News: Thailand, Dick Cheney, Brazil Wedding, Diva Clinton

Jay Leno and Ryan Phillippe are still on good terms after the "gayest look" incident. Said Leno: "No, we talked about it before. We're friends. I mean, it's a talk show. That's what you do."

Same-sex weddings, civil unions, commitment ceremonies big business in New England: "Throughout the Northeast, competition has spiked among wedding sites, hotels, resorts and inns as the travel industry has realized that same-sex ceremonies can draw scores of guests, who turn these destinations weddings into weekend stays."

Ashlee Simpson is another straight woman who loves that gay guys love her man.

Red Cross in Thailand changes screening process for gay blood donors: "Gay-rights activists had complained that one question, which was meant to target people more likely to have diseases transmitted by sex and drugs, had effectively blocked all gay men from donating by only asking about same-sex relations. 'We didn't mean to hurt anyone,' said Soisaang Pikulsod, director of the Thai Red Cross National Blood Centre. 'It was just to ensure the highest possible safety of our patients.' The Red Cross will rework the form to include more questions about all types of sexual behaviour, gay or heterosexual, that could increase the risk of diseases such as AIDS, she said."

Kathy Griffin and Adnan Ghalib in most obvious paparazzi punk'd ever.

Dick Cheney has either a naked woman or an alien entity in his lenses. Or Lynne Cheney, in which case it would be both.

American Idol loses one of the guys [SPOILER].

Gay-friendly college fairs a budding trend: "Students are coming out at a much younger age. That process isn't beginning in college or after college like we may have seen 10 or 20 years ago. So these high school students who are out come looking for a range of things that show a college will generally have students like them, and a university with an inclusive mission."

Judge tosses Florida lawsuit filed by high school student denied the right to form a gay-straight alliance: "The former student, Yasmin Gonzalez, has graduated, so she's no longer affected by the school's decision to ban the club, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore said in a ruling Wednesday. Gonzalez's attorneys with the ACLU tried to maintain her stake in the case by seeking nominal monetary damages, but Moore ruled she isn't entitled to any money because she wasn't claiming violations of due process. 'We were surprised and disappointed by his interpretation,' said Rob Rosenwald, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. Rosenwald plans to ask the judge to reconsider. Attorneys for the school board declined to comment."

Brazil televises "tacky" gay wedding.

George Michael = God?

East Village Boys offer T-shirt that big shooters wear with pride.

TPM suggests "diva theory" behind Hillary's appeal: "Hillary is the diva, the fabulous woman who is fabulous just because she says so. She's the woman who is abused (by her husband), ridiculed (by the press), hated (by Republican mouth-breathers), yet she's still standing. She's like from some exploitation film where the heroine is beaten and barely raped before pulling a knife out of her sock and slicing the mean guy's balls off. Her supporters have stood by her and fought her battles with her - and sometimes for her - since the 1990s. The emotional connection runs too deep. R-e-s-p-e-c-t, she shakes her finger. Find out what it means to me. And the crowd eats it up." Can any shallower arguments be made?

Michigan's Aquinas College cancels speech by gay rights activist. President: "I'm not trying to keep people from seeing him. I'm trying to prevent the college from sponsoring an event that displays an attack on Catholic teaching values."

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Georgetown Students Protest Response to Anti-gay Hate Crime

A group of students calling themselves "GU Pride" protested on the Georgetown campus yesterday to call attention to the anti-gay hate crime that occurred there on September 9, and the University's failure to notify the campus that it had occurred.

Georgetown student Philip Anderton Cooney, the son of George Bush's former chief of staff of the Council on Environmental Quality, has been charged in connection with the attack in which a fellow student says he was assaulted after being followed and taunted with homophobic slurs.

Georgetown students held a rally on campus at which they hung a banner that said "Why can't you just be normal?" They then symbolically pelted the banner with paintballs. The students, who say they first learned about the attack from local station NBC4, then marched to the president's office.

According to the Georgetown Voice, "Though many students heard about the crime through media outlets on Thursday night, the Georgetown community was officially notified last Friday via e-mail by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson."

Cooney's attorney has said that "an arrest made 'three weeks after the fact' based on identification though Facebook and without an independent police investigation did not establish his client’s guilt" according to the Voice. However, the paper reports that the police used what Alberto Jova, the commanding officer of the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit for the Metropolitan Police Department, called "a very strong investigatory [method]" of double verification. The victim was also able to pick Cooney out of a line-up photo of nine Georgetown students. Jova said that "the independent identifications, along with the victim’s injuries, constituted probable cause to arrest Cooney."

Cooney's lawyer still claims they arrested the wrong man.

Cooney's father, Philip A. Cooney, resigned from his White House position in 2005 and took a job as an oil lobbyist with ExxonMobil. In March, Cooney admitted during 2007 Congressional hearings that he had altered environmental reports in order to downplay the effects that man-made greenhouse gases were having on global warming.

Campus Rallies Against Prejudice [georgetown hoya]
Hate crime suspect identified in two line-ups [georgetown voice]
Georgetown Students Protest In Response To Alleged Hate Crime [nbc4]
(video)

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Parents Nixing Gay College Roommates Using Facebook

An article in USA Today notes that parents of freshmen entering colleges have begun using Facebook profiles as a way of screening the school's choice of roommate for their child:

"Housing officials say parents who cite Facebook most frequently mention party-related content and photos as their primary concerns. Parents sometimes see cups in photos and make the leap to alcohol and drugs, Manetas says. But Robin Berkowitz-Smith of Syracuse University says race, religion and sexual orientation are the top three concerns from parents contacting officials there. Maureen Wark of Suffolk University in Boston also ranked sexual orientation as a top concern of parents. Wark recalls getting a call from a parent who had 'psychological and sanitary concerns' about a student's new roommates, both of whom were gay men. 'People don't give other people a chance,' she says."

Officials at Syracuse, who place a "freeze" on room changes for the first few months of school, appear to have a sane approach to the situation, however:

"[Robin] Berkowitz-Smith says Syracuse officials talk with students when they arrive on campus to determine whether they actually have reservations about a roommate, rather than assuming students have the same concerns parents do."

Facebook pages concern parents of college freshmen [usa today]

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