Adam Lambert Openly Gay, Planning ‘Coming Out’ Mag Cover
‘American Idol’ runner-up Adam Lambert is not only openly gay, he is planning a Rolling Stone cover to confirm it after months of speculation, reports the NY Post.
‘Idol’ judge Kara DioGuardi is on a pretaped ‘View’ airing Friday, and during her sit-down she says he is out.
“I don’t think that Adam was ever in [the closet],” she tells the ladies. “I think he was always openly out.”
Meanwhile, Friday’s NY Post reports he will be on the cover of next week’s Rolling Stone.
“AMERICAN Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert has steadfastly refused to talk about his sexuality despite photos of him on his Web site tongue-kissing men and dressed in full drag — but not for much longer. A well-placed magazine source tells Page Six that Lambert will be coming out officially on the next cover of Rolling Stone.
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DC Pledges Quick Review On Marriage Referendum
After filing paperwork Wednesday to hold a citywide referendum on the question, a coalition of religious leaders and other same-sex marriage opponents is facing a July deadline to collect about 21,000 signatures to force a special election this year. Before they can collect the signatures, however, the city election board has to rule on whether District voters have the right to weigh in on the issue.
Kenneth McGhie, general counsel to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, said the board has scheduled a special hearing June 10 to take up the matter.
McGhie said that if board members decide that a referendum is appropriate, supporters of a ballot proposal “are going to get their petitions right away and have two or three weeks to work with to try to get signatures.”
Washington Post – United States
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/dc-pledges-qu…
For gay couples, marriage entwines emotions, rights
SACRAMENTO — Yes, tying the knot gave them a huge emotional lift. But getting married also made practical sense to Paul Curtis and Ray Allen.
Marriage means more than just a ceremony and a certificate, according to legal specialists. It gives couples both gay and straight numerous rights and protections, having to do with everything from parenting to health care.
“It’s about being equal in the eyes of the law as well as culturally,” said Curtis, of Sacramento, who married his longtime partner in September, during a brief window of opportunity for gay couples in California.
On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, which defines marriage between a man and a woman, but left the marriages of 18,000 gay couples intact.
Proponents of gay marriage have vowed to put the issue before voters again, possibly as early as next year.
See For gay couples, marriage entwines emotions, rights
MiamiHerald.com – Miami,FL,USA
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Lesbians And Gays In Gaming
As gaming grows into a more mature artistic medium, elements of the “real world” that were once completely separate from games are creeping in, so make room for the gays and lesbians, everyone! Whether gamers like it or not, the issue of how to treat the gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gendered community in games is quickly becoming an area of controversy.
The influx of people who live non-traditional lives is forcing game companies to come up with more nuanced policies to deal with gays in games. For example, Bioware dealt with the issue by banning the words “gay” and “lesbian” from their forums, then unbanning them, and Microsoft and Sony have had their own methods of dealing with words and concepts that make some people uncomfortable.
A recent post on Ars Technica takes an in-depth look at the issue, specifically, the ad-hoc “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” policy many think is the answer to the problem. Basically, the argument goes like this: Games aren’t about your sexuality, so as long as you don’t identify yourself as gay or lesbian in an way, there won’t be a problem… which might make sense to you, but what if you substituted the word “Black” for gay?Censoring certain words from profiles is not only discriminatory, it also creates the idea that there’s something wrong with whatever the word is. The words “gay,” “lesbian” and “queer” present unique problems, however, as they are used as points of pride or as slurs, depending on how they’re being said and who is talking. All of which creates the kind of gray area that you can hardly expect the common Xbox Live citizen to either respect or understand.
While using “gay” and “fag” as insults has been around probably since the first online game was ever played, I imagine identifying yourself as homosexual on your profile would open you up to online harassment in a big way, but that’s exactly why gay people should be “allowed” to identify themselves online, if they choose to. I truly believe that if people hang out, game-with and otherwise co-exist with different kinds people, eventually the problem will settle itself. Because, in the end, it’s no big deal. See, gay people are just like you, and you’re just like them, and gay gamers just want to play games, so let’s all chill out and act like humans, eh? See Lesbians And Gays In Gaming
G4 TV * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Kelly McGillis: Coming Out as a Lesbian Not Easy
Kelly McGillis was relaxing in the Florida sunshine and preparing to go on a cruise last February when a simple question caught her off guard: As a single woman, was she looking to date a man or a woman? “It was like a moment of truth,” says the actress, 52, who became a star after appearing with Tom Cruise in Top Gun in 1986. “[A reporter] asked me the question and I thought, Hmm, do I say the truth, or do I just say, It’s none of your business, which is my standard answer?”
