On Monday, we told you that at least 15 percent – still a significant portion – of reported AIDS-related deaths were from contracting HIV through gay sex.

On Tuesday, we told you U.N. officials reported that "despite a stepped up global battle against AIDS, the numbers of people newly infected with HIV are far and away outpacing the numbers beginning antiretroviral drug treatments."

Today, it's time for a little more school. The web video series HIV is Still a Big Deal, debuting today, is an attempt to bring HIV/AIDS education to the web. The hope? That the only thing spreading virally is the video. More about the series below:

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When it comes to gays and Hollywood, what needs to change? With Fox News' John Gibson making it clear that not everybody is okay with gay plotlines, let alone gay actors, Queerty editorial director David Hauslaib sat down with BigThink.com to discuss that issue.

Also touched upon, in the clip below: what David believes to be the most important issues facing the gay community today, as well as the responsibility gay men and women have toward the younger generation.

The Republicans' actions and words at this weekend's Values Voter Summit prove one thing: the party simply refuses to evolve. Editor Andrew Belonsky explains why the Grand Old Party needs to embrace change, look beyond the walls of social conservatism and expand its definition of family values.

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If there’s one adversary gays must not ignore, it’s stagnation: the paralysis of motion and progression. With new queer headlines daily, it may seem that we’re in no threat of slowing down, but visibility and advancement are not necessarily the same thing. That’s one thing gay filmmaker Matt Wolf (seen here in a picture we lifted from his website. If you think he's a cute kid, you should see him now!) knows all too well.

Considering the political undertones of his short films, it comes as no surprise that Wolf once considered a career in politics. Coming out at the tender age of 14, Wolf threw himself into gay activism in his hometown of San Jose, CA, where he joined the burgeoning Gay-Straight Alliance Movement and pushed for anti-discrimination law to further the LGBT cause. It wasn’t until a few years later that he had another sort of coming out. “In high school, I decided that I didn’t want to work in politics. I wanted to be an artist.”

With a scholarship to New York University, Wolf packed up and headed east, where his activist roots and artistic dreams coalesced into something new entirely: the fictional documentary. Merging actual people and fabricated characters, Wolf's movies explore gay issues to shed light on our at times unsettling reality.

Join us after the jump as we examine Wolf’s earlier works and learn that while his media stays the same, his ideas evolve as fast as the world changes.

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• As new shots from Justin Timberlake Alpha Dog emerge, there's new reason to resurrect his "Trousersnake" monicker. [Towleroad]

• Do you have your signed Anderson Cooper headshot? [Jossip]

• Black gay bloggers are calling for the boycott of homophobic raggae artists Beenie Man and TOK's concert to raise HIV awareness next week. [Keith Boykin]

• Now that gay marriage in Massachusetts is legal, some employees better get hitched or face the loss of domestic parternship benefits. [AHN]

Kooky France and their big ideas: Disallowing headwraps and yarmulkes in public schools, banning U.S. hormone-fed beef, and now taxing airlines tickets for the benefit of those suffering with AIDS in poor countries.

The tax will result in tickets for flights departing from France costing anywhere from $1.27 to $51 more than usual depending on the destination and class of ticket. That means most normal people will hardly feel it, and the net money raised will be in the neighborhood of $256 million each year.

However, if you think your $1.27 will go to help AIDS victims the next time you fly, think again unless you're departing from France. Every U.S. airline is opposed to the tax along with the Bush administration.

HIV airline tax begins in France [The Advocate]

Our nation's capital has so far made little progress in the fight against HIV, and part of the problem has to do with testing. Either D.C. residents are more reluctant to get tested than residents of other cities (not likely) or the Administration for HIV Policy and Programs has bungled the process of gathering the numbers thus far despite receiving gobs of federal funding.

The group has announced that before the end of this year they will be launching an aggressive new campaign to test everyone in the city between the ages of 14 and 84 for HIV. They will be distributing 80,000 oral HIV testing kits to area hospitals, local health organizations, and schools, and will also be holding screenings in Freedom Plaza, which began on Tuesday.

If you live in D.C., please go to Freedom Plaza and get a test. The oral tests are easy, painless, take 20 minutes, and the AHPP will keep your results completely confidential.

Testing Away HIV [Washington Post]

A new ad campaign is hitting New York City, and it's not the one where Gay.com takes over phone booths and bus stops. This campaign, "Silence = Meth," is the latest effort to bring attention to deadly crystal meth use in the gay community. Yesterday morning, NY1 explored the new awareness effort (a take on the 1980s' "Silence = Death" campaign) as part of of a series of programming devoted to gay pride. Even more fitting – given meth users' proclivity for anonymous, bareback sex – as we usher in the 25th anniversary of HIV/AIDS. Now, is anyone going to give a shit?

We've long argued to our friends – often while queuing in blood donation lines – that
it makes no sense for the Food and Drug Administration to continue banning the blood of gay men. In the 1980s, the FDA stopped taking donations from any man who had sex with another man since 1977, concluding the risk of transfusing HIV-infected blood was just too high. (Anyone who has had sex with a prostitute or had sex in exchange for drugs is similarly banned.)

But in this era of medical technology, blood in screened not once but twice for HIV. Sure, there is still a small percentage of HIV infections through transfusion (estimated at 1 per 2 million), but the chances of that occurring are far too small to continue banning the gay community from performing a civic responsibility. There's also the little matter of straight men and women carrying "the gay disease" as well, though their numbers may be fewer.

Which is why we're pleased to see today's Los Angeles Times editorial, which backs the American Red Cross' appeal to lift the ban. Blood banks, meanwhile, are also in favor of lifting the ban, so long as there are some more mild restrictions in place.

The blood banks have recommended that gay men who haven't had sex in a year be allowed to donate.

