Obama Talks About MLK Jr, Lincoln, His First Inauguration, and What This One Means to Him: VIDEO

President Obama reflects on this inauguration and its place in history.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Abraham Lincoln Flies Coach: PHOTO

And judging by his expression, has about as great an experience as the rest of us do.

(via imgur)

News: Lindsay Lohan, Mitt Romney, Mercury, Scorpio Sky

Senator-Elect Tammy Baldwin, US Rep-elect Mark Takano and Ambassador David Huebner, all of whom are openly gay, will speak at the Victory Fund’s LGBT Leaders 2012 Conference, which starts today.

Mitt Romney stopped by the White House for a 70-minute lunch with President Obama. The campaign rivals had turkey chili and reportedly talked about "America’s leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership position in the future." The White House says the men "pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future." I have the same arrangement with summer camp friends from 1994.

According to Dr. Sylvia Rhue, her family history proves that Abraham Lincoln was gay and had an affair with William Herndon, his law partner.

David Petraeus wrote to a friend about his recent fall from grace, "I screwed up royally. I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing, at the end of the day... [But] Team Petraeus will survive though have obviously created enormous difficulty for us. Holly is however once again demonstrating how incredibly fortunate I was to marry her."

Rebel Wilson's on top of the world, and actually deserves to be there.

Low level pro-wrestler Scorpio Sky knows "faggot" is offensive, which is why he uses it early and often.

Sure, Jude Law, you're not as young as you used to be, but you still look pretty darn good.

NYU student Blake Pruitt talks to gay men about gay men.

Sigh. Lindsay Lohan, an actress I really wanted to see have a comeback, was arrested after getting into a bar brawl in New York City. That brawl was reportedly over Max from the band The Wanted.

Meanwhile, Lohan also faces charges for lying about a car accident in Los Angeles.

George Zimmerman is selling autographs to fund the team defending him for Trayvon Martin's murder.

Ellen DeGeneres shares road signs warning wheelchair-bound citizens of incline-assisted alligators and other out-of-the-ordinary public alerts.

Britney and Will.i.am, "Scream and Shout," the video.

Braison Cyrus, brother of Miley and son of Billy Ray, makes his modeling debut in the February edition of Troix magazine.

NASA's Messenger rover found enough ice at Mercury's poles to fill the Dead Sea.

Democratic Rep. Jackie Spier introduced a "Stop Harming Our Kids" resolution today that aims to stop "ex-gay therapy" for minors. "Any effort to change sexual orientation is not medicine, it’s quackery, and we should not be supporting it with taxpayer dollars," said Spier.

Terrible: 60% of youth infected with HIV in 2010 are African-American. "Nearly 29,000 new cases of HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, were attributed to gay and bisexual males in 2010, and 82 percent of those cases occurred in large cities," US News and World Report reports.

With marriage equality set to become the law of the land, Washington state is considering gender-neutral language for marriage and divorce certificates. "Our fight for marriage equality is in part a fight for gender equality, not just for the gay and lesbian community. It is a fight for equality of sexes and the idea that marriage does not in itself mean that women are subjugated to men," said State Rep. Jamie Pedersen.

Tony Kushner, Husband Praise Obama's 'Lincolnian' Endorsement of Marriage Equality at White House Screening

As you probably know, Steven Spielberg's Tony Kushner-penned Lincoln opens today, and it opened last night at a special screening for Obama at the White House, the Daily Beast reports:

Kushner joined moderator Tina Brown on a summit panel about the making of the film, saying he thought Obama “really liked it." The president's entourage also "seemed to like it," he said. "They all stood up.” Then he joked, “Maybe they do that every time.” Clearly having an unusual evening, he added with a laugh, as if to explain his somewhat harried state, “I just literally walked out of the White House. I couldn't find the limo.”

Kushner, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Angels in America, said he wrote three drafts of the Lincoln script, which ultimately zoomed in on the president’s life during the passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. The film is based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

The film's subject resonated with Kushner and his husband (EW editor Mark Harris) in a personal way:

Kushner said he talked personally with Obama about the film on Thursday night and that the president “really knows his Lincoln.”

Kushner also said he felt that Obama’s decision to express support for gay marriage was “very Lincolnian.” He said, “I think it was handled with absolute strategic and moral perfection. It arrived at exactly the right moment. As my husband said to him tonight, it was a life-changing moment when the president of the U.S. said that.”

Previously...
Watch Tony Kushner Explain Why Lincoln Isn't Gay In 'Lincoln': VIDEO [tlrd]

Watch Tony Kushner Explain Why Lincoln Isn't Gay In 'Lincoln': VIDEO

Some are disappointed that Tony Kushner didn't address rumors that Abraham Lincoln was gay in the screenplay for the new movie Lincoln. While Kushner is well aware of the rumors, and in fact believes there's some credence to them, he felt the movie should instead focus on a "specific moment" in time.

"I don't feel that there was any evidence at this particular moment that Lincoln was having sex with anybody," Kushner tells Tom O'Neil in the video AFTER THE JUMP. "He seems to have not slept and taken no time off during this period …. I don't say in my movie whether the Lincoln character was gay or straight. You can ask Daniel (Day-Lewis) what he was playing, but it did not seem to me a thing to make a movie about now."

As for the Lincoln was gay rumors, Kushner said, "I personally believe that there is some reason to speculate that Lincoln might have been bisexual or gay." One of the reasons is that Lincoln shared a bed with his bodyguard, prompting gossip that the men were involved. But even if Lincoln was indeed playing for the other team, Kushner has no doubt that he and wife Mary Todd were deeply in love.

"These two people loved each other," said Kushner. "It wouldn't be the first time that a gay man and a straight woman hooked up and had a great marriage. But I don't know. I really don't know."

Watch Kushner and O'Neill discuss Lincoln's sexuality and the new movie AFTER THE JUMP.

Watch The 'Lincoln' Trailer That Ran After The Debate: VIDEO

Clearly hoping to intrigue some politics and history buffs, Disney last night aired another extended trailer for its forthcoming Steven Spielberg-directed biopic Lincoln. Some, like MovieLine's Frank DiGiacomo, seem to think the studio wanted viewers to equate Lincoln and Obama.

"[The clip] not-so-subtly established Lincoln and Obama as kindred spirits," he wrote, highlighting the similarity in lines uttered by both Lincoln, played in the Tony Kushner-penned flick by Daniel Day-Lewis, and President Obama. In the clip, Lincoln declares, "I am the President of the United States of America...clothed in immense power," while Obama at the Democratic National Convention insisted, "Times have changed, and so have I. I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President."

Political divining aside, the trailer offers us the clearest view yet of what this movie will be all about: war-time action, backroom scheming and lots of Lincoln being anguished. Oh, and there's a scene of Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln griping about how Lincoln is locked into a marriage of convenience.

Could this be an allusion to rumors that Lincoln preferred the company of men? Watch the trailer AFTER THE JUMP and judge for yourself.