Michael Petrelis reports he has received word  from Tomasz Szypula, spokesman for the Campaign Against Homophobia, one of Poland’s gay political organizations, that Brendan Fay and Tom Moulton, the US gay couple whose wedding is being used by Poland’s president to spread hate and fear of same-sex loving people, are traveling to Warsaw this weekend. See Polish TV flying U.S. gay couple to Warsaw
The Petrelis Files

With Baby Boomers moving closer to retirement, entrepreneurs and community groups are looking to serve niches within that huge demographic group.

One such niche is retirement communities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Nationwide, dozens of groups have tried to build retirement communities for gays, but only three have opened thus far, according to Gerard Koskovich, who tracks the subject for the Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network.

Aging experts, entrepreneurs and nonprofits say the need is there, but the challenge is more complex than build it and fill it. They have to raise money; find an affordable, attractive, gay-friendly locale; and motivate people who, like all seniors, might want or need anything from Pilates classes to nursing care.

See  Bay Area gay senior housing closer to reality
San Francisco Chronicle

 Donna Payne, HRC Associate Director of Diversity, will join Reverend Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and other civil rights and religious leaders at a march on the U.S. Justice Department in Washington, DC on November 16 at 12 noon. The march is being called by Rev. Sharpton’s National Action Network and other black political, religious and media leaders to protest the lethargic response of the Department of Justice in investigating hate crimes.

Friday’s march seeks to bring additional attention to and urge an immediate judicial response to the recent national surge in racial and ethnically motivated bias crimes, including the rise of nooses, swastikas and other symbols of hate being displayed across the country in the wake of the Jena Six case. In that case, the Human Rights Campaign joined with a broad coalition of national civil rights organizations in calling for fair treatment in the case of six black teenagers who had fallen victim to severe racial bias at the hands of judicial authorities in Jena, Louisiana.

Donna Payne is scheduled to give remarks at the march on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign between 9 a.m. and 12 noon (EST) at Freedom Plaza, at the corner of 14th Street, NW and Pennsylvania Ave., NW in Washington.

But wait a minute.

Let’s take a second and give proper notice to the fact that the GLBT community being asked to take such a prominent role in this march constitutes a remarkable sign of progress. In 2005, the black GLBT community was outraged when HRC’s Donna Payne, leaders of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), and other black GLBT activists were blocked from addressing the thousands of citizens who had assembled on the National Mall to take part of the Millions More Movement (MMM) demonstration.

Prior to the march, these leaders were assured during discussions with MMM march organizer Minister Louis Farrakhan and Washington minister Rev. Willie F. Wilson, the march’s executive director, that GLBT activist/blogger Keith Boykin would be able to address the crowd from the main stage. However, their agreement was inexplicably annulled by march organizers at the last minute and Keith was prevented from addressing the crowd. Black GLBT leaders and Keith, who was president of NBJC’s Board at the time, spoke out forcefully on the snub, which was largely attributed to the influence of Rev. Wilson, an outspoken critic of gays and lesbians. Donna Payne was told onsite by Rev. Wilson that Keith would not speak. Members of the local black GLBT community, who had held a rally earlier in Freedom Plaza, vowed to use the hurtful occassion as a call for intensifying their efforts to increase the visibility and solidarity of the black GLBT community.

Now, just two years later, Rev. Wilson has ostensibly extended an olive branch to HRC, NBJC, and the GLBT community by calling Donna Payne and inviting her to take part in Friday’s rally for justice. And Donna will be in Freedom Plaza tomorrow - just like she was two years ago - to stand with our brothers and sisters in the civil rights movement in calling for our government to do its job and treat all of its citizens fairly and equally.

It’s moments like this when the fight for equality seems to pay the sweetest returns.

