A promising trend indicates that there’s a narrowing gap between supporters of gay marriage and its opponents, whose support for the proposition to ban equal marriage rights is beginning to wane.

The poll showed that 54 percent of potential voters will vote no on Prop. 8, which seeks to ban gay marriage.

Same-sex marriage became legal in the state this June when the California Supreme Court overturned a ban on equal marriage rights in a decision that came down in May.

The poll reflects the change in attitudes among Californians, who are now more likely to support family, friends and co-workers who want the right to marry regardless of their sexual orientation, Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We know the other side is about to launch a major campaign against same-sex marriage, so we still have a lot of work to do,” Kors said.

The gap between likely voters who support same-sex marriage and those who oppose it has nearly closed as indicated by the poll results.

Eight years ago, 55 percent of likely voters opposed same-sex marriage and 38 percent favored it. But now it’s neck and neck with 47 percent of voters in favor of gay marriage and 47 percent against it.

According to Jennifer Kerns, communications director for Prop. 8, the survey suggests that the issue is more important to those who support the proposition than to those who don’t, which could make a difference on Election Day, she told the SF Chronicle.

“Last time Californians voted on this issue, they were overwhelmingly in support” of banning marriage between members of the same sex, Kerns said. “We expect the same this time around.”

The poll, which covers a wide-range of voters’ concerns, found that 60 percent of those surveyed favour bringing home troops in Iraq, that President George W. Bush’s approval rating is 24 percent and that 63 percent of likely California voters favour universal health care.

But the biggest concern among Californians today is the economy, according to the poll.

CEO of Public Policy Institute, Mark Baldassare, told the Chronicle that the survey, which was conducted in English and Spanish from August 12 to 19, shows the economy is the overriding issue facing Californians today.

“Californians are going to be looking very closely at the Presidential candidates and state elected leaders to see who has a plan or a solution for turning around the economy,” he said.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson have been virtually inseparable since the beginning of the year, fuelling rumours that they’re engaged in a full-on lesbian love affair.

They’ve also been spotted kissing, hugging and holding hands.

And Lindsay’s father Michael is ripped that Ronson might write a tell-all now that Lindsay’s in her life.

He accused Ronson of using Lindsay to crawl the fame ladder, reported PerezHilton.com.

“I’ve shut up about this long enough. Samantha is using my daughter. People never even knew who Samantha Ronson was until she met Lindsay. She was just some Los Angeles DJ,” Michael reportedly told a source.

“And now she’s writing a book? I am at my wit’s end with this stuff. This is not in Lindsay’s best interest. Let’s just say I hope Lindsay starts opening her eyes and realises who the people using her are.”

Evangelical Christian and ex-convict Michael Lohan also accused Ronson of wrecking his daughter’s sobriety, which she had appeared to attain following her second stint in a posh, full-service rehab facility in Utah last summer.

“Samantha drinks and passes the drinks under the table to Lindsay, and behind the scenes it gets worse and worse,” Michael told a source.

If that weren’t enough reason for Michael to get fired up about a tell-all, he went on to say that Lindsay’s and Ronson’s obsessive relationship caused Lindsay’s career downward spiral.

“My daughter isn’t working because she’s always with Sam. Even my ex-wife (Dina Lohan) knows it. She just isn’t doing anything about it,” Michael said.

Earlier this month, Michael weighed in on rumours that Lindsay and Ronson planned to take advantage of legalised gay marriage in California and tie the knot.

“I haven’t heard anything (about an upcoming wedding) from Lindsay, but if she was marrying Sam, I don’t think she’d ask me to walk her down the aisle,” Michael told MSNBC. “She knows about my (Christian) faith… she just wouldn’t ask.”

But regarding the gay rumours swirling around his daughter, particularly after Lindsay and Ronson were spotted nuzzling and kissing at P.Diddy’s yacht party at Cannes last spring, Michael told Us magazine that his daughter’s relationship with Ronson “is evident to anyone with half a brain.”

