Bios of Advocate Producers

Lance Bass is an American singer, dancer, actor, film and television producer. He rose to fame as the bass singer for the pop boy band NSYNC. He came out as gay in 2006 in a cover story for People magazine. He was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award, and released an autobiography, “Out of Sync,” which debuted on the New York Times Best Seller List. He participated in a series of GLAAD advertisements promoting tolerance for the LGBTQ+ community and has been a fundraiser for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Jane Clementi and the Tyler Clementi Foundation. In 2020, Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi, who had recently begun the process of coming out, took his own life after discovering that his intimate encounter with another young man had been secretly live-streamed by his roommate. Tyler’s mother, Jane, co-founded the Tyler Clementi Foundation to combat bullying of LGBTQ+ youth. The Foundation issued two statements in 2021 and 2022, “God is on Your Side: A Statement from Catholic Bishops on Protecting LGBT Youth” and “LGBTnotAsin,” which together have garnered hundreds of signatures of support from bishops, religious orders, churches, and individual priests and nuns.

Mitchell Gold is the co-founder of Mitchell Gold/Bob Williams, a designer and manufacturer of furniture and related home design products. He has a long history of LGBTQ+ advocacy, with a particular focus on the need for change in religious teaching as a necessary prerequisite to changes in secular anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes. He edited and published “Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America.” Contributing authors included Reverend Mel White, Reverend Gene Robinson, Hon. Barney Frank, and Richard Chamberlain.

Traug Keller is Chief Operating Officer of America Media, which produces America Magazine: The Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture. Prior to joining America Media, Traug was Senior Vice President of ESPN where he led ESPN Audio and ESPN Radio, the country’s largest sports radio network that reached nearly 24 million listeners per week on over 500 stations. At America, Traug has been in charge of audience growth strategy. Its website is now visited by over 1 million users per month.

Mary McAleese served as President of the Republic of Ireland from 1997 to 2011. She holds a doctorate in Canon Law, and has been an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church’s stance towards women, abortion rights, contraceptive rights, and LGBTQ+ people. A pioneer, she co-founded in the mid 1970’s the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform. She has said that the churches in Ireland, including the Catholic Church, are “conduits for homophobia.” “[W]here does this hatred come from? What keeps it going? What fails to challenge it?”

Bishop Gene Robinson is former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. He is widely known for being the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate, a matter of significant controversy. After his election, many theologically conservative Episcopalians in the United States abandoned the Episcopal Church, formed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and aligned themselves with bishops outside the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Andrew Tobias has written twelve books, including “The Best Little Boy in the World,” a highly acclaimed autobiography in which he spoke of his experiences as a gay boy and young man. He wrote a sequel, “The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up.” He has written for New York Magazine, Time, Esquire and Harvard Magazine. He has appeared on such shows as Today, Good Morning America, Face the Nation and Oprah. Andrew is very active in LGBTQ+ causes and served as Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee from 1999 to 2017.

Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research is one of the leading independent think tanks promoting gender equality, evidence-based sexual ethics, democratic governance and accountability in the Catholic Church. It coordinates leading academics to cooperate on interdisciplinary research topics to overcome prejudice against women, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Its research is made freely available online. It published an 81- page academic report in 2020 titled “Christian Objections to Same Sex Relationships: An Academic Assessment” that systemically debunked the biblical bases for discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.