Biography
Tony Plakas is CEO of Compass Inc. He resides in Lake Worth, Fla.
Tony Plakas: Benghazi just a distraction as Hillary heads forward
May 15, 2013
I've spent the past week in the panhandle of Florida watching Congress bicker about Benghazi. Arguments center on the Obama Administration's handling of the first "talking points" Americans wouldn't have received, had it not been for our new techno-age need to know now. The attack on the Benghazi consulate has morphed into a "who knew what first" witch-hunt, and Hillary Clinton is the witch — again.
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Tony Plakas: Boy Scouts' new proposition just provides a distraction
May 1, 2013
Last week, the executive committee of the Boy Scouts of America made a proposition: Yes to gay youth and no to gay leaders.
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Gun control fervor high, but as usual it will soon pass
April 17, 2013
This week the U.S. Senate will discuss the expansion of criminal background checks for gun buyers. Just months after one of the deadliest mass shootings by a single American, leading lawmakers suggest support for gun control legislation is bleak, and why shouldn't it be?
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Anti gay-marriage crowd finds their cause fading
April 3, 2013
In the summer of 2008, the American Family Association's Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow, experienced an Olympic fail: The group's automated system for republishing news articles – through a strict policy of replacing the word gay with the word homosexual – hit a glitch when it posted a story about a world class sprinter named Tyson Gay on its website.
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Politicians could use lesson in today's popular culture
March 6, 2013
We identify with popular culture more easily than we identify with politics, that's why pop culture is so popular, and a lot more interesting than government affairs. Hence the reason Barack Obama's speech last week took a backseat to his mixed Star Wars/Star Trek reference.
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Modernization everywhere but we cling to our old ideas
February 20, 2013
Last week, Republicans chose fresh-faced, boy-next-door Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, to respond to President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address. Pope Benedict XVI resigned at 86 -- the first Pope to quit since 1415 -- and an asteroid passed within 17,000 miles of earth about the same time a bus-sized meteor crashed into a sparsely populated area of Russia.
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Tony Plakas: Adults are doing a really bad job of setting a good example
February 6, 2013
Our children are watching us, now more than ever. Adults profess their commitment to lifting kids up, yet we continue to wage public culture wars that ultimately bring our children down.
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Tony Plakas: Gays finally getting seat at table in Washington
January 9, 2013
Last week, Tammy Baldwin was sworn in as the first openly gay U. S. senator.
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Plakas: Some people just can't accept gay marriage as equality issue
December 12, 2012
On Monday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia answered a gay Princeton student's question related to the justice's writings, which equate laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder. He told the student he felt legislative bodies are permitted to ban what they believe to be immoral stating "if we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murders? Can we have it against other things?"
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Tony Plakas: Stereotypes were always a barrier in fight against AIDS
November 28, 2012
After 30 years, the fight against AIDS has turned an important corner. A week ago, a task force which advises the U.S. government on preventative medicine proposed doctors offer HIV tests to all people ages 15 to 64. Prior recommendations suggested physicians offer tests to those who are at a heightened risk for contracting HIV because of their sexual behaviors, an imperative impeded by many years of bias and stigma.
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GOP doesn't need bigger tent but needs to dump bad apples
November 14, 2012
Since last week's election, Republicans have been talking at a fever pitch about their big tent, and the obvious need to make that tent bigger in light of the defeat of Mitt Romney and so many others in the GOP. The dialogue is a dramatic departure from the demagoguery we've been force-fed by the likes of Allen West, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum for the past few years.
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'Bones' thrown to conservatives will affect U.S. for years
November 2, 2012
Last week's final presidential debate focused on foreign affairs, but it wasn't a surprise to see both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama use every opportunity possible to pivot any answer about foreign relations toward our nation's fragile economy. Polls consistently show Americans are most worried about the direction the U.S. is headed economically, and even as outrageous as our arguments surrounding social issues have grown, it appears a large number of voters are willing to compromise on values in exchange for fiscal policies that ensure economic growth and create jobs.
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Mitt's Mormon marriage march
July 11, 2012
History will remember Mitt Romney's attempt to oust Barack Obama as President of the United States as the tipping point of the marriage equality movement.
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Transgender people lead us to progress on equal rights
May 30, 2012
Transgender people took a quantum leap forward in the past few weeks. And if history repeats itself, gays and lesbians will have our gender-bending allies to thank, again, for advancing a grand initiative to secure equal rights and protection under the law -- for all people regardless of gender identity -- and even for those of us who simply want to marry someone of the same sex.
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Stoking fires of women's rights simply a primary ploy
April 18, 2012
Bipartisan wars on women, for women, and about women are springing up everywhere.
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We cannot have civil politics if discourse uses scare tactics
March 21, 2012
My earliest memory of church is not a fond one. Maybe it was the bleeding man hanging from a cross wearing a crown of thorns, or the bearded man wearing black, spewing smoke and speaking a foreign language that set me off - but something in my Orthodox church scared me to screams.
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Republican primary field is no match for what's ahead
January 18, 2012
Far before presidential politics ever caught my eye, I vacationed each summer with family in Ocean City, Md. I have fond memories of walking the boardwalk along the ocean searching beachside stores intently for stereograms, posters with hidden three-dimensional images that could be seen only if one took time to practice peering patiently into large, computer-generated pictures for camouflaged objects that appeared to float mid-air within the confines of cheap plastic frames.
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Hate Crimes Act helps all Americans
November 4, 2009
It should never have taken 10 years to sign the Mathew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act into law. The act permits the Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of hate crimes based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, along with a number of other specified classes. It is a measure that should have moved swiftly through the U.S. House and Senate and sent to last president's desk for a signature years ago.
