"I'm
single because
I was
born
that
way."
Issue 129: David Haye, Elmo, Uganda's Christmas gift, boylesque, Darryl Stephens, straight-bashing + more
a news compendium
with a gay bias
US & CANADA NEWS
> Kevin Clash, the voice actor behind Sesame Street's Elmo, accused by a former boyfriend of having underage sex. 24-year-old Sheldon Stephens had claimed he was 16 at the time of their relationship, but later retracted the accusation.
||| The Sword puts it best: "I can’t tell if he's creepy, hot, or creepy hot. Judging by his Instagram, his personal website, his Twitter, and especially the photo below, it's clear that he's wanted to be really famous for a long time. Well, now he is."
< Gee Sheldon, talk about throwing a brother under the bus...> How to explain the Elmo sex scandal to your kids: an illustrated guide starring Justin Bieber and Elmo.
> Good news: New York City's Ali Forney Center - a refuge for homeless gay teens - has found a temporary home and is raising money to rebuild.
||| Tyler Clementi Foundation launches in New York City.
||| The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission lost massive on-site archives in Hurricane Sandy.
||| Here's video of Hoboken PATH station flooding.
||| Gay military organisation OutServe releases anti-Defense of Marriage Act video.
||| Gay military cadets are doing swell now that Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been consigned to history.
> William Brandon Lacy Campos, the poet and gay activist, is dead. He was 35.
||| Campos' last YouTube upload - in his Naked Poetry series - was on 9th September:
< Catholic Church denies teenager Lennon Cihak confirmation until he publicly denounces gay equality.
||| UPS withdraws financial support from Boy Scouts of America over its homophobic stance - and synagogues and other Jewish organisations follow suit.
||| Have the American Christian right finally lost the fight?
> President Obama appoints gay black man to federal bench; Judge William Thomas would serve on US District Court in Florida.
||| Gay Republican kills himself over Obama victory. 66-year-old Henry Hamilton was a former tanning salon owner.
||| Work starts on new gay senior housing complex in Philadelphia.
||| Meanwhile San Francisco's Twin Peaks bar, thought to be the first gay bar to uncloak its windows and allow passers-by to see inside, is set to be named a gay historical landmark.
||| Hostess Brands, the makers of iconic treats like Twinkies, are shutting down operations. Unions and striking workers are blamed (not gold-plated executives, private equity firms or hedge funds, of course.)
||| The New Yorker ponders, Who killed the Twinkie?
> Christian bus driver leaves passenger's fuming after refusing to drive bus emblazoned with Stonewall's pro-gay equality advert.
||| Christian housing manager wins court case over anti marriage equality Facebook remark.
||| It's a positive thing, human rights activist Peter Tatchell says, applauding the decision as "a victory for free speech and fair play".
> NORTHERN IRELAND: PA Maglochlainn, a lifelong gay equality activist, is dead. He was 66.||| And now we celebrate a gay man's total obliteration! Matthew Sephton, chairman of LGBTory, was defeated as the Conservative Party candidate in the Manchester Central by-election, and will lose his deposit.
||| IRELAND: The time has come for equal marriage, deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore says.
< FRANCE: Anti-gay marriage marchers take to the streets in a dozen cities.
||| FRANCE: Marriage equality means "a land of homos", and no more babies, billionaire senator Serge Dessault claims. Dessault is 87.
||| ITALY: Marriage equality will lead to polygamy, Vatican claims.
||| MONTENEGRO: Deputy Prime Minister Dusko Markovic promises improved equality for gay community.
AFRICA NEWS
||| NIGERIA: National Assembly votes for law to jail all gay people, and even anyone "who fails to report a homosexual to the authorities".
||| UGANDA: Speaker Rebecca Kadaga confirms 2009's Anti-Homosexuality Bill will become law by the end of 2012.
||| UGANDA: Sickeningly, Kadaga refers to the decision as a "Christmas gift" to the population. Meanwhile, Ugandan human rights activist Kikonyogo Kivumbi says the anti-gay legislation is a "political weapon" for the African country to dictate its influence in the United Nations.
||| UGANDA: Cyber activists from Anonymous release names and contact details of Ugandan lawmakers in warning shot over "Kill the Gays" bill.