Her Truth”I said you know, I’m just going to say the truth,” McGillis told PEOPLE at rehearsals for her new play The Little Foxes, which opens May 29 at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, Calif. McGillis’s “truth” was a long time coming, and the answer was simple: “Definitely a woman.” See Kelly McGillis: Coming Out as a Lesbian Not Easy
People Magazine * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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California parole board appointee rejected over homophobic comments
An appointee selected by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve on the state’s parole board has been rejected over homophobic comments he had made in 1993, despite apologising for his words.
Douglas Drummond had voiced his support for Fidel Castro’s isolation of the AIDS population in Cuba.
He also said of gay rights issues: “How do we deal with it short of killing them?”
At a private conservative group meeting, he said: “Do you know why I don’t worry about gay activity? I’m going to give you a clue. So far in San Francisco, over 10,000 have died. In Long Beach, over 1,000 have died. I’m serious.” See California parole board appointee rejected over homophobic comments
PinkNews.co.uk * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Gay Divorce Still Legal in California
Gay and lesbian couples who took advantage of California’s brief fling with gay marriage last year to tie the knot, but now can’t stand the sight of one another, will be relieved to hear that gay divorce remains an option.
Frederick Hertz, a lawyer in Oakland, Calif., who specializes in same-sex family law, told The Lede that since California’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that same-sex marriages that took place in 2008, before voters approved a ban in November, will remain “both valid and recognized,” that means “all the rules of marriage apply, including divorce.” That said, the state’s new law explicitly outlawing same-sex-marriage does create something of a gray area for couples who live in California, but were married in another state, or nation, and now want to get a divorce. As Mr. Hertz explains, the problem for unhappily married same-sex couples living in a state that bans same-sex marriage, is that “getting a divorce requires a recognition of the marriage.”
In an article explaining how the legal patchwork of state laws makes it nearly impossible for some same-sex couples to get divorced, the Los Angeles Times reported that a lesbian couple from Rhode Island who got married in Massachusetts were later denied a divorce in their home state, since the courts there can not recognize their marriage. See Gay Divorce Still Legal in California
New York Times * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Slim on LGBT Cases, Sotomayor Wins Gay Praise
Video: Who is Sotomayor? KRQE.com
Who is Sotomayor? KRQE.com
No, Sonia Sotomayor Isn’t Gay. But Is She Gay Friendly? Queerty
Gay Activists Applaud Sotomayor Nomination On Top Magazine * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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New Prop. 8 court challenge brings former legal rivals together
The California Supreme Court failed to protect gay couples’ fundamental right to marry when it upheld Proposition 8, forcing same-sex couples to appeal to the federal courts to remedy the injustice, two prominent lawyers said today in announcing a lawsuit on behalf of two gay couples.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, a renowned conservative, and David Boies, who opposed Olson in Bush v. Gore in the 2000 fight over the presidential election, cast their collaborative effort to restore the right of gays to marry in California as a moral imperative to correct an injustice. Their suit seeks an immediate injunction on Prop. 8′s ban, thereby allowing same-sex marriages to resume while the case makes its way through the federal court system.
But Olson’s role in the gay rights mission prompted much speculation about his motives. The former Bush administration official, who lost his wife in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, conceded that the federal courts might not be ready to recognize sexual orientation as a class in need of protection from discrimination, but he said he hoped “that people don’t suspect my motives,” vowing to demonstrate his commitment to equal rights by winning the challenge.
Boies vouched for Olson as “committed in heart and soul to equality and committed in heart and soul to the Constitution.” See New Prop. 8 court challenge brings former legal rivals together Los Angeles Times * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Gay rights advocates rip suit to undo Prop. 8
Gay rights advocates Wednesday blasted two veteran attorneys for filing a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved same-sex marriage ban, saying the move is premature and could be disastrous for the marriage movement.
While they knew of the objections, attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies – who opposed each other during the 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential election case – filed the suit Friday in San Francisco on behalf of two same-sex couples who wanted to be married but were denied because of Prop. 8.
The suit claims the voter-approved measure, which the California Supreme Court affirmed Tuesday, denies same-sex couples the basic liberties and equal protection under the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. It asks for a preliminary injunction against Prop. 8 until the case is decided.
Olson said he filed the case not only on behalf of his clients, who include Berkeley residents Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, but on behalf of gay couples elsewhere who want to get married but can’t.
“We can’t tell them to wait, what, five years” for their state to approve same-sex marriage, he said, but acknowledged that it could take two years for his case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
While Olson shares the same end goal as same-sex marriage advocates, he doesn’t share their political strategy – to win states individually, with ballot initiatives or laws approved by state legislatures. Several same-sex marriage advocates intend to put the issue to voters in November 2010.
Olson thinks both strategies can work simultaneously. But many gay legal advocates are urging same-sex couples to avoid filing federal lawsuits because federal courts have not been as friendly to gay rights issues See * Gay rights advocates rip suit to undo Prop. 8 San Francisco Chronicle Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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