News: Walt Whitman, Jarron Collins, Christie's, David Beckham

David Beckham announces retirement from football.

16 named tropical storms predicted for 2013 hurricane season.

Walt Whitman's 'haversack' to go on display at the Library of Congress for first time.

Kim Kardashian just hearing about Kanye West gay rumors.

Boston bombing suspect left note in boat: "The note, scrawled with a pen on the interior wall of the cabin, said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims collateral damage in the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars."

IRS acting commissioner resigns.

Cannes Film Festival kicks off.

Christie's contemporary art auction sets record: "Record prices for 12 contemporary artists including Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat made history on Wednesday night. The sale of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s in Rockefeller Center totaled $495 million, the highest sales figure at any art auction."

Previews for Ben Affleck's SNL hosting gig.

Garrett Clayton is flashing his nips on the beach in Santa Monica.

Jarron Collins spotted out in the shirt Jimmy Kimmel gave him.

Activists appeal gay parade ban in Moscow: "In their complaint, the campaigners recalled the European Court of Human Rights' ruling in 2010 that found the ban of such public events in Moscow in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to be illegal."

Gay in Maryland: The Baltimore Sun launches a gay section of their online news site.

Nine former employeed of L.A. gay bar Micky's file lawsuit: "The plaintiffs are charging the popular nightclub, known for its male strippers and go-go dancers, with civil rights violations, which include lewd conduct, creating a sexually hostile work environment, racial discrimination and discrimination against heterosexual employees, and labor code violations."

New Republic: How loneliness can ravage our body and brain. "To psychologists trying to puzzle out how social experiences affect health, AIDS amounted to something of a natural experiment, the chance to observe the effects of conditions so extreme that no ethical person would knowingly subject another person to them. The disease came from a virus—HIV—that was neutralizing all the usual defenses of a discrete group of people who could be compared with each other and also with a control group of the uninfected. That allowed researchers in a lab at UCLA to take on one of life’s biggest questions, which had become even more urgent as the disease laid waste to thousands, then tens of thousands: Could social experiences explain why some people die faster than others?"

One Direction announces the first stops on its World Tour.

Madonna made a vacuum manufacturer very happy. "Miele's Marketing Director, Dominic Worlsey, said, 'Miele has seen vacuum sales calls more than double since Madonna posted the photo. We've had so much interest that we've contacted her as a potential brand ambassador to launch the 'Immaculate Collection' of Miele vacuums.'"

Conservative group claims AARP is promoting a radical homosexual agenda because it is inclusive.

Pat Robertson offers advice to woman whose husband cheated on her: "Touch his face. Hold his hand. Look into his eyes. Talk to him. ... Make a home so wonderful that he doesn't wanna wander."

Malaria mosquitos drawn to smelly socks. "Scientists collected human odor on nylon socks -- by having someone wear them for 20 hours -- and put them, along with clean socks, into an enclosure with mosquitoes. The bugs infected with P. falciparum showed more landings and more probing of the smelly socks. None of the mosquitoes -- infected or not -- were especially drawn to the socks with no human odor."

Uma Thurman to Play Anti-Gay Activist Anita Bryant in New Biopic: VIDEO

Uma Thurman has been cast as anti-gay activist Anita Bryant in Anita, according to The Hollywood Reporter:

The film follows Bryant, a former celebrity singer and orange juice spokeswoman, who, when she allows a gay screenwriter into her home, is forced to confront her past as an anti-gay Christian crusader who successfully campaigned to overturn a gay rights law in Florida and destroyed her show biz career in the process.

The film will be directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman from a screenplay by Chad Hodge and produced by Darren Star, Howard Rosenman, Jeffrey Schwarz and Dennis Erdman.

Watch the famous news clip of the moment Bryant was hit in the face with a pie by gay activists, AFTER THE JUMP...

Gay Romance Tracks Love, Fear, Dance in the Early Days of AIDS: VIDEO

A new film premiering at the Seattle Film Festival is set in the San Francisco modern dance scene of 1985, and chronicles a gay romance in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

Watch the trailer and a clip of some of the dancing, AFTER THE JUMP...

