About Me

Gays Defend Marriage is a website founded by David Benkof (formerly David Bianco), author of Gay Essentials: Facts for Your Queer Brain (Alyson, 1999), as a discussion site for LGBT people and others to question and debate the rigidly prevailing gay view that redefining marriage is good for gays and lesbians and for American society.
 
David Benkof is openly gay/bisexual, but as an Orthodox Jew he is guided by Jewish law in the areas of sexuality and family life. He writes a biweekly column from his particular perspective called “Fabulously Observant” in the Jerusalem Post. He can be reached at DavidBenkof@aol.com.

A few interesting facts about David:

• He has a master’s in Jewish history from Stanford and has completed additional coursework in the subject at Hebrew University (Jerusalem) and NYU.

• In 1998, he “won Ben Stein’s Money.” Score: 8 to 5, for the full $5,000.

• He’s had two crossword puzzles in the New York Times, most recently on November 15, 2006.

• He loves ferrets, the Beatles, John Grisham, Les Miserables, Jerusalem, the Muppets, Shawshank Redemption, Lost, Phil Hendrie, and RealClearPolitics.com. Not necessarily in that order.

• He has written books on both Jewish history and gay history. 

• He splits his time between St. Louis and Seattle, and plans to spend the late spring and summer in Jerusalem.