• We're not sure what's funnier - the fact that a bird took a shit on President Bush or that ABC News actually used the word "poop".

• HX Media's Boston rag, In Newsweekly., found itself in the papers this week when associate publisher Bill Berggren's criminal past came back to haunt him. It seems Berggren has been arrested for a number of incidents and some questioned his role as leader for Boston's Pride Committee. Rather than cause a stink, Berggren stepped down voluntarily. And Berggren ain't the only one on Innews' stepping down. From Boston's Weekly Dig:

In the last few weeks, their masthead has gotten a lot lighter in its loafers—editor James Lopata has left the building, as have distributor Thomas Kilduff and associate editor Alexander Sliwinski... We hear grumbling in the streets, too, that their freelancers haven’t been paid in eons.

• You know what would help the African continent's millions of AIDS patients? Doctors. Too bad there's a shortage.

• Jenny Bailey can now call herself the United Kingdom's first trannie mayor, thus crushing our life long dreams...

• South African hooker outs celebrities, media refuses to pass names along.

• Mitt Romney doesn't hate gays:

I oppose discrimination against gay people. I am not anti-gay. I know there are some Republicans, or some people in the country who are looking for someone who is anti-gay and that’s not me.

Former Massachusetts govenor Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants you to know that he's the toughest, hardest, most prickalicious presidential candidate out there. Or so this new campaign commercial promises - minus the "prickalicious" part, although such a word suits both this advert's tone and the man himself.

(Thanks, Bloggernista!)

Cassandra Ormiston and Margaret Chambers' impending divorce takes center stage again this week, as the Rhode Island Supreme Court has ruled that a family court can hear the queer couple's case. The once-loving ladies married in Massachusetts in 2004, during the brief months before former Governor Mitt Romney helped pass a law invalidating out-of-stater's same-sex nuptials.

Unfortunately, the ladies called it quits after heading back to their home state and filed for divorce. A family court judge, the brilliantly named Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr, couldn't take the backdoor judicial pressure and passed the case on to the Supreme Court.

The Court originally sent the case back to JSJ Jr., but has now agreed to hear the case only to answer this pressing question:

May the Family Court properly recognize, for the purpose of entertaining a divorce petition, the marriage of two persons of the same sex who were purportedly married in another state?

R.I. court to rule on same-sex marriage [The Providence Journal]

The confusing case of gay marriage gets even more queer today. And, like so many marriage dramas, this story begins in Massachusetts.

As you know, Massachusetts passed gay marriages back in 2004. Not one for so-called sinners, then-Governor Mitt Romney reminded lawmakers of a 1913 law which prohibited out-of-state visitors from marrying in Massachusetts. Unless, of course, their state would honor the marriage.

While some law-types fell into line, Judge Thomas E. Connolly ruled in favor of a contesting couple, saying that if a state doesn't explicitly bar gay marriage, then a couple's nuptials are legal.

One of the pair hails from New York, which is where things get really interesting...

CONTINUED »

• From Chris Rico's new anti-gay basher site Try Love, Not Hate:

I was choking on blood face down on the ground before I even realized what was happening to me. As I struggled to crawl to my feet, I was greeted by thunderous kicks to my ribs and my temple and the venomous and inconceivable cry, “die fucking faggot.”

• Sotheby's has already raked in $280 million since January. Starving artist indeed.

• The "Get a Divorce" billboard got dumped.

• Gay meanie Steven Green remains in critical condition after getting hit by a car while walking to his Rolls Royce. Poor thing.

• Never, ever forget that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used to pose naked for Robert Mapplethorpe.

• Al Sharpton versus Mitt Romney: may the biggest dickwad win, ride off into the sunset, take the loser and never be seen again. What a wonderful world that would be...

• Lance Bass got a job! As an intern! (That's what he gets for believing in Joey Fatone.)

• We know you guys love Junior Boys, so here's the new, official video for their track, "In The Morning". Because, you know, we love you...

• Michelle Rodriguez is not gay. But her girlfriend Kristanna Loken is...

• Mitt Romney and Pat Robertson sitting in a tree C-O-M-M-E-N-C-I-N-G.

• Tony Perkins is a fraud (duh).

• Thank God Jay-Z's black. Otherwise he'd be dead.

• Gay sauna in Australia to get schooled?

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has made it his mission to take on Mitt Romney's homo-hating marriage laws. The Democrat ordered the court to validate 26 out-of-state gay marriages, thus reversing Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's dastardly plot to deny the committed queers' dreams.

Romney and his conservative comrades previously used a 1913 law to forbid out-of-staters from taking advantage of the Bay State's gay marriage laws. That law states that if one's home state explicitly bans gay marriage, Massachusetts cannot issue them a valid license. However, a group of revolutionary reverends, pastors and the such pastors ignored his ruling and issued at least 26 allegedly invalid marriage licenses. Now, Patrick wants them officially officiated. Patrick's spokesman Kyle Sullivan remarks:

It appears like the prior administration was politicizing a routine administrative function. There was no legal basis for separating these certificates in the first place.

