Hundreds of Sacramento-area students rallied to support four students suspended for wearing anti-gay shirts. One participant said: "It's only going to get worse against Christians. We're going to get persecuted more and more. But those who stand to the end: God is going to save them." Um, right...
Sony's banking on Spider Man 3. Literally. Some insiders claim the flick cost $300 million to produce. No doubt, however, it'll make it back. And then some.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission will honor Nepal's Blue Diamond Society for all their hard activist work. Unfortunately, they will not be honored with actual blue diamonds.
We've never quite understood Kate Moss and Pete Doherty's relationship. Now we do. And they're kind of cute. Still total nutters, but cute...
The fuzz may have been investigating theft at Atlanta's airport, but they found a bunch of horny gay men, instead. Now they're looking for more.
Regional lawyers have ruled that Latvia's City Council acted unjustly in barring last year's gay pride parade. Hoorah!
Maryland's House has passed a bill requiring health insurance companies to extend benefits to same-sex partners and children. The bill now needs to be signed by the governor to become a law. (We totally just had a School House Rock flashback.)
GLAAD's celebrating the tenth anniversary of Ellen Degeneres' coming out with a month full of flag-waving faggotry.
Sri Lanka may forbid homosexuality, but that's not stopping gay activists from planning a pride event. Trouble is, they don't have any money. Do you?
In an effort to make a more single friendly album, Madonna has joined forces with Justin Timberlake and uber-producer Timbaland. If they can't help her sales, no one can...
The House Judiciary Committee isn't fucking around with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. They've just issued a subpoena for more documents regarding the allegedly illegal firing of federal prosecutors. Nail him to the wall, kids!
New York has agreed to extend benefits to employee's same-sex partners. About fucking time, no?
Mario Vasquez still claims he's not gay. But, of course, the interview took place before that whole sexual harassment lawsuit, so who knows...
Don Imus may have called them "nappy-headed hos", but the Rutgers Women's basketball team has agreed to have a little sit-down. We hope they give it to him good.
Robbie Williams may have ditched Take That! to embrace his bad boy image, but some are saying the recently rehabbed singer's mulling a musical reunion. Um, is that supposed to be a career booster or a death rattle?
21-year old Akino George has been sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the beating of gay singer, Kevin Aviance. Like his violent cohorts, George copped a plea. Smart fucker...
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When searching the internet for pictures of ourselves travel tips for our upcoming voyage across this great land, we stumbled upon the most interesting bit of information: the Polari, gay slang words and their origins. Did you know where the term "camp" came from? We never did. And we think about these things.
Polari--much like a "gay Ebonics," if you will--is the underground language created amongst London's "Confirmed Bachelor" set, circa the late 1800's, as the boys mixed with the gypsies, tramps and theives in search of a naughty good time. They picked up words here and there from the various languages around them, put a gay spin on it all, and formed their own method of speech; as the Industrial Revolution drove men into crowded all-male boarding houses to search for work in the cities, Polari became a handy method of discussing "sensitive" issues without their heterosexual counterparts ever knowing any better. And it made things so much easier, when discussing which of the straight men in the room had a nice dish.
Polari finally entered mainstream slang by the 1950's, and so much of what we use today can be traced back--take a gander:
Camp: derived from "kamp," or "Known As Male Prostitute"; effemeniteBasket: bulge in a man's pants
Trade: person offering sex, who is not gay-identified
Drag: women's clothes
Chicken: young boy
Zhoosh:to style (think Carson Kressley's "zhooshing" on Queer Eye)
We had no idea where the words "camp" and "trade" came from, and we're thrilled to learn a bit of our own culture. Gay people aren't connected by bloodlines, and many don't consider their own history.
You'll see many of the Polari words popping up around Queerty now and then. If Madonna can become British overnight, then so can we. Read up, learn the words--and the next time someone asks you to "check the color of Colin's eyes," you won't need to ask who Colin is. And you certainly won't look up at his face.
Polari: A Language of the United Kingdom [Ethnologue]
A History Of Polari and Glossary [frij]
Lexicon of Polari [Prestel]
For a list of our favorite Polari gay slang, read here:
[Read On ...]
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