French security forces aren't fucking around when it comes to protecting Pope Benedict XVI from the dreaded irate gays:

French police have placed radical gay militants under surveillance ahead of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to France on September 12-15, the daily Le Figaro reported on Wednesday.

Eager to avoid a repeat of the condom shower that greeted the Pope in Sydney, Australia, in July, certain gay activist groups such as Act Up are being closely watched in the run-up to the visit.

Security forces are also keeping their eye out for Al-Qaeda, a group we find far more frightening than some condom throwing homos.

"Silence = Death". That simple phrase became - and remains - an anthem for AIDS activists. And it wouldn't exist without Avram Finkelstein.

Raised by appropriately Marxist parents here in New York, the natural born activist became involved in the AIDS movement after his boyfriend died of the then-new disease. Mourning the loss of friends and family, Finkelstein and his five friends organized a casual group that would later become Gran Fury, a creative collective responsible for much of ACT-UP's visual campaigns.

Old Belonsky spoke with Finkelstein recently and got an earful on how the public space has evolved, the role of gender in the presidential campaigns and whether a thirteen-year old American Idol fan can be called an "activist". The answer's "yes".

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France's Advertising Standards Authority banned an HIV awareness campaign because it's too "explicit". Gay activists such as ACT UP Paris are crying foul:

French organizations devoted to the fight against AIDS such as Act Up Paris criticized on Wednesday that advertising is judged depending on whether its characters are gays or heterosexuals. "This kind of measures are not taken when the protagonists are heterosexuals. It is an insult to the gay community", a spokesman for the Act Up Paris organization said.

And here we thought Parisians were more liberal with sexuality…

Via Joe.My.God:

A butch lesbian was ejected from a West Village restaurant after last week's Pride parade for using the ladies room. Khadijah Farmer, 27, was confronted in the restroom of the Caliente Cab Company by the restaurant's bouncer, who escorted her back to her table and forced her party to pay their tab and leave.

Farmer, who says she is occasionally mistaken for male and is not bothered by such confusion, offered to show the bouncer her ID to prove her gender, but he refused. Farmer is not transgendered, but has retained the counsel of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund who is demanding gender identity sensitivity training for the restaurant's staff.

The listserve for Act Up Army/Queer Justice League is busy with discussion of a potential action at the Caliente Cab Company.

Quite a dream team: TLLDEF, ACT-UP Army and the Queer Justice League? This shit has the making of a comic book epic. Someone get Prism comics and Lambda Legal on the line…

Gay Pride Week's well underway here in NYC. While most gays are out in full force, there's a queer constituency who aren't swinging from the rafters. Actually, more than a few. Since the days of the very first pride - and, in fact, Stonewall itself - there have been tensions between the movement's ideological factions.

Gay Pride's revolutionary message may have been white-washed years ago, but some gays never stopped queering it up to oppose Pride's mainstream, commercialized tendencies.

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It's never too early to start thinking about the gay explosion known as Pride. It is, after all, only a few weeks away, so you guys may want to get out a pen and circle June 16th - the day Los Angeles' Drkrm. Gallery unveils its historical pictorial, "SILENCE = DEATH: Los Angeles AIDS Activism 1987–2007".

A commemoration of ACT-UP/Los Angeles' golden years, the exhibit features the work of homo-photog Chuck Stallard. Above you see a picture taken during a 1990 rally on Market Street.

Read more about the show, after the jump.

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If you're ever looking to take down two social groups at once, head on over to the Kavkaz Center. They've compiled this "exhaustive" list of the gay rights movement's Jewish leaders.

The editors explain:

Here is an exhaustive list proving, once and for all, that the radical homosexual movement in the United States is a Jewish movement. Jews created it and run it from top to bottom. They are pushing the perversion and degeneracy that is spreading disease, sin and sickness through America like a wildfire.

So, who are these hideous activists?