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson’s reps have reportedly denied Michael Lohan’s allegations.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

On the eve of the 88th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, Michelle Obama stood before a crowd of thousands of her husband’s supporters, but this time, the crowd waved “Michelle” signs and chanted her name.

Her daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, joined her on stage following the rousing speech.

“I stand here today at the cross-currents of that history knowing that my piece of the American Dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me,” Obama told a crowd of up to 18,000 that packed the Denver convention center.

“All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do, that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.

“That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. That is why I love this country.”

Describing herself as a daughter, a wife and a mother, Michelle Obama recalled her father’s dreams and drew parallels to her husband’s historic run for the Presidency.

A tearful Obama regaled the crowd with the story or her father, Fraser, who worked at the Chicago waterworks for decades despite his battling multiple sclerosis.

“My dad was our rock… our provider, our champion, our hero,” she said. “If he was in pain, he never let on.”

In a moment that drew wild applause from the crowd, Obama gave a shout-out to her husband’s rival in the primaries, Hillary Clinton, stating that the New York Senator’s run for the Presidency put “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters—and sons—can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher.”

During the primary season, Michelle Obama drew criticism from those who questioned her patriotism over various remarks she’d made.

Speaking to National Public Radio on Monday, she shook off the naysayers and those who question her devotion to the country.

“I have not paid much attention about what people say about me who don’t know me,” she said.

“It would be very hard for me to function in this world and to go through Princeton and Harvard and to work in all the careers that I’ve worked if I worried about labels.”

Despite Michelle Obama’s pitch-perfect oratory, she couldn’t help her daughters from stealing a little bit of her thunder when they joined her onstage following the speech.

Barack Obama addressed the crowd at the convention via satellite from Kansas City, Missouri praising his wife’s speech.

“Michelle, you were unbelievable, and you also look very cute,” he said.

“Malia, Sasha, how do you think Mom did?”

“I think she did good,” Sasha replied.

But Sasha stole the show when her father appeared on screen.

“I love you daddy,” she shouted at the larger than life image of her father.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

Midler said “Video really did kill the radio star,” The New York Daily News reported yesterday.

Without naming individual pop stars, the legendary Midler said of today’s music stars:

“They don’t speak. They don’t talk to their audience.

“They may say, ‘Hello, New York’ or ‘Hello, Las Vegas,’ in the beginning, and ‘Thank you’ in between songs, but they don’t talk.

“They don’t tell stories or take the time to make a connection, build a rapport. There’s no emotion.”

At age 62, Midler, who kick-started her career crooning in Greenwich Village’s gay bath houses in the early 1970s, is renowned for running the gamut at her live shows from sheer hilarity to intense emotion using everything from a mermaid’s costume and a wheel chair to just belting out classics like The Rose, and The Wind Beneath My Wings.

Midler, who is currently in the middle of a two-year, five performances per week run at Las Vegas’ Caesar Palace, said that MTV, which launched in 1981 when Midler’s star was rising rapidly, ruined the live music scene because helped build audience expectations that every show should be perfect, thereby forcing new acts to lip-sync to studio recordings.

“After MTV came along, people were seeing their favourite singers in videos, and suddenly there was a certain vision of a song—how it should sound, how it should look.

“Then (in concert), there was no room for improvisation—everyone wanted an exact replica,” Midler told the Daily News.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

The proposed HR 5843 bill would call an end to federal penalties targeting Americans carrying less than 100 grams of marijuana.

“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said at a news conference on Capitol Hill, CNN reported.

“I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”

Frank, surrounded by legislators and marijuana advocacy spokespeople, said that laws aimed at marijuana users place undue burdens on law enforcement resources, punish ill Americans whose doctors have prescribed the substance and unfairly affect African-Americans.

Frank was specific that use—not abuse—of the currently illegal substance, would be decriminalised under his plan.

But, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which oppose legalising marijuana, list it as a Schedule I controlled substance that offers no accepted medical benefits and has a high potential for abuse.

Frank’s proposal, House Resolution 5843, titled the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, (R-Texas), would express support for “a very small number of individuals” suffering from chronic pain or illness to smoke marijuana without legal retribution.

Cannabis can help treat a range of illnesses, including glaucoma, asthma, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and seizures, according to the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

Nearly a dozen states have already approved degrees of medical marijuana use, and Frank said it’s time the government stops wasting its resources arresting people in compliance with their states’ laws.

If the resolution passes, smokers holding up to 100 grams—about 3½ ounces—of marijuana would not be arrested. The resolution it would also allow a “nonprofit transfer,” of up to an ounce of cannabis.

Allen St. Pierre, NORML’s spokesman, equated Frank’s proposal with current laws dealing with alcohol consumption.

Alcohol use is permitted, and the government focuses its law enforcement efforts on those who abuse alcohol or drive under its influence.

“We do not arrest and jail responsible alcohol drinkers,” St. Pierre said.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

Beloved as the snappy Sophia Petrillo on the hit show Golden Girls Getty, 84, died three days short of her 85th birthday. She had been struggling with illness and battling Lewy Body dementia for years.

An Emmy and Golden Globe winner for her role on the long-running show, Getty was renowned for originating the role of Harvey Fierstein’s mother in the Broadway production of Torch Song Trilogy, the role Anne Bancroft played in the film.

Getty became something of a cultural icon in the gay community through her work in Torch Song and Golden Girls.

Her character of Sophia Petrillo was notoriously accepting of the gay community, including her cross-dressing son Phil and daughter Dorothy’s openly gay best-friend Jean.

“Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her,” Arthur said in a statement released to E! Online.

Getty was surrounded family and friends at the time of her death. She is survived by two sons.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

During a taping of Fox and Friends news show last week, Jackson made disparaging remarks of Obama saying that he wanted to “cut his nuts off.”

But the transcript of Jackson hurling the N-word in regard to Obama was only released on Wednesday.

The Associated Press, through a TV Newser report, broke the news that Jackson reportedly said that Obama was “talking down to black people,” and referred to blacks with the N-word when he claimed that Obama was telling them “how to behave.”

For the second time in a week, Jackson has made an apology to Obama and his family for his crude language.

Jackson, who is traveling in Spain, issued a written apology to the Obama family on Wednesday.

“I am deeply saddened and distressed by the pain and sorrow that I have caused as a result of my hurtful words.

“I apologise again to Senator Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, their children as well as to the American public,” Jackson wrote.

“There really is no justification for my comments and I hope that the Obama family and the American public will forgive me.

“I also pray that we, as a nation, can move on to address the real issues that affect the American people.”

The reverend has previously called on the entertainment industry, including rappers, comedians and movie studios to place a moratorium on using the N-word.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.

During Sunday’s live broadcast in Vietnam, the reigning Miss USA, Crystle Stewart, a 26-year-old model, athlete and motivational speaker from Texas, tripped over the train of her sequined gown and landed on her backside, which wouldn’t be so bad except last year’s Miss USA fell and landed on her hind end also.

Last year, during the glamorous evening gown portion of the pageant, Rachel Smith, the reigning Miss USA, became an instant Internet and YouTube star after she tripped on her gown and landed on her back end.

She managed a wink to the audience to cover the faux pas.

This year’s Miss USA, Crystle Stewart picked herself up, brushed herself off and encouraged the audience to clap for her misstep.

Stewart, who’d taken several passes at becoming Miss Texas before landing the crown, said in an interview previous to the pageant Sunday that she doubted she’d repeat Smith’s tumble the year before.

“Nerves don’t come into it,” Stewart said.

Despite the tumble, Stewart landed squarely at number eight in the Miss Universe Pageant.

Miss Venezuela, Dayana Mendoza, won the crown to become the reigning Miss Universe 2008.

© 2008 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved.