Pure, simple and ugly. [MG]

In their quest to bring back the base, should the Republicans embrace gay marriage? [HuffPo]

Should God be blamed for Proposition 8's passage? [San Francisco Chronicle]

"Pop star Madonna said it was a shame the United States could put a black man in the White House but not allow same-sex marriage… 'If we can elect an African-American as president, we can support gay marriage! Defeat Prop 8! We will not give up!.'" [AFP]

Will Smith, who may or may not have hired male whores, really wants women to respect him. [Defamer]

Silverton, Oregon made a bit of history this week by electing the nation's first trans mayor, Stu Rasmussen. Says Rasmussen of his queer ways: "I identify mostly as a heterosexual male," Rasmussen said. "But I just like to look like a female. Some guys' mid-life crisis is motorcycles or sports cars or climbing mountains or trophy wives or whatever. I always wanted cleavage, so I went out and acquired some." Again, awesome. [KGW]

"Leonor and Armando Garzon, who came to Queens from Bogota in 2001 to be at the bedside of their son Edgar in the days before he died from a gay-bashing in Jackson Heights, have passed their citizenship exam and become naturalized citizens. They worked for seven years to see to it that the perpetrators of the murder of their son were brought to justice and, on October 17, John McGhee was sentenced to 22 years for that crime." [GCN]

"In spite of what seems to be sweeping approval for a progressive agenda, Latino support of Prop. 8 has exposed an entrenched bias against homosexuality at once profound and confounding… Yet even as civil rights in America have come so far, Latinos still suffer keenly under the heel of oppression… The irony of Latino support for Prop. 8 is sad. That a community that continues to struggle for basic rights would deny them to another is particularly baffling. A marginalized minority — Latinos — voting to take away the rights of another marginalized group — gays and lesbians — is like the kid who's picked on in the third grade and only makes some headway when a punier kid comes along to take the punches instead." [CNN]

"After a constitutional amendment banning gay adoption passed easily in Arkansas on Tuesday, Nov. 4, the leader of Texas’ statewide LGBT equality group said he fears a similar proposal here in 2009." [Dallas Voice]

"Rural and evangelical voters propelled Arkansas to adopt one of the nation's few bans against unmarried couples becoming foster or adoptive parents." [POQ]

Gay media mogul David Geffen called Barack Obama after his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech and said, "You're going to run for president and I'm going to support you." Obama balked at the time, but finally agreed two years later. The gays can be very persuasive. [LA Times]

Canadian journalist Barbara Kay, who is white, argues that black people shouldn't feel bad about opposing gay marriage because anti-gay "discrimination" isn't discrimination at all: "In the collective black memory, "discrimination" meant a white man could prevent a black man from marrying altogether, or sell a black man's wife and children. Beside the true discrimination blacks have suffered, the lack of a symbolic piece of paper in an otherwise unencumbered life is as insulting as moaning and groaning about your sniffles to a cancer survivor." [National Post]