The Queen of England loves to plan ahead. Her highness and her staff are reportedly working on a legally-minded speech scheduled for November. And, in a show of progressive politics, the royal team's putting gay pressure on Parliament:

A new equality bill seeking to actively promote equality for lesbian, bisexual and gay people will be formally announced in November's Queen's speech.

Early next year it will go through parliament and should become law by the summer of 2009.

The bill is intended to be an extension of the current duty on public authorities to actively promote equality into services like fostering, magistrates courts and health clinics, to make their services more accessible to lesbian, bisexual and gay people.

The bill will also tighten exemptions of current non-discrimination laws in areas surrounding religion and employment.

Now, if only they could do something about the UK's crazy asylum policies.

Those old queens sure can throw barbs. Homo historian David Starkey hypothesizes that Elizabeth II doesn't care about her predecessors because she's under educated.

He recounted [in the Guardian] an occasion where he showed Her Majesty around an exhibition he had curated about Elizabeth I at the National Maritime Museum in 2003, where he found her more-preoccupied with the late arrival of a her drink, a gin and Dubonnet than the works of art on display. He claims that her only comment was that one of the objects belonged to her

Dr Starkey said that reminded him of "a housewife" who had been left some possessions: "She'd looked after them, she'd put in place much better arrangements for their care, but again - I suppose it's this absence of any kind of, to be blunt, serious education."

Elizabeth also reportedly rebuffs comparisons between her and Elizabeth I who "was blessed with neither husband nor children, who ruled as a despot and was never able to leave her native shores.'" Perhaps Starkey didn't mean "absence of serious education," but rather meant "serious ambition".

Kathy Griffin took a little time out from her Life on the D-List duties to chat with professional curmudgeon Larry King.

In addition to to discussing who's on the A-list - Queen Elizabeth, President Clinton - Griffin declares her undying love for Anderson Cooper: "I'm in love with you Anderson Cooper. Hold me, touch me inappropriately, Anderson Cooper. Come to my home tonight and love me." Cooper, of course, loved it. King? Not so amused.

Thanks virtual matter for the link!

What else do you do when you've just accidentally said Queen Elizabeth's birth predates that of the country you stole?
Blundering Bush makes ANOTHER gaffe as he winks at the Queen [Daily Mail]

Join with Queerty as we pay homage to Quentin Crisp, who six years ago this week was called by the Lord but opted for hell because he heard the devil had a big one and was poking bottoms with a pitchfork while using it. Quentin Crisp was born queer in England on Christmas Day, 1908. Her Majesty the Queen avoided all comparison with him, knowing her quips and her hairstyles were inferior.

In his twenties, he determined to live "not merely as a self-confessed homosexual, but a self-evident one." Part and parcel of his mission was "making the existence of homosexuality abundantly clear to the world's aborigines". Quintin’s magnum opus was his life, though his autobiography was none too shabby. Titled The Naked Civil Servant, it was adapted for a television film starring John Hurt in 1975.

He later developed that material into a one-man show, An Evening With Quintin Crisp. As in his earlier days he had worked as a prostitute, there was no small number of people claiming to have enjoyed An Evening With Quintin Crisp. One of his most famous quotes would eliminate the need for relationship advice columns, were it to be universally heeded. “The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.” Upon his death, Quintin Crisp was cremated and his ashes were scattered over Manhattan.

Named Reginald Kenneth Dwight at birth, Elton John was dubbed “Sharon,” by Rod Stewart. Elton reciprocated by naming Rod “Phyllis.” Queerty of course wishes for Sharon and Phyllis to be the happiest girls in the panties shoppe.

You might have thought you learned everything worth knowing about Elton John when he was associate producer of The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. But then you realized there was a lot left to learn about him when he was the executive producer for Women Talking Dirty. What’s left to reveal could come in John’s 2006’s flick It’s a Boy Girl Thing.

Or it could come in a sitcom. ABC has approved the showing of a pilot for a mirth and girth fest based on Sharon’s real life as an aging rocker, tentatively titled Him and Us. We just hope that in the episode that shows Elton being knighted, celebrity guest Queen Elizabeth II gets the hot camera angles she deserves.