Well, there are really too many to count (you know those Jews - always multiplying!), but the list includes our old friend and ACT-UP founder, Larry Kramer, the late poet Allen Ginsberg, former Advocate publisher David Goldstein, ACT-UP co-founder and Queerty feature subject, Alan Klein, homo-politico Barney Frank and so many other homo-heebs, you're going to wish you had a silver bullet. That's how you kill a Jew, you know. That or some sort of Holocaust, which we're sure the Kavkaz Center would readily endorse.

It's Friday, reader. You know what that means - it's Queerty ReBUTTal time! Yay!

You guys did super with the comments. Really. Just super - lisp and all. While we have plenty of thoughts on your thoughts on our thoughts, we're switching it up these week. As you're well aware, we've just kicked off The Style Issue.

Before things go too far, however, we'd like to have a brief look back on some of our other issues and some of the bits that didn't make it. Take a look at some unpublished excerpts, after the jump.

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Larry Kramer employed his inimitable charm at last night's celebration of ACT UP. Speaking to a packed crowed, Kramer insisted that the fight for gay rights is far from over.

I wish I could make all gay people everywhere accept this one fact I know to be an undisputed truth. We are hated. Haven’t enough of us died for all of us to believe this?
…
No one is looking out for us anymore the way ACT UP looked out for us once upon a time.

ACT UP is not saving us now. This is not meant as finger-pointing or blame. It just is. No one goes to meetings and our chapters all over the globe have almost disappeared. And we must recognize this, I beg of you.

I don’t want to start another organization. And yet I know we must start another organization. Or at the very least administer major shock therapy to this one.

As part of this revival, Kramer has asked concerned homos to gather in Times Square tomorrow at noon to protest Don't Ask, Don't Tell. While there's no telling how many sissies with show their beautiful, outraged faces, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey's pledged his support. That's what he tells New York, at least.

For today's installment of The Totally Frightful Issue, we're handing the reins over to performative character and all-around nice guy, Jack E. Jett.

While those of you in Australia and Canada may know him from his talk show, Queer Edge, soon everyone can enjoy his eccentric, yet socially conscious humor when he launches his new Internet television channel, FU-TV, on Monday, October 30th on World of Wonder, ManiaTV! and The Akimbo Service.

Before that, however, read his ruminations on the rise of AIDS, how fear helps forge new directions, and how the hell he came up with Jack E. Jett in the first place.

In case you're too scared to figure it out together, you can find his piece after the jump.

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Remember our interview with Alan Klein and Ron Goldberg, two early members of ACT UP? No? Well, get with it and click here.

For those of you who are up-to-date, here's part two, in which the boys discuss the appropriation of activism by the media, pharmaceutical greed, and the rise - and unfortunate results - of professionalism in the movement.

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In an earlier installment of The Narcissist Issue, we relayed the story of Narcissus: the gorgeous lad whose self-love led to eternal incarceration in his own reflection. Pretty scary, but we must remember that not all reflections bring such nasty consequences.

As the future rises up at horrifying speeds, and the past seems to disintegrate in the blink of an eye, many people forget to take the time to look back. In our opinion, it's impossible to forge a viable gay equality without first reflecting on the people and organizations that came paved the way.

To this end, we sat down with Alan Klein and Ron Goldberg, two of the earliest members of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP). Through mass demonstrations and seemingly-spontaneous zaps, ACT UP successfully brought AIDS to national attention, thus clearing a path for understanding, progress and a future as scary as it is hopeful.

In part one of a two piece interview, Klein and Goldberg talk about their early days as activists, using the media to get their message out, and how fighting the system takes its toll.

Learn a little somethin' somethin', after the jump…

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Act-Up has a history of hitting people where it hurts, and this new French ad campaign is no different. Our college French translation of the ad:

AIDS doesn't worry you? Every day 20 people are infected in France. Gay or straight, female or male, they think that not using a condom is a sign of trust. Now they know it is the opposite. Only condoms can protect against AIDS.

Act-Up Paris [Official Site]