Photo: HRC Associate Director of Diversity Donna Payne in Jena, Louisiana following the march in support of the Jena Six. MORE

WHEN I first met Nicole Von Valkenburg, she was sitting in front of a mirror, intent on her morning grooming ritual, which involved tweezing, applying makeup, parting her dark blond hair, and fitting her long streaked blond wig over her head. When she was finished, she emerged as another person, a diva who had stepped from a ’70s movie, ready for a night out.

Nicole lives at Carmen’s Place, a shelter in Astoria, Queens, for homeless gay and transgender people in their late teens and early 20s.

The Rev. Louis Braxton Jr., an Episcopal priest, opened the shelter five years ago in the basement of the nearby St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. When the church shut for financial reasons, Father Braxton used private donations to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, which is now home to a dozen young people, among them Nicole.

 See Finding her voice
New York Times

An opus for size queens.
This man is 22 weeks pregnant.
A stroke of insight on the human brain.
Cuba to consider draft gay rights bill in June?
Ricky Martin gives naked thrill in hotel sauna.
Idol stripper David Hernandez to be Rent boy?
Christian Siriano: ‘Fierce’ is out, ‘Expired’ is in.
Gay Virginia couple celebrates 50th anniversary.
Sacha Baron Cohen terrorizes Kansas airport in hotpants.
Bill Clinton and students have heated exchange on DOMA.
Report: Character to come out of the closet on Gossip Girl.
Avenue Q scribe Jeff Whitty offers Jay Leno his gayest look.
Ian McKellen to join gay bishop Robinson at Anglican confab.
Josh Beech and Hedi Slimane do Vogue Hommes International.
THE TUBE: Barney Frank, Bullied Billy, Bea Arthur, Sordid Lives.
Madonna doesn’t need an excuse to see Justin Timberlake’s butt.
THE STAGE:Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Adding Machine, Parlour Song.
Beloved West Palm Beach gay bar owner murdered by boyfriend.
Government begins “mid-course correction” on AIDS vaccine plans.
Hillary Clinton’s recall of Bosnia trip scrutinized. Footage uncovered.
Sir Ian McKellen witnessed no evidence of gay hobbits on Lord of the Rings.
Barack Obama criticizes use of gay marriage as a wedge issue, hits The View.
Genealogy: Barack Obama related to Pitt, Clinton to Jolie. Plus, meet Hillarack.
London supporters of Gay Iranian teen Mehdi Kazemi stage Downing St protest.
MUSIC: Sam Sparro, Fleetwood Mac, Sheryl Crow, Danity Kane, Marilyn Manson.
Amazing Race’s goth couple Kynt & Vyxsin support slain gay teen Lawrence King.
Anderson Cooper and David Beckham face off about tattoos, football, and bending it.
Sally Kern: Message from Judy Shepard, face off with gay pastor, meets with PFLAG.
It’s Raining McCain: They’re the GOP’s Weather Girls, and have they got news for you.
JC Chasez and Chace Crawford hold cabana boys party; JC denies they’re together, twice.
PLUS: Ult. fighter Shad Smith, George Michael, John Waters, Moby.

In this week’s tech news, Jon Barrett looks at the newest entry in tourist space travel, the arrival of inflight cell phone calling (and showers), using your iPod to work out, Rickrolling, and your stupid questions answered by Calpernia Addams.

A company called Xcor Aerospace on Wednesday announced plans for a two-seater commercial spacecraft, called the Lynx, that could take its first test flight by 2010. Plans are for the spacecraft to take wealthy passengers on 25-minute spaceflights. “Our company’s goal has always been to build rocket-powered vehicles that can be flown like regular aircraft,” said company president Jeffrey Greason, who claims that the Lynx is relatively environmentally friendly: “They are fully reusable, burn cleanly, and release fewer particulates than solid-fuel or hybrid rocket motors,” he says. See an animated clip of the Lynx in flight here.