Patrick orders 26 gay marriages recorded [Boston Globe]

Your dreams of owning a piece of Ted Haggard may be over. Mike Jones put the massage table where he worked over the disgraced Evangelical minister up for auction to raise money Project Angel Heart - an organization that brings food to people with HIV/AIDS.

To make sure the site had no problems with his actions, Jones had a pre-posting conversation with a representative, got the go ahead and put it up for auction. Then, nine days later, eBay's pulled the infamous table.

A company representative claims they pulled it because it violated eBay's fund raising regulations, but Jones thinks there are more insidious powers at work.

CONTINUED »

• Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney says he supports General Peter Pace, insisting: "I think people are entitled to believe what they want to believe, but what they say in their official and secular roles should be an expression of tolerance and respect for people regardless of our differences". Wait, isn't this the same man who participated in FRC's "Liberty Sunday"? Just checking. The former Massachusetts governor went on to remark on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': "When I first heard (of DADT), I thought it sounded silly and I just dismissed it and said, well, that can't possibly work. Well, I sure was wrong. It has worked". Did it? Or do we you just think it worked because you never saw what an openly gay person could do in the army? [San Francisco Chronicle]

• Garrison Keillor issued a response to the gag-a-rific uproar over his Salon article. [Public Radio]

• Indian trannie beauty queens! [DNA India]

• J-Hud's no diva. You better recognize, bitch. [TMZ]

• Counter-intuitive? A group of British gay activists are protesting anti-gay laws by going back in the closet. Yeah, that's right - they're going in the closet to show solidarity with people who can't be out of the closet. That's like going on a hunger strike to show solidarity with people who have solidarity or refusing to shower for people who don't have clean drinking water. [UK Gay News]

• HRC launches fresh campaign to fight hate crimes. [HRC]

• A Florida jail will now require HIV tests for all inmates. [Sun-Herald]

• Coke makes you pretty! Soft drink giant Coca-Cola and health drink company Lumaé have announced plans for a "beauty tea" for "active and image-conscious". [Telegraph]

• Mohamed al Fayed - the billionaire whose son, Dodi, died with Princess Diana on that infamous Paris night - has filed a lawsuit against British policing. He insists that Diana's claims of a hit on her life should have been included in their extensive, exhausting and excessively publicized report. This case will outlive us all. Especially Dodi and Diana.[HuffPo]

Mitt Romney took a few swipes at his primary GOP presidential competitors. Of Rudy Giuliani, Romney maintained the former mayor of NYC doesn't have the conservative chops on gun control, abortion and gay marriage. It's this issue that forms the crux of his argument against John McCain - although, you wouldn't know it because he can't stop talking about himself.

Speaking to The Christian Broadcasting Network, the former Governor of Massachusetts said :

I don't think there's been a bigger defender of traditional marriage among the political world than me over these last several years than me. I fought for a federal amendment to the constitution to establish marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Senator McCain voted against that.

CONTINUED »

• Watching those Snickers commercials? No. Masterfoods yanked 'em, issuing the world's most flippant, indifferent statement in history: "We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive. Clearly that was not our intent. As with all of our Snickers advertising, our goal was to capture the attention of our core Snickers consumer."

• Heading to rehab after admitting to fucking you former campaign manager's wife? No, that's pretty much San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's territory. (What's up with everyone going to rehab. Party poopers.)

• Going to Best Week Ever's "The First (and Possibly Last) Annual ZARFCON 2007"? Only if you join them in DC for All My Children actor Jeffrey Carlson's performance in Hamlet.

• Being named Human Rights Campaign's new chief diversity officer? Only if your name's Cuc Vu. (And, yes, they work "the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization" into the first sentence".)

• Blaming your divorce from Nick Lachey on The Notebook? Yes. That is, if you're name's Jessica Simpson, who says, "I just figured out the statement." Yeah, that's how we read it, too.

• Barring The New York Times from your fashion show over a bad Cathy Horyn review? Only if you're Carolina Herrera. Well, she sure showed that bitch Cathy, now didn't she? Only if Horyn cares, which we doubt she does.

• Announcing your official presidential bid on February 13th? That's what Mitt Romney's reportedly doing. Happy fucking Valentine's.

Some homo-loving Connectiut lawmakers have proposed a bill that will allow gay people to marry. Appropriately, the bill will be introduced on February 14th.

The Boston Globe reports:

Two Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday that they will introduce a bill to allow gay marriage within the next two weeks.

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has vowed to veto such a bill, but Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, and Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairmen of the Judiciary Committee, said they plan to press ahead anyway.

Lawlor and McDonald said they plan to introduce their bill by Feb. 14, the deadline for new legislation.

In fact, the battle's already begun. Family Institute of Connecticut president Brian Brown got all haterific by convening a press conference urging lawmakers to hold a state-wide referendum on the matter. McDonald pointed out that state law doesn't allow such a tally, but opponent Lou DeLuca says he'll push for one once the matter reaches the Senate floor. Super!

(You kids may have noticed we erroneously reported that this was happening in Massachusetts. It's not. It's Connecticut. We blame sleep deprivation. Apologies)