There are new details into church shooter Matthew Murray's murderous motivation. Richard Rothstein passes on word that Murray's sexuality may have led to a split between him and his Christian community:

[Fox News] is now reporting that Matthew Murray, the deeply troubled young man who shot and killed himself and members of Ted Haggard's New Life Church and the church's Youth With A Mission program was gay.

In fact, he may be a victim of the church's ex-gay reparative therapy program. Having failed to find heterosexuality through Jesus it appears that Murray was booted out of the youth program and out of the church.
…
[Murray] wrote, "People like us are going to go to hell, according to Christians." He lists several reasons why. Reason number seven is bluntly stated, "I'm bisexual." In other postings, Murray wrote, "… I can never get a female date. I am at least able to get some male action."

And later, he wrote about confronting his mother about his bisexuality.

Murray wrote that he told her, "Using drugs, alcohol and having gay sex, I'm just trying to do what any Christian pastor would do. At least I'm not doing meth like Ted Haggard."

Rothstein worries whether this will increase the right wing's anti-gay ways, but hopes it will open people's eyes to the dangers of restrictive religion. We're praying for the latter…

The working girls and boys of this world may all fuck for money, but that doesn't mean they get the same respect - or disrespect.

In a thoughtful and timely post, former AOL blogger Richard Rothstein uses Republican hero Jeff Gannon as a jumping off point to examine the wild world of male prostitution:

The ubiquitous and profoundly influential role of the gay male prostitute in American culture is a subject that deserves much more scrutiny and consideration. It should pose many more questions and generate considerably more discussion in the mainstream media and among pundits. Instead the politics of the gay male prostitute is just there, regularly rearing it's rather prominent head at odd times and in so many diverse way.

I'm fascinated by two questions in particular and the real lack of examination of both. The first, of course, is why the male prostitute plays such a prominent role in our culture and the second is why we don't really examine that role with a serious in-depth discussion.

Rothstein also points a finger at Dancing With The Stars' Albert Reed, who allegedly had a "compromising" encounter with George Clooney.

Warning: Rothstein's post has some NSFW bits, namely: Jeff Gannon's penis.

America Online charted new queer territory earlier this year when it unveiled its LGBT blog, QueerSighted. The gamble paid off, indeed, with over 3.5 million page views a month and the potential for endless advertising revenue. Then, about six months later, that dream died - or, rather, was killed, when AOL canned editor Kenneth Hill and told the other homo-journos to start packing.

Now, one former member of the collective's raising some not-so-rhetorical questions. Writes Richard Rothstein:

And, at the end of the day, I suppose we can't accuse AOL of homophobia or politics. After all, Mary Cheney remains a vice president at AOL and she, as we all know, is a staunch supporter of the queer community, our rights and our voice. And just because a number of AOL's openly homophobic and conservative right wing bloggers remain employed and blogging doesn't mean that the termination of large numbers of senior gay employees means anything.

Rothstein also alleges that AOL attempted to silence the site's former writers. Obviously it didn't work.