Barack Obama's probably feeling pretty confident right now - he's won the last eleven primaries, has eaten into Hillary Clinton's base and keeps climbing in national numbers. It seems the Senator's just two states away from clinching the Democratic presidential nomination. If he wins in Texas and Ohio on Tuesday - well, even Bill admits that Hillary's campaign's not going to make it.

One can't get lazy, of course, which may explain why he's now placing the above "generic" LGBT ad in gay newspapers in Ohio and Texas. Oh yeah, Obama's definitely stamping on Clinton's queer territory. It's a crazy strategy, yes, and may just push Obama over the edge…

CONTINUED »

Barack Obama's in it to win it. The Democratic presidential candidate has snatched up ads in some Ohio and Texas' gay weeklies. From The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld:

The Obama campaign is lavishing some of its cash advantage on the LGBT community with targeted ad buys in Ohio and Texas leading up to the critical March 4th primaries in both states (Rhode Island and Vermont also vote that day). According to Obama LGBT Steering Committee member Eric Stern, the campaign has just completed an ad buy with queer newspapers in the four largest LGBT markets of those two states — Columbus, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston.

Full page ads will appear starting this Friday in Outlook Weekly of Columbus, the Gay People's Chronicle of Cleveland, the Dallas Voice, and OutSmart, which is Houston based. Buying a full-page, four-color ad that appears one time typically costs anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 in weekly publications. In the Gay People's Chronicle, for instance, the ad cost about $850 according to the paper's advertising manager; the same ad went for about $1500 in the Dallas Voice.

Stern called the coordinated buy "the icing on the cake" in terms of the Obama camp's outreach to the gay community in Ohio and Texas. "It's a direct appeal to LGBT voters asking for their support," he said…

Obama's obviously trying to cut into Hillary Clinton's last secure base: the gays, who have consistently backed the famously gay-friendly former First Lady.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had what may be their final debate last night…

CONTINUED »

News travels slow in Ohio. Connie of the eponymous ConnieTalk posted a little something something today in which she explains that "Failed actor" and TMZ honcho Harvey Levin likes penis. Shocking, right? Especially after that TMZ commenter went off about old lavender Levin.

Ms. Connie doesn't say anything particular interesting, but she did throw together the above image, which, we imagine, she takes to be a visual indicator of Levin's poofter ways.

Poor Connie obviously has a dearth of gays in her life, so we'd like to offer her one creative suggestion: if that picture's meant to highlight Harvey's homosexuality, we suggest you turn him about 90 degrees.

James D. Piergies learned the hard way that gay-baiting doesn't pay. The Ohio politico hoped to beat openly lesbianic judge Mary Wiseman for their county's appeal bench. Piergies may have been a bit overzealous, however, because he and his campaign team decided to question Wiseman's judicial ethics.

Her homosexuality, said Piergies, may impair her objectivity with cases pertaining to gay marriage. Thus, she should remove herself from such cases. The implication, of course, isn't only that Wiseman's same-sex loving would influence her decision making, but also makes her an inherently flawed candidate. No one wants a potentially part time judge, right?

Voters didn't buy Piergies' bullshit, however. In fact, the scheme ended up biting him in the ass as legal types and newspapers came out for Wiseman:

“If people of good will are going to stand by when this sort of thinly-veiled bigotry is thrown out and traded upon, then where are we?” attorney Steven Dankof Sr. told the Daily News.

Dankof accused Piergies of violating the canons of judicial conduct, and of raising Wiseman’s sexuality “in the hope that homophobia would rear its ugly head and propel you to elected office.”

Dayton Bar Association president Michael Krumholtz wrote in a letter to the Daily News: “All judges take a solemn oath to follow the dictates of the law in the observance of their judicial duties and to refrain from making decisions based on their personal background, religious beliefs, political viewpoint or lifestyle.”

“For our judiciary, this is their most sacred promise. It is the commitment that their decisions will be based on legal principles as opposed to personal choice,” Krumholtz wrote.

Two days later on January 22, the Daily News endorsed Wiseman…

Piergies dropped out of the race on January 23, telling voters, "This campaign has taken on a tone never intended by me and therefore I believe it is in the best interest of everyone for me to withdraw." Well, actually you did for the campaign to take that tone, Piergies. You just didn't think it would fall so flat.

An Ohioan Democrat doesn't seem to understand that justice is blind. Judge James D. Piergies questions whether his queer colleague Mary Wiseman's lesbianism will tip the scales.

Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Wiseman, who is openly gay, should excuse herself from cases involving the state constitutional ban on gay marriage and Dayton's new law banning discrimination against gays, her Democratic primary opponent says.

Montgomery County Area Court Judge James D. Piergies cited Wiseman's role in writing an earlier, failed version of the anti-discrimination law when she was a Dayton city commissioner in 1999. He said it would create an ethical problem as well if she were to consider cases involving the Ohio constitutional amendment that passed in 2004.

Wiseman shrugged of Piergies' suspicions, saying that if personal characteristics influenced one's decision, then Thurgood Marshall should never have presided over civil rights cases.

