Sean Chapin And The Leffews Convince Voter To 'Marry Them': VIDEO

Our favorite chanteur Sean Chapin released another original pro-equality song today, this one a piano ballad about a man who reconsiders his opposition to same-sex nuptials after meeting The Leffews, the family at the center of Chapin's "I Have Two Fathers".

This track is called "Marry Them" and is aimed specifically at people in the four states voting on marriage equality next month: Maine, Maryland, Washington and Minnesota.

Watch it AFTER THE JUMP.

News: Orionid, DADT's Legacy, Adele's Son, Ireland

Tonight is the best night to see the annual Orionid meteor shower.

The group American Atheists are taking on Mormonism's membership clauses. The church responded thusly, "This group seems not to know that there have been black members of the Church since our earliest history, and there are many faithful gay members of the Church today." Black men simply couldn't be ordained as lay priests until 1978.

Police in Brookfield, WI, are looking for Radcliffe Haughton for his alleged role in the shooting at a spa today. Seven people were shot, three have died and police are disarming explosives Haughton reportedly left behind. [Update: Haughton was found dead from a self-inflicted gun shot wound.]

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Madonna's Erotica, a review of what it's all about.

National Organization for Marriage operative Frank Schubert's anti-equality crusade is big business: "Schubert collected $958,594 for his anti-equality work in North Carolina earlier this year. In the four marriage ballot states, Schubert has collected $967,567.88 in Washington; $492,680 in Maryland; $303,307.69 in Minnesota; and $200,043.46 in Maine. While these funds are likely used to pay for advertising, it’s unclear what percentage is lining Schubert’s pockets."

Full trailer of the Osama bin Laden flick Zero Dark Thirty.

Adele welcomed her first child this weekend, a baby boy. No name has been released.

SNL takes on the second great presidential debate.

An interview with Australian electopop band Van She.

Bureaucratic legacy: Servicemembers Legal Defense Network will spend the next few years removing "dishonorable discharge" and other DADT labels that remain on the records of servicemembers kicked out for being gay.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights and the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson are trying to stop a right-wing lawsuit that wants to overturn California's ban on "ex-gay therapy" for minors.

More on late Sen. George McGovern's ahead-of-his-time politics, from Bruce Miroff: "Mr. McGovern’s 1972 campaign is indelibly associated with the mass movements of the late 1960s — the antiwar movement above all, but also feminism and the nascent movement for gay liberation. As a son of a Methodist minister, growing up in small prairie towns during the Depression, he was an unlikely spokesman for the political and cultural aspirations of an emerging 'counterculture.' ... His sense of fairness and tolerance made him open to new cultural forces alien to his upbringing, even when some of their issues — especially abortion — left him uncomfortable."

In case you were wondering, Ted Haggard, the right-wing pastor caught with his pants down in 2008, has shifted gears and now believes that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

"Is Obama the 'wrong' kind of Christian?"

As you probably guessed, Paranormal Activity 4 won top slot at the box office with $30 million.

The marijuana legalization fight faces some key votes next month: "Voters in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon are set to vote Nov. 6 on whether to legalize and tax marijuana sales, raising the possibility of a showdown with the federal government, which views pot as an illegal narcotic."

Irish Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore reiterated his support for marriage equality at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association conference: "As I have stated elsewhere, the right of same-sex couples to marry is not a gay rights issue, it is a civil rights issue, and one that I support."

The CrossPoint Church in Hutchinson, Kansas, booted long-time congregant and band member Chad Graber because he's gay. "He switched from struggling with his sin to embracing it," said senior pastor Andy Addis.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/21/3876912/church-cites-scripture-in-barring.html#storylink=cpy

NASA's Galaxy Study Will Rock Your World: VIDEO

Forget everything you knew about galaxy formation:

Graceful in their turnings, spiral galaxies were thought to have reached their current state billions of years ago. A study of hundreds of galaxies, however, upsets that notion revealing that spiral galaxies, like the Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way, have continued to change.

