Remember Bob Barr, the U.S. Georgia Representative that somehow became the Libertarian Party's nominee despite the fact that at one time he was a wacky southern peach conservative who fought against abortion, for the war on drugs and is the author of the Defense of Marriage Act?
Well, it turns out his conversion to libertarianism wasn't just an election year stunt, as his op-ed in the L.A. Times today states:
"In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, "Decisions about marriage should be left to the states." He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions."
While not a Cabinet-level or policy-making position, Barack Obama today announced that Bradley J. Kiley will be his Director of the Office of Management and Administration. You could actually say that Kiley will be running the White House, as the Office handles the nuts and bolts of the administration such as "financial management and information technology support, human resources management, library and research assistance, facilities management, procurement, printing and graphics support, security, and mail and messenger operations."
Queue the Queer Eye for the White House jokes.
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Mariela Castro, niece of Fidel Castro and director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, does a wide-ranging interview with Russia Today in which she talks about the future of the country, gay rights in Cuba and what it's like to be the daughter of the President.
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Barack Obama's tapped Tim Kaine to run the Democratic National Committee, which is sorta good and sorta bad for the gay community as Kaine was the only candidate who responded to the Washington Blade's 2005 request for Virginia Governor's candidates to answer questions about gay issues (and said all sorts of nice things),but then once Governor, he signed the Marshall-Newman Amendment, which defines marriage in Virginia as being between a man and a woman, even though he had previously opposed it.
So, Tim Kaine is polite and nice to gays, but lacks the political fortitude to stand-up to anti-gay measures; he really is the perfect person to run the DNC.
UPDATED — Rick Warren's favorite lesbian singer Melissa Etheridge did a phoner with NPR's All Things Considered this morning where she discussed her defense of Barack Obama's inclusion of Rev. Warren in his inauguration. Basically, it boils down to "I believe in Barack Obama."
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Scott Schmidt aka The Boi From Troy, one of the gay blogosphere's more popular gay Republicans, has hung up his blogging shoes for good, he says. Who's going to oggle over the hot USC football boys now? "Basically, I am over it", Schmidt tells us, giving this parting bit of advice to other gay bloggers: "Blog about what you are passionate about and listen to your heart. Try to bridge communities together that otherwise would not. Let it go when it becomes a chore, not a hobby!"
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It's not okay to make fun of gay people, because they were born that way, but it is okay to make fun of fat people, because by continuing to overeat, they choose to stay that way. CONTINUED »
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body." –Walt Whitman, queer icon and poet, on how to live life.
Scandal-clouded New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is no longer going to be Barack Obama's Secretary of Commerce, giving Obama a chance to call 'mulligans' on the whole 'There are no high profile gays and lesbians in my cabinet' thing. Grassroots group Equal Rep is pushing Fred Hochberg, dean of Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy as a candidate. In his favor: he was one of Hillary's big fundraisers and Hochberg is a member of Obama's transition team. Working against him: The fact that an openly-gay person has never been appointed to a Cabinet-level position. Let's all get our hopes up so they can be dashed again!
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If you're from any Small Town, USA, then you know your local paper can be filled with both robust local entertainment coverage … and conservative vitriol. Pick up North Carolina's Asheville Citizen-Times and browse the Letters to the Editor section, and you'll know which way the wind is blowing: "I feel morally obligated to express my opinion. I am a transplant from Jackson, Miss., who is astounded by how many homosexuals have 'infested' this beautiful city. I just don't know what the general population should do. Perhaps the solution would be to set aside a specific state of the union for them to inhabit – perhaps we should set up a new name for Connecticut and call it 'Sodom' or 'Gomorrah.'" God bless this letter's author; she signed her name. CONTINUED »
Adorable baby dyke rapper and 2008 San Diego Music Award "Best Hip-Hop" winner MC Flow has a video out for a song called "Created Equal", which is cute, adorable, pretty damn smart– and oh yeah, has a nice message to boot.
