By Deb Price

Ironically, we can feel the most spiritually alive when we're being battered by life's fiercest storms.

For Gene Robinson, such storms have struck twice: first, when he could no longer deny his homosexuality and divorced his beloved wife; and second, now, as the Anglican Communion battles over the place of gay people, a struggle that intensified in 2003, when he was consecrated as the nation's first openly gay Episcopal bishop.

By Deb Price

My nominee for Best Ex-Actor in a Very Supportive Role: Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In a few simple sentences, the muscular Republican governor of California did some heroically heavy lifting for all Americans who believe in equal marriage rights for those of us who're gay.

By Deb Price

The couple's move from New Jersey to Idaho was to help Robert Ryan break free of the dark depression he'd sunk into after narrowly escaping the collapse of the World Trade Center tower where he'd worked until the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Ryan was on the health insurance of his partner, Ralph Martinelli, a district sales manager for Konica Minolta Business Solutions. They'd fallen in love in 2004 and entered into a domestic partnership in Mount Laurel, N.J., the next year.

by Deb Price

When Michelle Freeman fell in love with a woman 12 years ago, she felt compelled to leave her predominantly African American church.

"The last sermon I heard as a practicing Baptist was very anti-gay," recalls Freeman, 42. "I had internalized homophobia. But when I met Georgia, I wanted us to worship in a place where we could be ourselves."

By Deb Price

After Korab Zuka founded a gay-rights group in Kosovo in 2005, he received threatening phone calls and e-mails and had his car vandalized.

" 'We are going to make you hold your intestines,' " Zuka, 22, recalls being warned. " 'We will (rape) your mother And we are going to cut your head off.'"

The police were indifferent to his cries for protection.

By Deb Price

When Alan Van Capelle needed to know the legislative hopscotch that would lead the New York Assembly to pass gay marriage, he knew who'd be his best teacher: David Paterson, who'd been the state Senate Democratic leader before being elected lieutenant governor in 2006.