if you think your friend is a lesbian, can you ask her?how do people become gay?is it a sin? is it a choice?

No question goes unanswered in this important book about being gay. Allthe basics -- and not-so-basics -- are covered in more than one hundredquestions asked by real teens just like you. So the answers contain allthe info "you" want to know. And just in case you feel like sharing, there's a new "parents only" chapter to clue them in too.

Expert Eric Marcus has fully updated and revised this essential guide for today's readers. He candidly and clearly pushes aside the myths and misinformation about being gay and lesbian, answering all the questionsthat are on your mind.

From the Boy Scouts and the U.S. military to marriage and adoption, the gay civil rights movement has exploded on the national stage. Eric Marcus takes us back in time to the earliest days of that struggle in a newly revised and thoroughly updated edition of Making History, originally published in 1992. Using the heart-felt stories of more than 60 people, he carries us through the compelling five-decade battle that has changed the fabric of American society.

The rich tapestry that emerges from Making Gay History includes the inspiring voices of teenagers and grandparents, journalists and housewives, from the little known Dr. Evelyn Hooker and Morty Manford to former Vice President Al Gore, Ellen DeGeneres, and Abigail Van Buren. Together, these many stories bear witness to a time of astonishing change as gay and lesbian people have struggled against prejudice and fought for equal rights under the law.

The goal of psychotherapy as formulated in this revision of a classic text is to improve ego function of severely disturbed patients who are often hospitalized. This book shows why and how. It describes the psychotherapeutic techniques that aid patients to understand the meaning of the psychotic symbols so that they can experience reality and their emotions as separate entities. Medication effects and the neurobiology of psychotic and near psychotic patients are explained and evaluated in terms of specific ego dysfunction so that psychopharmacology may be targeted. With the first edition originally a recipient of the prestigious Heinz Hartmann Award, this valuable resource is a go-to guide for clinicians who treat patients suffering from crippling mental disorders.

The goal of psychotherapy as formulated in this revision of a classic text is to improve ego function of severely disturbed patients who are often hospitalized. This book shows why and how. It describes the psychotherapeutic techniques that aid patients to understand the meaning of the psychotic symbols so that they can experience reality and their emotions as separate entities. Medication effects and the neurobiology of psychotic and near psychotic patients are explained and evaluated in terms of specific ego dysfunction so that psychopharmacology may be targeted. With the first edition originally a recipient of the prestigious Heinz Hartmann Award, this valuable resource is a go-to guide for clinicians who treat patients suffering from crippling mental disorders.

"The need for this book is obvious. Why Suicide is a must read for anyone who is a student of life."-- John Shelby Spong, author of Eternal Life: A New Vision--Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell Subtitled "Questions and Answers About Suicide, Suicide Prevention, and Coping with the Suicide of Someone You Know," Why Suicide? by Eric Marcus is an important, non-judgmental guide that bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman calls, "compassionate, informative, and insightful." Anyone whose life has been dramatically touched by this most shattering occurrence can find answers and solace in this extraordinary book.

It is impossible to hold patently contradictory beliefs in mind together at once. Why? Because we know that it is impossible for both to be true. This impossibility is a species of rational necessity, a phenomenon that uniquely characterizes the relation between one person's beliefs. Here, Eric Marcus argues that the unity of the rational mind-what makes it one mind-is what explains why, given what we already believe, we can't believe certain things and must believe certain others in this special sense. What explains this is that beliefs, and the inferences by which we acquire them, are constituted by a particular kind of endorsement of those very states and acts. This, in turn, entails that belief and inference are essentially self-conscious: to hold a belief or to make an inference is at the same time to know that one does. An examination of the nature of belief and inference, in light of the phenomenon of rational necessity, reveals how the unity of the rational mind is a function of our knowledge of ourselves as bound to believe the true. Rational self-consciousness is the form of mental togetherness.

The answers to all the questions you've ever had about homosexuality but were afraid to ask are finally in one book, Is It a Choice?

