Hello and welcome to Outward Slate's podcast about queer culture, politics, and the occasionally spicy, often catty, but always cute, LGBT conversation. And just so we're all clear, I recently learned that it actually stands for Liberty, guns, beer, and Trump. I don't know if you guys... And Q&ON. And Q&ON. That's right. The cue is Q&O. Yeah, I didn't know that, but I'm glad to have learned something new. I'm Brian Lauder and I edit Outward, among other things, at Slate. And I am Jules Gil Peterson. I'm Christina Cauterucci, a senior writer at Slate. All right. So we've got a lot to cover on the show today.

And honestly, it's like too damn hot outside for like lengthy thematic intros.

So I'm just going to get right into it.

So first up, we'll scratch our heads collectively at what's been happening in the U.S. Congress with same-sex marriage.

In case you haven't heard about it, there's a bill called the Respect for Marriage Act that is currently awaiting a Senate vote, and it's already passed the

House, that would protect marriage equality sort of on a federal level and require states

to recognize marriages performed in other states. This is sort of how it would work. And it would

also do this, even if the Supreme Court overturned the

2015 or Bergerfeld decision, which legalized gay marriage across the country. And as we know,

with what just happened with Roe v. Wade, that seems entirely possible. The weird thing is about

this bill is that there may actually be enough Republican support

for it to pass. So we're going to try to figure out how that happened and how it fits into the

rights otherwise extremely hostile stance towards queer and trans people of late. Then in something

of a follow-up to our segment last month on the Monkey Pocs outbreak, we're going to be joined by journalist and professor Stephen Thrasher to discuss his excellent

and just super timely new book, The Viral Underclass, The Human Toll when inequality and

disease collide.

All of that will be buttressed by our usual prides and provocations and updates to the gay

agenda. But first, we updates to the gay agenda.

But first, we get to hear from you in this month's edition of thoughts and queries.

I'm very excited this month.

We have a fascinating advice question from a listener that I think we will all have a lot to say about.

So I'm just going to read, I'll read the question, and then we can dive in. A friend of mine recently threw a party during Pride Month,

...