||| CAMEROON: UN Human Rights High Commissioner's office urges Cameroon to stop jailing suspected homosexuals on circumstantial evidence, and to reconsider its criminalisation of sex between men.
||| CAMEROON: The fight for gay equality strengthens online.
||| KENYA: Are Kenyans more tolerant of gay people than other Africans?
||| LIBERIA: Christian and Muslim faith leaders launch campaign against gay equality.
||| SUDAN: Teacher's sodomising school boys is the reason for the country's HIV epidemic, Sudan government claims.
||| SOUTH AFRICA: Three men arrested for murders of eight gay men.
 |
| THE BIG PICTURE: Yemen's underclass struggles against a tradition of prejudice. A boy in a slum area of the Akhdam community, on 14 October 2012. |
< HONG KONG: 4000 march in the fourth Hong Kong Pride Parade. In pictures.
||| AUSTRALIA: Gay former principal Joseph Gerassi sues Jewish school for millions, claiming he can't get a job because the Jewish community does not condone homosexuality.
||| AUSTRALIA: Gay Fijian nationals detained at immigration centre in Sydney protest against deportation from Australia because of homophobia in their homeland...
MIDDLE EAST NEWS
||| UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: UAE is elected a member of the UN Human Rights Council, despite dismal record on human rights, and gay equality in particular.
< University of Michigan professor David Halperin on his new book, How To Be Gay.
||| 10 notorious literary slogs that are worth the effort.
||| When sci-fi went mainstream. "How did the novels of Anthony Burgess and George Orwell anticipate a new literary subgenre?"
||| The Indian textbook claiming meat-eaters lie and commit sex crimes.
||| Beautiful Thing (the film adaptation of which was the kaos number 1 gay film of all time) is to return to the stage.
> You've heard of burlesque - enter boylesque!
||| Greek gay Jesus play Corpus Christi faces blasphemy charges for depicting Jesus and the Apostles as gay.
CINEMA
||| How London's 2011 riots effected filming on My Brother the Devil.
< Matthew McConaughey literally wastes away for new role as a homophobic man who, in 1986 was diagnosed with AIDS and given thirty days to live.||| Pictures from the forthcoming Hitchcock, starring Anthony Hopkins and Scarlett Johansson.
||| My secret James Bond past. "My adolescent closet was papered shut with posters of Special Agent 007 and assorted Bond girl legs and thighs. A gay Catholic boy and 007 are not natural bedfellows."
||| There's a Lego movie in the works, apparently entitled Lego: The Piece of Resistance.
< Review: Elliot Loves.
||| Check out the trailer for James Franco in the new Sam Raimi-directed Wizard of Oz prequel, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt in Any Day Now, in which they play a gay couple fighting to retain custody of a child with Down's syndrome.
||| The plot-deconstructing software that lets you customise your favourite TV show.
||| Was I right? Six new TV series reassessed.
> CBS cancels Partners, starring openly gay actor Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) and former Superman Brandon Routh.
||| Fox News anchor Tricia Macke suspended for posting homophobic slur on Facebook.
||| Cops cancelled after 25 seasons?
||| Reality TV and HIV. "What is it about reality TV that makes it fertile ground for HIV-positive celebrities?"
||| Here's the trailer for gay parenting webseries The Vessel, which stars former Doctor Who actress Louise Jameson. Watch the series here.
||| Days Of Our Lives gay couple Will and Sonny finally hit the sheets.
||| If only soap operas didn't wash their hands of politics. "It's no wonder the public feels so disengaged."> Gays of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, with Anthony D. Langford. Right, Coronation Street flips the script, with a gay man cheating with a woman. Whatever would Ena Sharples say?
> Oh, and here's a reminder of his naked centrefold for Cosmopolitan. You're welcome.||| Review: The Young Apprentice. "More adorable little bonsai tossers. Here they come, in their age-inappropriate clothes, with their little wheelie suitcases stuffed with ambition, to walk around below tall buildings, talking shite. The same shite as the older ones, but it's funnier when it comes out of little mouths."
||| Watch Momma'z Boi, a webseries exploring "the lives and relationships of a single bisexual mother and her gay son."