In this newly revised and updated edition, Eric Marcus provides insightful, no-nonsense answers to hundreds of the most commonly asked questions about homosexuality. Offering frank insight on everything you've always wanted-and needed-to know about same-gender relationships, coming out, family roles, politics, and much more, including:

How do you know if you're gay or lesbian?
What should you do if your child is gay or lesbian?
Do gay parents raise gay children?
If you think a friend is gay or lesbian, what should you say?
Why do gay men and women want to get married?
What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

We explain what people think and do by citing their reasons, but how do such explanations work, and what do they tell us about the nature of reality? Contemporary efforts to address these questions are often motivated by the worry that our ordinary conception of rationality contains a kernel of supernaturalism-a ghostly presence that meditates on sensory messages and orchestrates behavior on the basis of its ethereal calculations. In shunning this otherworldly conception, contemporary philosophers have focused on the project of "naturalizing" the mind, viewing it as a kind of machine that converts sensory input and bodily impulse into thought and action. Eric Marcus rejects this choice between physicalism and supernaturalism as false and defends a third way. He argues that philosophers have failed to take seriously the idea that rational explanations postulate a distinctive sort of causation-rational causation. Rational explanations do not reveal the same sorts of causal connections that explanations in the natural sciences do. Rather, rational causation draws on the theoretical and practical inferential abilities of human beings. Marcus defends this position against a wide array of physicalist arguments that have captivated philosophers of mind for decades. Along the way he provides novel views on, for example, the difference between rational and nonrational animals and the distinction between states and events.

Finding the right man is just the beginning. Figuring out how to build a happy, rewarding, and tong-lasting relationship is the next challenge. With the help you'll find in the pages of The Male Couple's Guide--a warm, commonsense companion based on interviews with gay men across the country, their families, and relationship experts, as well as the author's own experience'you'll get the answers to everything you need to know, including:

Finding the Right Man: Knowing what to look for, where to look, and how to date

Getting Along: How to talk, how to listen, and how to accept differences

Monogamy/Nonmonogamy: Deciding what works for you

Moving in Together: Where to live, setting up house, managing household chores

Tying the Knot: Planning a ceremony, exchanging rings

Family: Coming out to your family, including your partner in family life

Children: Exploring your choices, making a decision

Work: How to include or exclude your partner from your professional life

Sex: What to expect when the honeymoon stage is a memory

Money: Managing your joint or separate finances

The Law: Protecting your relationship and each other legally

The first openly gay professional athlete in North America tells the story of his landmark decision to come out of the closet and how he changed the playing field of professional sports forever. "Rogers made history." -Sports Illustrated Robbie Rogers knows better than most that keeping secrets can crush you. But for much of his life Robbie lived in paralyzing fear that sharing his big secret would cost him the love of his family and his career as a professional soccer player. So he never told anyone what was destroying his soul, both on and off the field. While the world around Robbie was changing with breathtaking speed, he knew that for a gay man playing a professional team sport it might as well be 1958. He could be a professional soccer player. Or he could be an out gay man. He couldn't do both. Then last year, at the age of twenty-five and after nearly stepping away from a brilliant career-one that included an NCAA Championship, winning the MLS Cup, and competing in the Olympics-he chose to tell the truth. But instead of facing the rejection he feared, he was embraced-by his family, by his teammates, and his fans. In Coming Out to Play, Robbie takes readers on his incredible journey from terrified teenager to a trailblazing out and proud professional soccer player for the L.A. Galaxy, who has embraced his new identity as a role model and champion for those still struggling with the secrets that keep them from living their dreams.

This volume examines the complex nature of gay and lesbian experience in the United States. This "family" is multicultural and varied in age, background, religion and political views. The author's photographic eye captures common and uncommon moments in the lives of gay and lesbian America in an assemblage of black-and-white prints. Bending the stereotypes of who gay people are, this book portrays: Christian lesbians who "next to Jesus," love each other the most; three gay Mormon brothers; gay Elvis impersonators; a young gay republican; and famous faces like Roberta Achtenberg and Cleve Jones. Their portraits illuminate a different vision of what is meant when people say "family".