Patriots Tight End Rob Gronkowski Fine with a Gay Teammate

After initially snubbing him because he was "afraid of saying something wrong", New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski answered a couple of questions for Outsports' Cyd Zeigler at the ESPY's:

He gave me time for two questions.

“Have you ever played with a gay teammate?” I asked.

He thought for a moment and said he didn’t know of any.

“How would you feel if one of your teammates on the Patriots came out of the closet this season?”

This time he didn’t pause.

“If that’s how they are, that’s how they are,” Gronkowski said. “I mean, we’re teammates so, as long as he’s being a good teammate and being respectful and everything, that’s cool.”

After all, if you're willing to "eff Tebow to take his virginity," you should be fine with a gay teammate.

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1166

ROMNEY: Obama has abandoned "hope and change" to attack me!

ANGELS: The new track from The xx.

KITTEN VS DOBERMAN: A bite-sized BFF.

RANDY RAINBOW'S HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: Made for the 2012 Friends with Benefits concert in support of BC/EFA.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

News: Kazaky, Great White Shark, Aretha Franklin, Lobsters

Space smells like manly things.

Great White Shark bites surfer in half off Australia's west coast. "He was surfing near Wedge Island, north of Perth, with a friend when he was mauled by the huge shark, said to be up to five metres (16 feet) long."

Kazaky does V Magazine.

Aretha Franklin to judge American Idol?

Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker did an 'Ask Me Anything' on Reddit over the weekend.

Anthony Weiner to run for mayor of NYC? "The disgraced former congressman — who’s sitting on a $4.5 million campaign war chest — is mulling a bid for citywide office next year and “seriously considering” a mayoral run, multiple sources told The Post. The cocky pol is also open to the post of public advocate as a backup plan, said sources, who described the Queens Democrat as 'desperate' to get back into politics."

VIDEO: Beyonce reads letter to Michelle Obama in new campaign ad.

141 uncounted ballots found from contentious Anchorage, Alaska election in April in which an LGBT non-discrimination ordinance failed. "The city’s election commission will be asked to review the 141 ballots in public session. The municipal attorney said the Anchorage Assembly will have to recertify the April election after the Election Commission acts, the statement said."

Close-Up Cavill: New Man of Steel poster released.

White House honors Ali Forney Center's Carl Siciliano as a 'Champion of Change' for his work advocating for homeless LGBT youth.

Musto: Why aren't Tom Cruise and John Travolta better friends? "They're both movie stars who've gotten second and third winds in their career, despite recent flicks that shall we say underperformed a bit, proving that titles with Rock or Savages don't usually sell on the big screen. They're both extremely physical in their endeavors, they've both worn long hair for roles, they both grin a lot, and they're both Scientologists with a strong belief in Hubbard's holy scriptures. And they're ladykillers."

Channing Tatum visits George Clooney at his Lake Como, Italy villa.

Sylvester Stallone speaks out on death of son Sage: "When a parent loses a child there is no greater pain. Therefore I am imploring people to respect my talented son's memory and feel compassion for his loving mother Sasha. This agonizing loss will be felt for the rest of our lives. Sage was our first child and the center of our universe and I am humbly begging for all to have my son's memory and soul left in peace."

Penn State to keep statue of Joe Paterno?

Male model fix: Austin Sanderson.

Real Pride Oreo cookie attempt.

NYT on the ecology of disease: "If we fail to understand and take care of the natural world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. A critical example is a developing model of infectious disease that shows that most epidemics — AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred over the last several decades — don’t just happen. They are a result of things people do to nature."

Lobsters, lobsters everywhere.

Microsoft and NBC News have web divorce: "The site became NBCNews.com, signifying the end of a relationship between NBC and Microsoft that dates back to the earliest days of the commercial Web. Early next year, MSNBC.com will be reborn as a stand-alone site for the cable channel MSNBC, ending the brand confusion that has plagued the site in the past."

Coalition of NOM Pastors Accuses NAACP of Pandering to the President with Same-Sex Marriage Support: VIDEO

The National Organization for Marriage has released a new video featuring the Coalition of African-American Pastors, accusing the NAACP of pandering to Obama on same-sex marriage.

As Jeremy Hooper reminds us, it's just part of NOM's longtime wedge strategy.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Sarah Silverman Offers 'Traditional Lesbian Sex' to Mitt Romney Sugar Daddy Sheldon Adelson: VIDEO

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is donating $100 million to Mitt Romney and Sarah Silverman has a plan, er, indecent proposal for Adelson to get him to give the money to Obama instead.

Watch (possibly work-unfriendly), AFTER THE JUMP...

(via the Hollywood Reporter)

Morocco's First Out Gay Writer Abdellah Taïa Speaks Out

In 2009, Abdellah Taïa wrote to his family two years after he became the first Moroccan writer to come out as gay in an interview with the Moroccan magazine Telquel. As the journal Asymptote notes, "Morocco's biggest-selling newspaper denounced him, and many of the country's bloggers decried him, saying he should be stoned."

Wrote Taïa in 'Homosexuality Explained to My Mother':

I know I am scandalous. To you. And to those around you: neighbors, colleagues, friends, mothers-in-law... I know to what degree I'm involuntarily causing you harm, giving you worry. I expose myself by signing my real first name and my real last name. And I expose you along with me. I drag you along on this adventure, which is just the beginning for me and for people like me: To exist, finally! To come out of the shadows, head held high! To tell the truth, my truth! To be: Abdellah. To be: Taïa. To be both. Alone. Yet not alone at the same time.

Beyond my homosexuality, which I proudly claim, I know that what surprises and scares you is that I elude you: I am the same, thin as I've always been, with the same eternal baby face; yet I am no longer the same. You no longer recognize me, and you tell yourselves: "Where does he get those bizarre ideas? Where does he get the nerve? We didn't raise him like that... And not only does he talk about sexuality publicly—no, no, that's not enough for him—he also talks of homosexuality, politics, freedom... Who does he take himself for?"

Taïa's 2009 essay excerpted above has been published in English translation for the first time HERE by Asymptote, which also has an interview with him HERE.

(photo jeremy stigter / asymptote)