Judy Shepard, whose son Matthew was murdered in an anti-gay crime, established the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which has offices in Casper, Wyo., and Denver. She supports anti-discrimination programs in schools and legislation against hate crimes.

Jody M. Huckaby is executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians & Gays, which has a program for safe and inclusive schools.

James Esseks is litigation director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project, which has a schools section. The ACLU has been defending the right of Gay-Straight Alliance chapters to meet in schools.

Tim Sweeney is President and CEO of the Denver-based Gill Foundation, which says it is the largest U.S. financial backer of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights. It provides grants through the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado.

Carolyn Laub is executive director of Gay-Straight Alliance Network, based in San Francisco, Calif. The network is made up of student-run, school-based organizations that talk about issues involving sexual orientation and harassment.

Kevin Jennings is the Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation, a leading global foundation advancing pressing social justice and conservation issues. Jennings served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education from 2009-2011. He is the founder and former executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which has its headquarters in New York City. The […]

E.J. Dionne Jr. is a senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution. His books include, as co-editor, What’s God Got to Do With the American Experiment?

Barbara Brown Zikmund is a historian and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Her research and writing has focused on the role of women in the church, the evolution of 20th-century Protestant denominations (with special attention to the United Church of […]

Ravi Batra is an economics professor at Southern Methodist University and author of The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming January 2007). Batra says journalists should investigate such issues as how political corruption creates poverty and how politicians exploit religion to get elected and then adopt policies to benefit […]