(via boy culture)

Trailer for TEST (SD) from Serious Productions on Vimeo.

Website Dance v2 from Serious Productions on Vimeo.

A Nasty Pig Break: VIDEO

The gay-owned Chelsea-based clothing company Nasty Pig drops its latest lookbook/music video, which features a runaway pitbull, some playground calisthenics, and a happy ending.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Featuring Matthew Camp, Frankie Sharp, Roze Black, Xander, Juliana Huxtable, Abel Ljoka, Mike Espinosa, Justin Holmes, Eve Anthony, Gabriel Joseph Anthony, Jared Conner, Adam Capuano, Stefon Tadlock, Kayrizz, Roc'well, Blake Lloyd.

Directed by @lilinternet, who directed Diplo's "Express Yourself" video.

Pentagon Recognizes for First Time That Transgender Veterans Exist

The Department of Defense for the first time has made an official acknowledgement that transgender people have served in a uniformed capacity in the armed forces by reflecting in its records the gender identification of activist and veteran Autumn Sandeen, Buzzfeed reports.

In a short letter dated May 2, a Navy official told Autumn Sandeen, a veteran and transgender activist: “Per your request the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) has been updated to show your gender as female effective April 12, 2013.”

Sandeen’s military identification card now reflects the change, a move called “quite significant” by the head of OutServe-SLDN, a national organization for LGBT service members and veterans and their families.

“The fact that a process exists [to change the gender listed] indicates that there are people in the Department of Defense who are aware of the needs of transgender retirees and who are working to see those needs met. And, in that sense, the significance of this symbolic act for our broader work and for our goal of open service becomes I think a little bit more apparent,” OutServe-SLDN executive director Allyson Robinson told BuzzFeed.

Much more at Buzzfeed...

GALLUP: New Polls Show Most Americans Support Marriage Equality and Believe People are Born Gay

Gallup has revealed the results of a recent poll showing support for marriage equality at 53 percent, the third consecutive reading of 50 percent or higher in the past year.

Gallup's May 2-7 poll suggests Americans' support for gay marriage is solidifying above the majority level. Recently, Rhode Island and Delaware legalized same-sex marriage, and Minnesota is likely to follow suit. That would bring the total number of states legally recognizing same-sex marriage to 12.

Just three years ago, support for gay marriage was 44%. The current 53% level of support is essentially double the 27% in Gallup's initial measurement on gay marriage, in 1996.

Nearly all U.S. subgroups are more likely to favor gay marriage now than in the past. Politically, Democrats, independents, and liberals all show increasing support for gay marriage over time, with each well above the majority level now. Republicans, conservatives, and moderates are more likely to favor gay marriage now than in 1996, but the increase in support among these groups may have stalled. Thus, most of the increase in the percentage favoring legal gay marriage in the last three years has come among left-leaning groups politically.

Much deeper data diving at the source.

Another poll shows the largest-gap ever measured between those who favor 'nature' over 'nurture' when it comes to sexuality.

Writes Gallup:

Currently, 47% of Americans view being gay or lesbian as a sexual orientation individuals are born with, while 33% instead believe it is due to external factors such as upbringing or environment. That 14-percentage-point gap in favor of "nature" over "nurture" is the largest Gallup has measured to date. As recently as two years ago, the public was evenly divided.

The results are based on Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 2-7. When Gallup first asked about the origins of same-sex orientation in 1977, Americans were much more likely to attribute it to upbringing or environment. Although the gap in favor of external factors shrank somewhat over the next two-plus decades, it remained the more common belief.

Throughout most of the last decade, Americans were generally divided in their views, though there were times when they tilted slightly more in the direction of environmental factors (2003-2005) or toward a birth factor (2006-2008).

The 2012 Values and Beliefs poll marked the start of a trend toward an increasing belief that people are born with a same-sex orientation.