Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports that Floridian citizens have received a robo-call blasting McCain competitor Mitt Romney for promising gays "special rights". Here's the text:

Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us. He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn't changed the law. He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he would be a stronger advocate for special rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now, it's something different.

It's tempting to dismiss this as primarily primary shenanigans, but National Stonewall Democrats' Jon Hoadley thinks otherwise:

Sometimes McCain gets a pass because he wasn't a staunch supporter of the federal marriage amendment, but he showed his true colors when he campaigned…to pass the marriage ban in Arizona. When the community is looking at McCain, they need to look at the true record he was adamantly opposed to one of the groundbreaking victories in 2006.

Stein rightly points out that McCain - also known as The Hulk - has flip-flopped on marriage just the same as Mitt. McCain promised in 2004 that he would not endorse a federal amendment against gay marriage. That stance shifted two years later when McCain said otherwise to the late Jerry Falwell.

It's worth noting that openly gay Republican John Kolbe dismissed the call as a simple "statement of fact," not "gay-baiting". True or not, it's the motive that counts.

An unknown source had some fun fooling the FBI.

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An editorial in this week's NY Blade opens thus:

Every person who advocates LGBT civil rights and same-sex marriage equality must read The Bible. In the United States, it’s the primary weapon used against gays.

Sanctimonious Advocate journo Tully Satre also spills some virtual ink on organized religion:

Religion has had a profoundly positive impact on our cause. Although religion has led some people to hate us, it has also given gays and lesbians everywhere a sense of faith, hope, and community. It is unfair and out of character to shut religion out of the picture when it comes to advocating for LGBT equality.

In case you don't remember, Satre's the boy who wagged a finger at Jerry Falwell death parties.

Gary Aldridge either planned on finding Jesus or had some serious sexual kinks.

The Alabaman reverend and died last July of "accidental mechanical asphyxia". Or, that's what the reports are saying.

Smoking Gun grabbed the autopsy report and there's more to the story. Also, the Liberty University graduate and Jerry Falwell flack really, really liked leather rubber:

[Aldridge] was found hog-tied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report. Investigators determined that Rev. Gary Aldridge's death was not caused by foul play…

If you think that's nuts, Aldridge had a dildo in his ass. Don't worry, though, he used a condom.

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Ed. note: Today's installment of America's Queer Liberty picks up where yesterday's left off…

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The religious right lost much of its political influence with Bush's last election.

Yes, they helped our not-so-beloved President score another four years, but their power seems to be waning in recent years, particularly after two of its most prominent spiritual leaders, Reverend Jerry Falwell kicked it and Ted Haggard sucked it.

Some of us may breathe a sigh of relief, but lets not get too comfortable, because "ex-gay" organization Exodus International plans on filling the gaping hole.

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America's founding fathers envisioned a nation free of monarchical tyranny - a nation where all citizens received the right to vote. In doing so, those revolutionary thinkers hoped to ensure the government spoke for the people. As any historian will tell you, however, that independent theory didn't exactly hold up. America's founders were looking after their own – white, Christian, straight and wealthy. Fuck rule of law. Land owners were the law.

Generations - and a Civil War - later, America extended nominal rights to black and, eventually, women. Despite these moves, it would take an entire civil rights movement to overturn racist Jim Crow laws, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. Now that all Americans have the right to vote, does America's voting system guarantee all voters their rights? Don't count on it.

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Catholics are waging war against Bill Maher, who recently took some time to not mourn Evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell.

During his riotous oration on his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher, the 51-year old comedian suggested that gays may gain more rights if we just started a rear-ended religion and offered some clever excuses for gay sex:

We weren't having sex, officer, I was performing a very private Mass, here in my car. I was letting my rod and staff comfort him. Take this and eat of it, for this is my roommate Barry.

Hilarious, right? Not according to conservative media watchdog group, Media Research Center.

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Some gay folk celebrated Reverend Jerry Falwell's death, but not The Advocate's fagling homo-journo, Tully Satre.

Satre, who once spilled ink admonishing so-called bisexuals, writes that we homos must preserve our "dignity" whilst discussing the homo-hating reverend's death, "It is in times like these that our wit and will is tested and we must stand with dignity".

Of course, Satre understands that it's hard to keep a straight face in the face of our enemy's death, so he sucks inspiration from the holiest of holy books: The Lord of the Rings. Except, of course, being a young gun, he prefers his books in film form.

