Could a genetically selected bone marrow transplant have cured an American living in Berlin of AIDS? Dr. Gero Huetter of Berlin's Charite Hospital says that 20 months later, his patient no longer shows signs of carrying the virus.

"Huetter's patient was under treatment at Charite for both AIDS and leukemia, which developed unrelated to HIV.

As Huetter - who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist - prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway.

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Hoping to etch a safe space for their neighborhood gays, a German construction company decided to erect a massive apartment complex specifically for the lavender set.

Villa Anders in Ehrenfeld in Cologne features 70 flats, which all but 15 have been snapped up by gay people who plan to move in by the end of 2009.

Organizers the Gay and Lesbian Living Association said the project, which receives some public money, will be self-financing.

Resident Jens Lidy told the Guardian: “As a gay person, I’ve spent my life playing a sort of hiding game, making sure the neighbors didn’t know I was gay, because I never knew how they would react.

“I leapt at the chance to move to Villa Anders, because I feel I can finally be myself among people who have had a similar experience.”

Remember how Melrose Place began as a relatively feel good show and devolved into camp mania? Yeah, that's what we envision - only hopefully without Dr. Kimberly Shaw and her bomb-loving madness.

An estimated 200,000 people appeared to hear Senator Barack Obama speak in Berlin today.

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Anti-gay reggae takes another hit today.

Hearing some hate among Elephant Man and T.K.O's lyrics, the German government may put their albums on its Index of Harmful Materials. Though not a ban, the move would "limit" the artists' marketing range. Via Deutsche Welle:

The index includes items such as media which glorify war and violence and are intended to induce hate.

Volker Beck, the leader of the Green Party parliamentary group, called on large Internet music sellers to already begin removing the CDs in question from their sales inventory.

"Those in Jamaica who invoke hatred should not earn money with their music in Germany," he said on Thursday in Berlin.

Word.

The European Commission didn't even put up a fight!

Fearing opposition from conservative member states, such as Germany, the legislative body scrapped plans to draw up gay inclusive employment discrimination laws. A representative from the group's employment arm remarked:

…We need to be realistic, and we have signals from some member states that they would not support such a horizontal directive and this, of course, is a problem because we need unanimity in council to get the proposal through.

Gay rights have been a big obstacle for European unity. For example, Poland's Senate recently passed its European Union charter sans gay rights, a staple of Union membership.

The Commission will now focus its energies on passing legislation to protect people with disabilities. Hopefully no one will object to that one.

Anti-gay singer Bounty Killer probably wants to kill some gays right about now. Like Beanie Man and Buju Banton before him, Killer's concerts have been felled by the fagalas. From the ever-ready Peter Tatchell's celebratory press release:

Bounty Killer, has had two of his three UK concerts canceled in the last week, following a campaign by the gay human rights group OutRage!

His concerts in Bradford and Birmingham were axed, losing him thousands of pounds in performance fees.

In Germany, Bounty Killer's performance in Essen was canceled and other German concert dates are now in doubt.

The Outrage! campaign extends all over Europe, including France and Belgium.

Bounty Killer previously boasted that the gays would be no match for him. He obviously underestimated the lavender set's determination.

One of the British clubs, however, claim the Outrage! protest had nothing to do with the concerts' cancellations, but because Killer missed his flight from Jamaica. They're now trying to reschedule the contentious event.

Berlin's gay Muslim immigrants are coming out ever so slightly - and silently:

European Muslims, so often portrayed one-dimensionally as rioters, honor killers or terrorists, live diverse lives, most of them trying to get by and to have a good time. That is more difficult if one is both Muslim and gay.
…
Safety and secrecy come up regularly when talking to guests, who laugh and dance, but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.

“Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I’m a foreigner and in the other because I’m a queen,” said Fatma Souad (pictured).

Souad has been hosting a monthly club night called Gayhane, where dozens of gay Muslims find space to express themselves and, of course, dance.

German opera lovers weren't loving the gay twist director Krzysztof Warlikowski amplified in Pyotr Tchaikovsky's classic, Eugene Onegin.

Gay cowboys and drag queens doing erotic dances find their way into Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" in Munich. The Polish stage director, Krzysztof Warlikowski, turns this classic romance into a gay love triangle, and was roundly booed for his efforts at the premiere.
…
Warlikowski pushes the composer's own tormented homosexuality into the foreground and queers the pitch for his characters.

The real relationship in this production is between Lensky and Onegin. The duel scene finds them in bed together, with what looks like the cast of Brokeback Mountain lurking at the back of the stage (a motel room and petrol station clearly visible — sets and costumes from Malgorzata Szczesniak)… An exploration of the two men's relationship is legitimate, since it is one of the opera's deepest and certainly its most tragic. With more subtlety and professionalism, it might have worked.

Everyone's a critic!