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Former American Gladiator Dan Clark — you knew him as Nitro — laments his 20-year steroid use … because it gave him bitch tits and tiny balls. [Jossip]
You'd think that if Texas were to start a chapter of Delta Lambda Phi, the nation's largest and oldest fraternity organization for gay and bisexual men, it'd be in freaky-deaky Austin, but the University of Texas El Paso, beat them to the punch. Not to be left behind, Russell van Kraayenburg (pictured) and friends have started their own awesome homo frat chapter at UT Austin.
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In the fight against Prop 8, religion has been a cornerstone. And it's not just the Mormon Church who took heat, but also conservative Catholics with a "traditional" definition of marriage. So anger toward them can be rationalized — vandalism, however, cannot. And such is the case of a church in San Francisco's Castro district, which was spraypainted with swastikas on Saturday night by Prop 8 foes. The kicker? That church happened to be gay-friendly. CONTINUED »
An expert on the subject, Madonna's brother Christopher Ciccone calls former pal Demi Moore a 'diva' in the yesterday's edition of the The Observer, saying ""A certain kind of diva carries a gay man around like a handbag, like an accessory. And then once they find the right straight guy, they don't need a male companion any more."
Here's a tip guys: Don't put all your emotional apples in a basket you're not willing to fuck.
Anyway, Christopher's all huffy his fag hag left him and so, he's revealed that Demi Moore lactates on the dance floor while grinding his ass. And to think, she gave it all that up for Ashton Kutcher's penis. Shocking, really.
The Ad Council and Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) have put together a little PSA to help America's bored, undereducated teenagers understand that saying, "That's gay" is so fucking gay. See, when we do it, it's okay. Also, we'd add that spelling it "geh", doesn't make it any better. Watch the ad after the jump and let us know if you've seen it air.
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Go down the Jersey shore to Atlantic City and try making a bet that New Jersey will legalize same-sex marriage in 2009. You may have trouble finding any takers. With a majority of New Jerseyers (Jerseyites? Jerseyians?) in support of gay marriage, a report last month from a state-appointed commission on civil unions saying that civil unions are not equal to marriage and the Governor saying he'll sign a bill in support of gay marriage if it comes to his desk, there's a very good chance we'll be hearing gay wedding bells chime in the Garden State by year's end.
Here's how it happened:
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We love adorkable pollster pundit Nate Silver and his uncanny ability to accurately predict the results of polls, but we're doing a little head-scratching over his latest piece wondering whether the fact that Obama's commitment to gay & lesbian issues is made more prominent on the Change.gov website than it was on his campaign is a post-Rev. Rick Warren attempt to kiss and make up with the gay community.
It's an interesting idea, but Obama's LGBT issues page went up on November 18th. As you can see in Queerty's rundown of the Change.gov website we did at the time, all the issues Silver talks about were there at the time, and as far as we can tell, it hasn't been changed at all post-Warren.
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A couple weeks ago, Queerty offered gay cable network Logo a few ideas for new television series. Well, here's another one: It's the story of a handsome do-gooder gay politician who wins over the citizens of his city by riding his bike to work, keeping citizens abreast of what he's doing via blog and campaigning by standing on street corners holding a sign that reads "Honk for the Wonk" after his opponent accused him of being to policy-driven. We'll name him after an American patriot just to drive the point home.
The citizens of his city elect this guy mayor because of his commitment to the arts, culture, sustainability, healthy living and environmentalism, because those are the issues that are important to them. We'll also give the mayor an equally handsome partner: an investigative reporter who reports on hot-button issues like the overlapping worlds of Mormonism, Boy Scouts, and child molestation. We'dll set the whole thing in a gorgeous small city surrounded by trees and mountains that's on the cusp of being recognized as the sort of urban space that could possibly save us from the environmentally wasteful, corporate soul-crushing world we're living in.
This isn't a fictional television utopia, though: It's Portland. CONTINUED »
There are a lot of nice civilized things I could say about Mexico City native Alan Valdez. He's an all-state athletics champion and won second place in something called the Model America Championships, for instance– but if I don't type "Alan Valdez can spill all over us any time he wants" my punny blogger brain will explode.
Ah, all better.