“Astronomers thought disk galaxies in the nearby universe had settled into their present form by about 8 billion years ago, with little additional development since,” said Susan Kassin, an astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the study’s lead researcher in a press release. “The trend we’ve observed instead shows the opposite, that galaxies were steadily changing over this time period."

AFTER THE JUMP, a NASA computer model of a disk galaxy's so-called life and a brief NASA documentary about their findings.

Alabama Democrat Implies GOP Rival Is Gay

Alabama State Rep. Daniel Boman, a Democrat currently running for U.S. Congress, is gaining some national exposure for what's a pretty low blow: suggesting that his Republican rival, U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, is secretly gay and that this self-hate has led to his anti-gay legislative record.

In a Facebook posting published last week and just now getting attention, thanks in part to The Advocate, Boman, a former Democrat who switched parties in 2011, asks his fans, "Who would you vote for on Novemeber 6, 2012 between the following two candidates?"

The choices are A) "A republican who is a homosexual who has a voting record of voting AGAINST ALL homosexual legislation. Further, this particular homosexual congressman has ALL homosexuals working on his congressional staff", or B) "A democrat who is a straight male, but has no voting record for or against homosexual legislation."

It's worth noting here that the welcome message on Boman's Facebook page reads, "We need to protect our values and our jobs in Alabama. The Fourth Congressional District needs someone who understands our district, not a Washington insider."

Asked whether he meant to say that Aderholt, who is married and has two children, is gay and staffing his office with gay men, Boman said his question was simply "hypothetical" and tried to pass the buck by blaming his staffers.

"The people running my campaign posed a hypothetical question," he said last week. "The reason they posed the hypothetical question is we received phone calls about a congressman who may be homosexual."

Boman was also asked whether he thinks Aderholt is gay, to which the congressman responded, "The only way to remove the hypothetical is to call and ask him."

Aderholt's campaign had this to say about Boman's tactic: "When someone is making a fool of himself, we hate to interrupt."

Watch The Trailer For Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children': VIDEO

Director Deepa Mehta, author Salman Rushdie and dozens of actors and crew members managed to keep it a secret, clandestinely filming in Sri Lanka and hiding their project's true name for fear of violent retaliation, but they did the seemingly impossible: created a film adaptation of Rushdie's 1980 novel Midnight's Children.

The film, a tale of two men born at the precise moment India gained independence from colonial Britain, has already hit the festival circuit, including a bow at BFI London Film Festival earlier this month, and will be released stateside next month, but before that, take a peak at the official trailer and some footage from Midnight's Children AFTER THE JUMP.

Footage via Bleeding Cool.

Richard Tisei Has No Fear Of GOP 'Knuckleheads'

The national Republican Party has a well-deserved reputation for being homophobic, and Richard Tisei, an openly gay GOP Congressional candidate from Massachusetts, understands he'll have to deal with some resistance should he win his election and move to Washington next year. But Tisei says he's fully prepared for anti-gay "knuckleheads".

"I feel totally comfortable," Tisei said of his encounters with Republican big-wigs.

He went on, telling The Hill, "I’m sure that there are a few knuckleheads that will, you know, look at me based on my sexuality as opposed to what I bring to the table. But I’ve got to say, every single person I’ve met so far has made me feel really comfortable.”

Tisei also told reporter Russell Berman that GOP leadership like House Speaker John Boehner are "supportive of me because they believe that the party needs to be more diverse" both in terms of gay inclusion and, he believes, his geographic origins: "There aren’t very many Northeast Republicans nowadays, and most people recognize that in order to have a truly national party, you have to have members coming from all over the country."

Boehner's office says that while the speaker and Tisei "don't agree on every issue," including DOMA, which Boehner has spent hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars defending and Tisei says is "unconstitutional", "Richard and the Speaker respect one another". Boehner also campaigned for Tisei earlier this month, which could read as either a sign of respect or as an insurance policy for his own speaker seat.