A new location-based service called FindMe uploads on your cell phone and then, using cell phone towers, will update your Facebook status based on your pre-tagged locations, such as “work,” “home,” etc. Reports Crave’s Jessica Dolcourt: “It’s a somewhat good, somewhat limited idea that suffers from half-backed presentation issues. For instance, FindMe doesn’t believe in grammatical standards when updating Facebook, nor in identifying FindMe-produced status messages with a proprietary icon. Not only does this miss the promotion boat, it confuses friends who wonder why I keep changing my status to ‘Jessica is at an unknown location,’ or to this caveman grunt: ‘Jessica Work.’”

Here is a very cool recycling program for those of you who live in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Paid for by Clover Technologies, the Mail Back program provides free postage-paid envelopes at 1,500 post offices in these cities to mail back inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods, and MP3 players. Read the full press release here.

Get prepared to be annoyed on an upcoming long-haul flight—the age of in-flight cell phone calling has arrived. Emirates Airlines is partnering with the company AeroMobile and spending $27 million to outfit its planes with technology that allows passengers to use their mobile phones in the air. As Autopia explains: Emirates says passengers will only be allowed to make five or six calls per flight, and flight crews will have the power to turn the system on and off as needed. And for when you’re not making telephone calls, the airline also promises that it will soon have showers in first class.

A homeowner in Jacksonville, Ore., came home to find nearly 30 people rummaging through his barn and front porch and thinking, because of a fake Craigslist post, that everything there—including a horse—was theirs for the taking. According Cnet’s News.com: “The woman who showed up to take his horse finally started to feel uneasy about the whole deal when she realized that the horse looked perfectly healthy, and well, seemed to actually belong to someone. She left a note on the door and then decided to call [the homeowner] to make sure that the ad was legit.”

PumpOne, which sell individual workouts that can be played on different mobile devices (including a new iPod version), just released a new line of workouts—called Pumped for Summer 2008. I use PumpOne (when I actually make it to the gym), and it definitely helps me mix-up my exercise routine. But I’m not so sure I need a summer-specific program. Perhaps I should rephrase that. I definitely could use a summer-specific workout, but I’m not sure I would use one.

New York City’s three Apple stores ran out of iPhones this week, according to The Huffington Post, and that led some people, including Kevin Rose of Digg, to predict that the company was clearing its stock to make room for a new, 3G phone. Rose says that the 3G iPhone will hit stores within the next three months and will have two cameras—one for video chat and the other for taking still shots.

Andy posted a link earlier this week to a Los Angeles Time story interviewing 80s singer Rick Astley about “Rickrolling.” It led me to search for more on the phenomenon (which I found here) and, of course, take a look at the 1987 video for his song “Never Gonna Give You Up” (for those of you who haven’t been Rickrolled).

If you’ve got a few minutes (OK, maybe more than a few minutes) check out this podcast from Calpernia Addams, star of the Logo show Transamerican Love Story. Here she takes on stupid questions.

The new trailer for Sordid Lives The Series, based on Del Shores 1996 play and 2000 film, has hit the web. The show stars Beth Grant, Rue McClanahan, Caroline Rhea, Jason Dottley, Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, and Olivia Newton-John. Tammy Wynette is played by Wynette’s daughter Georgette Jones. It was rumored to be coming to LOGO in the fall, but I’ve heard it may be moved up as early as June.

Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP…

Lambda Legal to file suit in Iowa today on behalf of six same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses.

Tom Cruise appearance sparks rumors of cameo on JJ Abrams’ Star Trek set, but he was really there to meet someone special.

Al Gore on global warming skeptics: “You’re talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat. … That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off.”

The American Family Association gave up their boycott of Ford Motors, but it looks as though they’re trying again with another automaker, GM. Good As You: “What the hell gives these folks the right to go apeshit simply because a company dares to advertise to the LGBT community?! Good God of fringe extremism, why cannot they not at least accept that we are ’sinners’ with a degree of disposable income, some of which we like to put towards cars?! We know they think we’re barreling down the Highway to Hell. Fine. Let them think that. But can’t they at least respect the right of an automaker to try and sell us a car whose climate control features will help us brave the unbearably hot Lake of Fire?”

