Birmingham mayor Larry Langford's hoping to get off easy.

Gay group Alabama Pride filed a discrimination lawsuit against Langford this summer after Langford refused to allow city workers to hang supportive signs on city property, despite the fact that sports and other non-controversial groups can display themselves on similar structures.

Langford has also said he cannot endorse the lavender "lifestyle."

Despite his clearly discriminatory ideals, Langford's hoping a federal judge will toss out the suit…

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We're usually big fans of queens, but Spain's Queen Sofia's definitely an exception.

The seventy-year old monarch lets her anti-gay attitude show in a new biography, The Queen Up Close. For her first round of homo-centric conservative spew, Queen Sofia takes on gay pride, which she says doesn't deserve much space in the public sphere:

I can understand, accept and respect that there are people of other sexual tendencies, but should they be proud to be gay? Should they ride on a parade float and come out in protests? If all of those of us who aren't gay came out to protest we would halt traffic.

Later, while discussing gay marriage, Sofia offers this semantic opposition:

If those people want to live together, dress up like bride and groom and marry, they could have a right to do so, or not, depending on the law of their country, but they should not call this matrimony, because it isn't. There are many possible names: social contract, social union.

Yes, yes there are many names, but none are quite the same as marriage. Perhaps the errors of "separate, but equal" don't translate to Spanish, or something…

As a member of the European Union, Lithuania's meant to treat all its citizens with respect. Unfortunately, the nation's leaders don't always agree and have on more than one occassion found themselves embroiled in gay scandal. Take, for example, the capital city Vilnius mayor's repeated prohibition of gay pride. Or how about when they banned the European Union's gay bus from parking on government property? That was some bullshit, for sure.

Sick and tired of representing a homophobic country, Lithuanian foreign minister Petras Vaitiekunas spoke out against his nation's anti-gay ways this week:

…Vaitiekunas told the national parliament Monday that the country's reputation for homophobia was justified. "This is true: Lithuania is one of the most homophobic countries in the EU. This has to be viewed as a fact," Vaitiekunas said.
…
"The situation cannot be changed by any one party or minister," Vaitiekunas said, adding that it would likely take a "change of generations" to develop a more tolerant attitude toward homosexuality in Lithuania.

Or perhaps more people like Vaitiekunas. Or, dare we say, more involvement from the European Union, which should really be holding its members accountable for their actions.

Some go-getter guppies launched a war of words this weekend on Manchester Gay Pride, which charges an admission fee for their "gay village." Organizers were none-too-pleased:

A small group of gay youngsters incurred the wrath of Manchester Gay Pride Festival organisers with a number of placards and t-shirts that read Pride Before Profit and Pride Is a Protest.

Minutes before the march moved off from Liverpool Street, Festival director Jackie Crozier went up to David Henry of the Queer Youth Network.

“What is on that,” she asked, pointing to a placard lying face down on the street.

Mr. Henry turned the placard over, revealing the message Pride Before Profit.

“Give me that sign,” she demanded. “We told you that we don’t want that kind of thing here.”

What's that line about the oppressed becoming the oppressors?

Russian-Israeli businessman Arcadi Gaydamak doesn't mince words when it comes to the gays.

Gaydamak, who hopes to be Jerusalem's next mayor, said Monday that he'd rather die than allow another gay pride in the holy city:

When I'm elected mayor, I would die before allowing the pride parade to be held in Jerusalem. They want to be proud? They're allowed to. They want to demonstrate? Fine. But the streets of Jerusalem are a symbol, and parading on them would be an aggressive act against our tradition, against our values and against our morale. I would lie on the ground in order to block the march and would even die before I approve the pride parade in the city.

Gaydamak also criticized current Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski for allowing pride in exchange for "political gain."