We're kind of in love with this man: Dave Muskera. From what we gather, the Ohio-based former counselor married a woman, had two children, divorced said woman and has now set up shot with his "life partner," John. In addition to being a great example of queer courage - coming out post-marriage in Ohio can't be easy - Muskera wrote an adorable critique of the right wing's rhetorical "gay lifestyle":

If I read or hear the words “the gay lifestyle” one more time, I’m going to chew nails, or yell like a summa wrestler whose butt’s been kicked. I’m fed up with this phrase and the people who use it… It’s really a meaningless, worse yet, a misleading term. But somehow, the fundamentalist far-right religious camp has actually managed for years to successfully use this phrase in very negative ways to bash homosexuals.
…
Sometimes, when I see videos of the supposed gay lifestyle, I wonder if [I'm] missing out on something. I wonder if sometime in the near future, the doorbell will ring and I will open it to men in black (tights of course) – sent by the local gay agenda group to yank my gay male credentials because I haven’t been depraved enough.

Eeks! What happens if someone takes your gay credentials? Would you instantly become straight or do you get to ween yourself off the same-sex? Can you imagine the withdrawal?! Also, we think we misplaced our gay credentials. Where does one usually keep such things? (Don't answer that.)

There's could be new day dawning in Toledo, Ohio.

Democratic councilman Joe McNamara has introduced legislation for a domestic partnership registry, thus giving gay couples the option of filing for employer benefits. While some balk at the idea of queer inclusion, McNamara insists it's for the good of the city's coffers:

This is a creative-class-driven issue. Studies have shown a community that's accepting is more attractive to the creative class. Something like this helps Toledo's reputation, whether or not it's used.

Equality Toledo honcho David Mann agrees, "[It]will cost the city of Toledo nothing [and] will provide real benefit for those families and an opportunity to have their relationship recognized".

Toledo's city council will hold a meeting Friday to discuss McNamara's proposal. Hopefully greed will overcome any homophobia council folk may harbor…

America's first out orthodox rabbi hit the nail on the holy head this weekend in Ohio. Speaking at Ohio State University's St. Stephen's Episcopal Church yesterday, Rabbi Steven Greenberg told the congregation that they should not take the Bible as "God's word". Rather, it's up to everyone to interpret the good book for themselves:

[Greenberg] wasn't saying that the Bible is not the revealed word of God. But according to Jewish tradition, he said, God gave that word to man and entrusted him to decipher it.

"No one can say, 'It says in the Scripture,' to ground any policy," Greenberg said. "All we can say is, 'My community says this.' "

After his sermon, he said it's important for people who use the Bible to support their agendas to claim personal responsibility for their interpretation.

"God has not hidden a single divine intent in any verse that my rabbi or your pastor understands," he said. "Instead, there are many meanings, and it is our job to figure out what they mean to our community."

Damn right!

• Gay paper Outlook refuses to endorse Republican queer Bill Brownson. Says co-publisher Michael Daniels:

We started the process, as the queer newspaper, hoping we could endorse the queer candidate. But we were not going to endorse someone based purely on their sexual orientation.

They will, however, endorse every Democrat in the district. Hmmm…

• Mitt Romney endorsed by anti-gay Bob Jones University.

• The outs and outs of Oprah's gay show.

CONTINUED »

There's a Grand Old War brewing in Cincinnati, where Judge Robert Ruehlman just sentenced two women for election falsification. The women in question were working for the Equal Rights, Not Special Rights campaign, which hoped to boot gay non-discrimination from the state's law books.

As part of their plot, the women forged a number of signatures, including "Fidel Castro". Those bitches be dum -

CONTINUED »

Ohio-based "Christian" coalition Minutemen United don't know the meaning of "fellowship". The group has hijacked a number of "gay-friendly" congregations in recent weeks, taking over other pastor's pulpits to decry the sin of homosexuality.

The Biblical brouhaha started when Granville's First Baptist Church hosted the Love Makes a Family exhibition. The controversial show features pictures of happy homo-families: families the Minutemen must considered damned. Of course, they cloak their anti-gay activism in a shroud of "love".

Says one Minuteman, Max Erwin Sr, "What I do is not about hate; it's everything to do with love. Homosexuality is a sin."

CONTINUED »

Some Ohioan haters have it out for Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, one of the two Democratic presidential candidates who support full gay marriage.

Hours after Kucinich spread the love at last week's gay forum, a vandal or vandals threw a rock through Kucinich's Cleveland campaign HQ.

Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign office on Lorain Avenue in Cleveland was vandalized early this morning after the congressman appeared with other Democratic candidates on a nationally televised forum on gay rights.

Kucinich spokesman Andy Juniewicz said an unknown object was thrown through a plate glass window sometime after 12:30 a.m., when campaign staffers closed down the office. Juniewicz did not have a dollar estimate of the damage, and said he didn't know whether it was connected with Kucinich's appearance at the forum sponsored by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign.

"We will leave it to the Cleveland Police Department to investigate and see what they come up with," Juniewicz said.

We wish we were there to give you a big hug, Denny. We'd offer to help with the mess, but we're not very good with a broom.

We'll totally roll up a doobie for you, though, you adorable pot supporting, gay loving politico, you.

No doubt the Democratic presidential hopefuls are taking a big step by participating tonight's gay forum, but will it take a big bite out of their voting base?

CONTINUED »