Towleroad Guide to the Tube #329

BOB BARR: The Libertarian candidate spoke with Talking Points Memo at Netroots Nation.

CRIMINAL: Howard Fineman says Bush wants a McCain administration to "cover over" the abuses of his presidency.

2010: An Iraqi spokesman essentially agrees with the 16-month plan to get U.S. troops out.

AL GORE: Al Gore was the surprise guest at the Netroots Nation contest: "Pelosi was on stage taking questions from the audience, and she started reading a letter she said she'd received about climate change. In the middle of the letter you heard Al Gore's voice reading the letter. I suspect some people thought it was a recording, until Gore appeared on stage." Gore urged bloggers to mobilize for global climate protection.

Check out our previous guides to the Tube here

Sphere: Related Content

News: Universal Fire, Clay Aiken, Uganda, Avenue Q, Greece

Gays disposable: Uganda says it will ignore gays in its HIV/AIDS prevention efforts because homosexuality is illegal. Instead, they'll focus on "other high risk groups such as sex workers, truck drivers, remote fishing communities and members of the armed forces."

A mother always knows...

Libertarian candidate Bob Barr's flip-flop on DOMA.

Utah parents seek criminal penalties against teacher who they say went too far in sex ed class: "The Jordan School District is investigating allegations that a seventh- and eighth-grade health teacher violated the sex education statute by responding to questions from students about topics beyond the core curriculum, including homosexual sex, oral sex and masturbation."

Colorado enacts non-discrimination law: "Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed legislation today prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, public accommodations, credit transactions, juror service, and other areas. The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Jennifer Veiga and state Rep. Joel Judd, expands existing laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, religion, disability, and other characteristics."

Anna Quindlen on same-sex marriage: love won.

Sex and the City rocks the box office with $55 million haul, sequel in the works. Writer Michael Patrick King signs first look deal wtih DreamWorks.

AfterElton announces its Hot 100.

Fire burns Universal Studios taking King Kong, Back to the Future, 40,000 film reels with it...

The L.A. Times takes a close look at the failed Harvey Milk film: "It will be a bittersweet time for Zadan and Meron. 'We recognize that, at the end of the day, it's business -- people make movies for a living,' says Zadan. "And when you work on a passion project, there's always the chance that you'll get your heart broken. I told Michael London, 'The only way I'll hate you is if you [mess] the movie up. It's Harvey's story and all we want is for someone to tell it well.'"

MTV Movie Awards: one feature-length movie trailer.

Tom Cruise has a housewarming party.

California clerk hopes to be first same-sex marriage: "For 18 years, Stephen Weir has been in charge of the office that hands out marriage licenses in California's ninth-largest county. And for just as long, Weir has been unable to get a license himself because the love of his life is a man...He and his partner, John Hemm, want to be first at the counter that day. They want to be the first to exchange vows and kisses in the conference room Weir converted into a wedding chapel that hosts 1,200 couples a year, but that he could never use."

Avenue Q to have 2000th performance on Broadway.

NYT publishes letters regarding Governor David Paterson's same-sex marriage decision: "When our oldest son, Benjamin, got married, he asked Jacob to be his best man. Then our son Joshua got married and again Jacob was his best man. When our daughter, Britta, married her dear Matthew, she didn’t have a maid of honor. She had a man of honor, and it was her brother Jacob. At each wedding, as Jacob stood by his siblings and signed the papers to make it legal, he did it knowing he did not have the right to marriage himself. As a mom, I find that hard to understand and heartbreaking to know it is true. How can this country treat people in such a way that something as basic as finding love and being married can be denied to a whole segment of society?"

Gays in Greece vow to wed despite threats of prosecution: Said Greece's supreme court attorney George Sanidas: "Neither civil law nor the country's constitution refer to gay marriages. If the Tilos mayor proceeds, he will have committed the criminal act of breach of duty."

Peter LaBarbera of "pro-family" group Americans for Truth made his annual visit to the International Mr. Leather weekend in Chicago. He just can't stay away!

Sphere: Related Content

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #297

BOB BARR: The Libertarian candidate pledges to repeal DOMA.

THE REAL SON: A short film by Lucas Grabeel.

PHIL GRAMM: Gramm was advising McCain while lobbying Congress about the mortgage crisis.

IT'S A GIRL: Martin Luther King, Jr's first grandchild born in Atlanta.

Check out our previous guides to the Tube here.

Sphere: Related Content

Former Congressman Bob Barr Calls for End of Don't Ask, Don't Tell

In an op-ed published this morning in the Wall Street Journal, conservative former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr questions the position of every single Republican candidate for president on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and says that their response to a question on whether or not they would end the ban on gays in the military at last week's debate offered "some troubling insight into the thinking of leading GOP candidates." Barr says that DADT should go.

An excerpt:

"As a conservative Republican member of Congress from 1995 to 2003, I was hardly a card-carrying member of the gay-rights lobby. I opposed then, and continue to oppose, same-sex marriage, or the designation of gays as a constitutionally protected minority class. Service in the armed forces is another matter. The bottom line here is that, with nearly a decade and a half of the hybrid "don't ask, don't tell" policy to guide us, I have become deeply impressed with the growing weight of credible military opinion which concludes that allowing gays to serve openly in the military does not pose insurmountable problems for the good order and discipline of the services.

...Asked about reconsideration of the don't ask, don't tell policy in favor of a more open and honest approach, the simplistic responses by several Republican presidential candidates left me -- and I suspect many others -- questioning whether those candidates really even understood the issue, or were simply pandering to the perceived "conservative base." The fact is, equal treatment of gay and lesbian service members is about as conservative a position as one cares to articulate."

Barr, once a Republican and now a Libertarian, says that the unnecessary discharges hurt the military, "an institution conservatives claim to love." He also says the ban is a waste of money and that the invasions of privacy related to the ban are an infringement on conservative values.

Don't Ask, Who Cares [wall street journal]

Recently...
GLBT Military Service Subject of New Historical Exhibit [tr]
Pentagon Sought "Gay Bomb" Says Watchdog Group [tr]
Gay Iraq War Vet: Steady Gay Couples Common at Camp Lejeune [tr]
GOP Candidates on Gays: Discrimination Trumps National Security [tr]
Singer and Van Sant Vie to be First with Harvey Milk Film [tr]

Sphere: Related Content