I am reminded of a quote from the film Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf says that “Many that live deserve death and some that die deserve life…do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment.” As minorities, we ask to be respected as human beings. We expect people to treat us with dignity and to look beyond our sexual orientation or gender identity. Why then do so many people focus on the politics of Mr. Falwell and find in them reason to celebrate his death?

That's an easy one. We focus on Falwell's politics because, as far as we know, he didn't have an actual soul to mourn. He had become nothing more than an over-inflated ideologue hellbent on celebrating our own deaths. It's only fair, really.

Bill Maher's a fucking genius. Not only does his eulogy of Reverend Jerry Falwell expose the new cultural rule, "Death isn't always sad", but the outspoken social commentator also offers the gay rights movement a revolutionary suggestion: become a religion. "Forget civil rights, just make gayness a religion. I mean, you're kneeling anyway." Why didn't we think of that?

From this day forward, you queer couples are no longer "life partners". You are "a nunnery of two". Bill Maher has spoken…

• It was all about the Good Times last night at the eastern bloc-housed, Chris Bell-spun, Queerty-loved, Svdeka-soaked weekly party. Check out some pictures over at Twerking and plan your pose for next week. Same gay place. Same gay Good Times.

• Keith Olbermann names voter/gay scandal-ridden political, North Carolina Representative Patrick McHenry "worst person in the world".

• Trans activists in Massachusetts are pushing for a bill to lift their 100% natural rights. (Get it?)

• Fred Phelps and his rootin' tootin' Westboro Baptists are gearing up to protest Reverend Jerry Falwell's funeral. From GodhatesAmerica.com:

WBC will preach at the memorial service of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone'.

The nerve!

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Jerry Falwell helped make Tinky Winky a star, albeit in the worst possible way. In a 1999 National Liberty Journal article, the late Reverend Falwell, who died by hexing earlier this week, shocked the world by outing Tinky Winky.

The world went wild, thrusting Tinky Winky into the spotlight brighter than anything he'd ever known and alienating him from the other Teletubbies. Nothing would ever be the same. Years on and healing Tinky Winky describes finally chats with King Kaufman about his harrowing journey:

It was traumatizing, really. I'm a very private Teletubby. I just wanted to get away, go over the hills and far away. But when you're 7 feet tall and purple with an antenna on your head and a TV screen in your belly, where are you going to go?

Where? Where, goddamn it!?! Where???

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• NewsBusters, the watch dog group dedicated to "exposing and combating liberal media bias", are taking aim at GLAAD the group released a statement in which president Neil Giuliano "urges" the media to commemorate Falwell as a homo-hating monster:

As they look back on the life of the Rev. Falwell, media have an opportunity and a responsibility to reflect on the outdated, hurtful attitudes and beliefs he embodied…

It's an important opportunity to take stock of how far our nation has come in moving toward a more respectful and inclusive society, and how far we still have to go.

Newsbusters go on to accuse CNN of buying into the Falwell bashing:

On Anderson Cooper 360, CNN correspondent Randi Kaye, who raised eyebrows in December for a story worrying about Saddam suffering when he hanged, shared no comparable horror at the death of Falwell. Her transcript read like a commercial for GLAAD… Anchor Anderson Cooper titled his segments "Faith and Fury," and fury was certainly in heavy rotation on CNN.

If only Evangelical revisionists were in charge of the media…

• America's Next Top Model's (Ms.) J Alexander warns touchy-feely fans to back off: "I knocked a lot of people in the nose and knocked a lot of people in the head and knocked a lot of people in the chest for grabbing up on Miss Jay."

• California-based gay activist Larry Sprenger has died. Sprenger's work with the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles helped close bath houses to stop the spread of AIDS.

• CBS' Kiddie Nation proves that reality television really is for children.

• St. Petersburg Pride banned! The city's just too dang busy, you see?

• Wanna see some cute boys? Sure ya do! Especially when they're fine ass D&G models posing in their undies…

• Just so you know, Antarctica's still melting.

As of this writing, there are 1,928 news articles on Reverend Jerry Falwell's death. No surprise there - the Evangelical changed the course of American politics. His Moral Majority helped lead the Christian right into office, his sermons regularly pushed anti-gay agenda and the abortion debate drips in his righteous venom.

On the other hand, however, he gave millions of people hope, founded a university dedicated to educating his followers and donated to charity. Falwell's politics may have been evil, but as Al Sharpton remarked last night on Larry King Live, Falwell had some good in his heart, however misguided. Needless to say, the reactions to his death have been mixed.

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