A temporary ban for gay men would still be needed. There's a window during which an individual can be infected with HIV and not test positive. And gay men in the U.S. have a much higher incidence of HIV infections than the rest of the population. So it's necessary to exclude those who have recently had sex, even with condoms. But the new tests can detect the virus within 11 days, on average, after infection. A ban of several weeks or months should be sufficient.

Another issue is that current guidelines fail to adequately take donor behavior into account. Questionnaires don't routinely ask about risky behavior, so even promiscuous heterosexuals can donate. Is blood from a monogamous, HIV-negative gay man more unsafe than blood from a heterosexual man who is sexually active with multiple partners?

Meanwhile, we've continued to donate blood to the American Red Cross, brushing past a certain checkbox on the questionnaire. We get regular HIV tests; we know what is, and isn't, in our blood. Though when we did some traveling in malaria-infested countries, sure, we let them know about that (and we "excused" from donating blood for six months).

So what's the proper course of action? Keep the ban? Lift it entirely? Or go the middleground route, relaxing the ban while still keeping certain restrictions for gay men in place, and/or adding additional background information to the questionnaire?

Let gay men donate blood [LAT]

• The unauthorized Star Trek spin-off Hidden Frontier takes the show's gay undertones one step further. Yep, it's possible. [AfterElton]

• On college campuses, out goes beer and in comes iPod as the "must have" thing. Threesomes with your frat brothers didn't even place! [GenDigital]

• The new HomoMojo lets you queens decide which queer crap you want to read. [HomoMojo]

• Just when the Los Angeles Times devotes quite a few column inches to the disintegrating interest of celebrities dedicated to the AIDS cause comes word that none other than David Beckham has teamed up with Motorola for MOTO(RED), a campaign to raise awareness of AIDS in Africa. [Gizmodo]

Without a doubt, AIDS is still a hot charitable topic in Hollywood. But it used to be the hot charitable topic. Now the A-list aren't just competing for roles in Ron Howard pictures but for charity dollars for their own causes. Cancer. MS. 9/11. Africa. The environment. Hurricane Katrina. Angelina Jolie, Barbra Streisand, Ellen DeGeneres, and Leonardo DiCaprio are becoming just as famous for their outreach as they are for their screen time.

Maybe it's the burnout factor. Or perhaps it's because Hollywood has a short attention span. But as AIDS enters its 25th year, it is no longer The Cause among celebrities. There is also the perception that AIDS now affects only developing nations instead of the U.S., where ever-improving medical cocktails are helping those with HIV live longer.

We can always count on Elton John and Liza Minelli to bring in the bucks for AIDS research and treatment. And keeping CO2 emissions down is a worthy cause. So is finding a cure for prostate cancer, helping Katrina victims find new homes, and making sure the people on the poorest continent in the world have enough food to eat.

But decreasing attention from celebrities seems to coincide with less funding for HIV/AIDS. Gone are the red ribbons from the Academy Awards red carpet, and gone too are budget increases for AIDS shelters. Choosing a charitable cause is quickly becoming a decision on which color ribbon or arm band matches you dress.

Goodbye AIDS. Celebs Move on to New Causes [LAT]

• Oprah insists she and Gayle King aren't gay, damnit. [QueerBeacon]

• How many professional athletes are gay? We may never know, but it's fun to speculate. [Blogcritics]

• The Sopranos' Joseph Gannascoli, who played the gay character Vito, is being sued by diet company Stacker 2 on charges he didn't do enough to promote the drug. Gannascoli's take: They didn't like him being gay on TV. [AP]

• If AIDS never exisited, what would life be like? [SoVo]

Prison guards may want to turn the other cheek when it comes to butt sex happening in the cell next to them, but the system is ignoring something larger and more dangerous than manlove by banning condoms in the prison system: HIV transmission. The official word is often that condoms could be used to smuggle drugs and are therefore not allowed to be given to prisoners. This forces prisoners who are concerned about spreading disease to find makeshift protection like rubber gloves.

And then there is the issue of those inmates serving life sentences who don't care if they contract HIV as it would only shorten their time in the clink.

Some states have protection available by request to married couples in jail and other states have it available for openly gay men, but with so many prisoners, gay and straight, having unprotected sex, there obviously needs to be a more comprehensive distribution of protection. Prison may be about punishment, but not every criminal deserves the death sentence.

Activists Fight for Basic Safe-sex Options for Prisoners [The NewStandard]

• Anderson Cooper actually talks like a twelve-year-old girl. [Dlisted] Plus his new memoir sells well, but not well enough to be on top. [Gawker]

• Switzerland's new "Love Life, Stop AIDS" campaign uses talking "love lips" that are made out of a condom to amuse visitors to their website. They even talk in different foreign accents, which we found very exotic and sexy. [Love Life Stop AIDS via PCJ]

• West Hollywood may be turning straight. [LA Times]

• A Congressional candidate in North Carolina has put out a new radio ad featuring mariachi music that warns against the dangers of America becoming "one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals." That sounds kind of fun to us. [Raw Story]

• A new Frontline documentary called The Age of Aids is premiering tonight on PBS. It's a two-parter, so make sure you have your cookies and Kleenex handy. [NY Times]

• Batwoman makes a triumphant lesbionic return to print. [BBC via Pam's House Blend]

• Britney Spears has posted a "stream of consciousness" poem on her official website that describes her unhappy marriage. It is called "Dickmatized." [Britneyspears.com]

• Brazil releases its first gay dictionary. We're not sure that we even have one of those in the U.S. [Made In Brazil]

• Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not want members of Parliament talking about the upcoming gay wedding between two members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, because that is tantamount to sexy talk, and sexy talk is not allowed in government. [365 Gay]