus. For some reason, I think it was a fake float made to look like a school bus. In any event, the float was sponsored by the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a gay city high school.