Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon will head back to the ice to join Samantha Bee for a Christmas special full of fun, festivities and a dash of politics. The special airs on TBS Wednesday, Dec. 19, at 10:30pmET/PT.

The Los Angeles Lakers KissCam featured two same-sex couples during Pride Night. One of the couples featured two gay athletes.

When San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat during the National Anthem of a preseason game in August, he started a conversation about the use of the National Anthem as a means of protest against inequality. Since then a handful of other professional athletes have followed suit, sitting or kneeling for the Star-Spangled Banner. Other athletes have locked arms or raised fists. We talk about the Anthem as a means of protest, Megan Rapinoe's high-profile kneeling, and the LGBT sports community's role in furthering the conversation. We'll be joined by former college football player Conner Mertens and college basketball coach Julie Shaw.

Gay rodeo cowboy PJ Painter shared his journey as part of Outsports' 'Straight Talk from Out Jocks,' held at the Center on Halsted in Chicago during the Outsports Reunion, June 25, 2016.

UFC has made a nice gesture to the LGB community by creating rainbow-inspired shirts that will help fund the LGBT center in Las Vegas. Yet Dana White and other MMA fighters are still on the record as being ignorant on trans issues.

While it was an important step that ESPN took by firing Curt Schilling for posting a grotesque message about trans people, the entire episode points to how far we have to go.

People are calling for the NCAA, NBA, NFL and others to boycott places like North Carolina and Georgia with the consideration or passing of anti-LGBT laws. Yet we've seen in Houston that these pro-sports leagues don't want to do anything, they just want to issue idle threats of doing something so they look good.

Openly gay distance runner Matt Llano placed an impressive sixth at the U.S. Olympic Trials. And MMA fighter Ronda Rousey offered some supportive thoughts on gay people while still not reversing her transphobic position on Fallon Fox.

As Super Bowl week winds down here in San Francisco and the big game approaches, it's been interesting that gay and LGBT issues have been on the distant back burner. If only Cyd Zeigler had the cajones to talk with Kordell Stewart about it.

The NBA couldn't have attempted to be more sly in how they handled the suspension of Rajon Rondo for calling a gay referee an anti-gay slur. Multiple times. While they wanted to just sweep it under the rug, here's how Adam Silver could have shown leadership in handling the situation.