ON OUR GAYDAR — News, notes, clicks, and quips from around the web.
• South Africa’s athletics organization is demanding chief Leonard Chuene rejoin the International Association of Athletics Federations, which he quit to protest the gender testing of track star Caster Semenya, who is supposedly on suicide watch(?!).
• Georgetown Law’s big lez Chai Feldblum is Obama’s pick for commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
• Paris Hilton almost loses an eye for mistakenly refusing to hold up a “No Homophobia” sign at a Milan gay club.
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Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
• Corporate giants including Boeing, Nike, Microsoft Corp., Puget Sound Energy are backing Washington’s domestic partnership laws.
• Just because Canada’s Industry Minister Tony Clement is demanding extra “scrutiny” in funding gay-themed events doesn’t make him homophobic!
• The New York Times follows up with Daniel Gross and Steven Goldstein, the first gay couple to be featuring in the paper’s Weddings section in Sept. 2002. Appropriately, the pair met via a newspaper personals ad.
• Ohio lawmakers set to add sexual orientation to housing and employment discrimination laws.
• More praise for Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Simple Man. And hey, Julianne Moore is good in it too.
• Twenty-four people in Iowa have been convicted of transmission (or attempted transmission) of HIV, for having sex while knowing they are HIV-positive, in the 11 years since the law was created. The crime is the second-most-serious felony in the state.
• Over 100 (thought-to-be) gay men in China’s People’s Park refused to scatter when the police arrived, there to either harass pedestrians or, supposedly, crack down on sex at the park’s restrooms.
• Is this an account of a gay rape in Ghana? Or stereotypical prosecution of gay men?
• Matt Damon and Michael Douglas will get gay together for Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic.
• The DNC welcomes a transgender woman into the fold — a first for a major political party.
• True Blood hottie Mehcad Brooks won’t wed until Prop 8 is dead.
• The 15-year-old boy who beat Michigan teen Steven Harmon in an anti-gay attack “was sentenced Monday to take part in a special program at the Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home that could last nine months [and] ordered to obtain anger management counseling, victim restitution and write a letter of apology to the victim.”
Mike
Your headline on the article about funding in Canada for gay-themed events is completely misleading. In the article, the Minister denies that gay-themed events are getting extra scrutiny. Your headline says he is “demanding” it. WTF?
Rick
My sympathies are with Caster. The handling of the situation was beyond incompetent. There seems to be much deliberate cruelty. Why would they release the results of the tests publicly without first contacting her? Intersexed people did not suddenly pop up last week. Someone should be fired.
strumpetwindsock
@Mike:
Yeah, he may deny it in public, you are right. But from his government’s actions it seems pretty clear they are demanding it behind close doors.
Not only was funding to Toronto Pride reversed and the minister responsible canned, they also reversed a decision to fund a Montreal festival at the ministerial level.
FYI, Tony Clement, when he was health minister, also announced his government’s intention to shut down Vancouver’s safe injection site, even though all critical studies showed it reduced risks of death and disease transmission.
They only showed their hand when a court injunction ordered that it stay open.
Of course all those decisions are really coming from the Prime Minister’s office. Clement is just one of his mouthpieces.
Darrien
My heart goes goes out to Caster. The way she’s been treated is disgusting. I’m with Rick on this – the cruelty to a young girl has been horrific.
Elaine
Is there an address where folks can send supportive cards/notes to Ms. Sememya? This young woman should know she has alot of well-wishers out there in the world.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
Georgetown Law’s big lez Chai Feldblum is Obama’s pick for commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
How long before Glenn Beck calls her a socialist and the White House turfs her?
Matt Damon and Michael Douglas will get gay together for Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic.
I’ve been waiting years for a good Liberace biopic and it’s starring these two douchebags, and being directed by a het? Fucking breeders won’t be happy until every queer actor is out of work and never seen, or heard from again.
Greg Ever
I like today’s approach of more “headlines” and fewer long stories.