Saulo Melo: Your hot Brazilian for Friday.

Dennis Miller does not share Bill O’Reilly’s rage over San Francisco’s Hunky Jesus pageant.

Hate crimes inspiring call to action in South Florida.

Senator Chris Dodd says we must end the Democratic primary: “Look, we’ve got five more months to go before the Democratic convention at the end of August and, candidly, we cannot go five more months with the kind of daily sniping that’s going on and have a candidate emerge in that convention….We have two very strong candidates. So I’m worried about this going on endlessly and to a large extent…the media, a lot of these cable networks, are enjoying this. It’s what is keeping them alive financially. The fact that this thing is going on forever, back and forth every day, all night — I don’t think it’s really helping the candidates or the political institutions.”

The folks who market Basil Hayden’s whiskey think we’re all a bunch of prancing fashionistas.

The Hills may be turned into a feature film: “I think if they were going to do a film of the hills they would basically film it like we do the show and they would just edit it into a movie. It would be like a really long episode.”

Wii Tennis about to get lifelike versions of Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, James Blake, and Tommy Haas.

Prison Break brings a major character back from the dead.

Exploring the time travel theory on Lost.

UK urges gay men to get tested for HIV: “The Health Protection Agency made the warning after new diagnoses among gay men topped 2,600 for the third year. But the figures do seem to have begun to plateau after a surge at the turn of the century. Overall, the number of new cases hit an estimated 6,840 in 2007 - a fall of 1,400 from the previous year.”

An update on that school expulsion case in Kansas I posted about yesterday: “A lawyer representing a gay student charged with harassment said he was ‘hopeful that things will work out’ for the student after an expulsion hearing Thursday. ‘We’re all wanting him to get back into school. That’s the main thing,’ said attorney John McKean. ‘We’re encouraged and hopeful that it will happen rather quickly.’ Jimmy Iniguez, 17, a junior at Metro-Midtown Alternative High School, faces expulsion for allegedly harassing a fellow student in a school bathroom Feb. 28. Iniguez, who has been suspended since the incident, says he is innocent and is being unfairly accused because he is openly gay. No decision was made Thursday. District policy dictates that the decision be sent to the student’s family by certified mail.”

At last night’s live finale of Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew, JC Chasez repeated assertions about his relationship with Chace Crawford to People: “You know what, it’s laughable the first time. I think the tenth time, it gets annoying. I don’t care about [people’s] assumptions or anything, but when people outright lie, that’s wrong. So I think that part of the rumor is outright stupid. The fact of the matter is I’m a straight guy and I’m allowed to have [guy] friends.”

JC Chasez Calls Chace Crawford Rumors ‘Annoying’ [people]
(image source)

Previously
Chace Crawford and J.C. Chasez Hold ‘Boys Party’ in Hotel Cabana [tr]
JC Chasez and Chace Crawford: Attached at the Hip [tr]
Chace Crawford and J.C. Chasez Pretty Up Elton John’s Oscar Bash [tr]

Barbara Walters hit on Barack Obama today on The View, telling the Democratic candidate he was “very sexy looking.” They also touched on some other topics.

On being a distant relative of Brad Pitt: “I guess we’re ninth cousins something removed or something. I think he got the better-looking side of the gene pool.”

On surviving the attack machine: “I’m skinny but I’m tough. I think the way to handle attacks, wherever they’re coming from. And there have been some tough punches thrown in this Democratic primary. It’s not like I’ve kind of been taking a cakewalk through this primary. The way I like to handle attacks is to answer honestly, swiftly, forcefully and truthfully. I think the truth is a powerful weapon.”

On Jeremiah Wright: “Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws — then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there at the church.”

View the clip, AFTER THE JUMP…

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