< Are we staring at the face of Frank Ocean's new boyfriend?
||| Ocean is one of Salon's sexiest men of 2012.
||| R Kelly: Trapped in the Closet is back, so here's a guide to who's who in the R&B star's everyday tale of cheating wives, gay lovers and an asthmatic midget.
> Out soul artist Nhojj picks up six nominations at 8th Annual OUTMusic Awards.
||| Gay activists in Chicago are demanding a concert by "Kill the gays" Jamaican singer Beenie Man be cancelled.
||| Openly gay Bravo TV executive Andy Cohen criticised for calling One Direction "twinks".
||| Dlisted breaks down the Justin Bieber/Selena Gomez drama in the most perfect way possible. Read it, it's beautiful. My favourite bit: "My guess is that Justin got mad because Selena refused to cut up his sushi into little pieces and didn't make the 'vroom vroom' sound." Helpfully, Dlisted also provides pictures of Justin's bodyguard (right). Okay, so it's like that, huh? Does he deliberately look like Francois Sagat, or is it just coincidence?
< Bel Ami porn legend Lukas Ridgeston is back.||| The MEN.com script writing contest is open once again. What can you imagine?
> The ManHunt profile pictures infographic: bottoms really are sluttier.
||| Should pornography come out of the closet?< Lucas Kazan want to know if Bruno Boni is ready for a comeback.
||| Have lunch with Jeff Stryker for $US1000.||| Watch Brent Corrigan's booty return to the small screen for softcore pornographer Andrew Christian...
...Here's more Brent, on being a good bottom, and the infamous Cobra Video.
> Porn power couple Austin Wilde and Anthony Romero for Cell Block 13... whatever that is.||| The 22 most shocking gay porn moments of 2012. Left, Erik Rhodes.
SPORT||| Former NFL player (and recently out) Wade Davis is one of The Root's 100 most influential black Americans.
||| Oakland Raiders congratulate straight ally Brendon Ayanbadejo on marriage equality win.
> Chicago Bears Brandon Marshall (accidentally) tweets a photo of a teammate's (big, juicy) naked butt.
< Was "real men" ad aimed at gay Broadway dancers?||| Seattle Sounders defender Marc Burch suspended for three games for anti-gay slur.
||| The desperate consequence of casual words. "Locker room language drove closeted baseball player James Nutter to embark on a suicide attempt. Now he wants to help gay athletes find their way out of the closet."
||| Matthew Mitcham opens up on his addiction to crystal meth.
> Gorgeous pharmaceutical ads from 1930s France.
||| Is this the beginning of the end of America's war on drugs?
||| Stamp out HIV stigma for World AIDS Day, Terrence Higgins Trust urges.
||| Gay Men with HIV and meningitis: Symptoms and where to vaccinate. "Gay men with HIV in New York City are being warned of a meningitis outbreak. Here's what you need to know, and how to stop yourself from getting sick."
||| Does watching porn affect your behavior?
||| The science of "Morning Wood"!
< Animal pictures of the week. Left, a Great Dane at the Ottawa Pet Expo in Canada.> Blessing of the police dogs, during the Tihar festival in Kathmandu, Nepal, 13 November 2012.
 |
| THE BIG PICTURE: A puppy refuses to leave his dead mother's side following ethnic violence in Myanmar, 6 November 2012. |
||| Russia cracks down on file-sharing websites.
||| Digital rights group seeks help to stop an adult film-maker threatening people who've downloaded porn for free.
||| Shake-to-charge mobile phones "a real possibility".
||| Encrypted fabric to thwart fashion fakes.
PARTING SHOTS
> Utterly numbed by the soulless glass and steel Norman Foster clones in your city? Sooth yourself with the best in Soviet architecture...
||| 35 things you will never see again in your life!
||| And finally, bedroom life lessons, and a "tired and emotional" business struggles with an escalator on the London Underground...
Isn't it awful about people meaning to be kind?
TIRED OLD QUEEN
at the movies
at the movies
Taking place in a London train station and under Lean's brilliant direction, two very decent, very nice and very married people, meet, fall madly in love and suffer the consequences, all to the music of Rachmaninoff. Johnson was deservedly Oscar nominated and the film proved to be the benchmark by which every British romantic film has measured itself ever since. Steve Hayes
(Syndication is with the kind permission of Steve Hayes.)
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