Dan Savage Talks Race and Prop 8 with D.L. Hughley

Dan Savage appeared on D.L. Hughley's show over the weekend to discuss race, the Prop 8 vote, and the civil rights movement. Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

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Second Half of Larry King Live with Joy Behar on Prop 8

Here's the second half of the Larry King Live Prop 8 special from Friday night that I was looking for this morning. The first half featured Cynthia Nixon. The second features Gavin Newsom, Dan Savage, Bishop Harry Jackson, Rev. Jim Garlow.

On Saturday, Dan Savage wrote on his site what he wished he'd said on Larry King:

"Well, amongst other things: When political attacks are launched from churches, political responses will be delivered to churches. If goddamned McDonald's had organized and paid for Prop 8, we'd be marching on goddamned McDonald's."

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Here's the first half.

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Dan Savage Wants to Be Sarah Palin's Gay Friend

The Stranger's Dan Savage would like to be Sarah Palin's gay friend, since nobody has been able to find any of them. Savage says he can teach her kids about sex and gay marriage, and she and Todd could teach his kids about God and skinning mooses.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Who Wants to be Sarah Palin’s Gay Friend? [the stranger]

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Anderson Cooper on the California Same-Sex Marriage Decision

Anderson Cooper talked to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom and Jeffrey Toobin, Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, and Dan Savage last night on AC360 in an extended segment on the California marriage decision.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

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News: Bats, Clay Aiken, Figure Skating, John Bolton, Dr. Laura

Dan Savage lost his mother on Monday, and today penned a beautiful column about her. We offer our sincerest condolences. May she rest in peace.

David Beckham in trouble with the law.

Open wide: Clay Aiken demonstrates amazing oral technique.

John Caldera, an aide to San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, will carry the Olympic torch in San Francisco today: "As someone who is openly Gay, Latino and a U.S. Navy Veteran, I have learned to respect the many subsets of our society. At times, I agree to disagree with those who have conflicing ideas ordeals than mine and at times, through respect and discourse, mutual understanding is possible but in the end I always remember the immortal words of the great humanitarian, John Lennon: 'All we are saving is give peace a chance…'" (via outsports)

Elsewhere in SF, gays protest the torch's arrival.

Keanu Reeves wants to sing show tunes.

Charleston's City Paper asks, is Lindsey Graham gay?

Gabriel Rotello at World of Wonder posts a comical reminiscence about an interview he once did with the late Charlton Heston: "Finally, someone sent word that the cameraman was ready and I rose to escort the tottering titan down to the basement. It was then that I discovered what a careless PA had missed. At the top of the stairs hung a huge, poster-sized photo of the queerest of all the queers, Miss RuPaul, in full drag, giving major attitude and practically screaming "I AM GAY, GAY, GAAAAAAY."

Dr. Laura gets weekly segment on FOX News.

Mysterious illness decimating bat populations in Northeast: "This summer, it could affect everything from outdoor barbecuing to farming. In one of nature's most efficient if little-known feats, bats consume as many as 1,200 insects an hour after emerging from their sheltering places every night. This prodigious airborne feeding substantially controls mosquito populations and helps prevent plant-eating insects from damaging crops. The long-term effect of what appears to be a major die-off of bats is not yet known, but the possibilities clearly worry scientists."

Regarding Brandon Davis' "faggot" outburst we posted about earlier. Davis told TMZ: "I would like to apologize for the poor word choice when provoked by the paparazzi on Thursday, April 3rd. They by no means reflect my views and upbringing. I was taunted by the photographers and when they used vulgar sexual remarks against my mother I reacted as any son would."

Query to the National Post: Can figure skating make you gay?

John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to speak at Log Cabin Republican convention in San Diego this weekend.

Diane Sawyer takes on Rosie O'Donnell.

Jeff Klausner, San Francisco's director of STD prevention and control, targeting gay cruising sites in effort to promote safe sex: "Over the past few weeks, Klausner has been working with the city attorney, the National Institutes of Health, the California Department of Public Health, and the Department of Public Health in New York, whose large gay community also uses social networking sites for sex, in an effort to track down Adam4Adam's thus-far-anonymous and secretive owners. His aim: To get the site to slap the equivalent of a surgeon general's warning on its hookup forums and at least make users aware of the dangers of the anonymous, multiple-partner unsafe sex that is its stock-in-trade."

Pushing Daisies has a gay character.

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Gay Eustace Sparks Debate on Gay Marriage and Overt Sexuality

I've brought up the Eustace Tilly cover illustration contest that The New Yorker magazine is running a couple times over the last two weeks. The contest generated at least one gay-themed entry which has generated some playful discussion between bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage, both of whom are married.

Tilly is the magazine's mascot (see photo inset). He appeared on the magazine's first cover in 1924 and appears annually every year, sometimes in a slightly revised form. The contest has generated a lot of entries. The "Gay Eustace" entry (pictured), which features a 70's-style leather queen contemplating a gold wedding band is the one that has drummed up the dialog.

Sullivan's initial post on the cover entry described Gay Eustace as "suspended between the past and the future, like the rest of us," which Savage replied was too 'either /or' an analysis:

"Any fool can see what Sullivan means by that crack: Gay Eustace, in his leather vest, cap, arm bands, gloves, and dog collar, looks down his nose at a gold band. Gay Eustace contemplates the wedding ring and the future it represents, a future characterized by family and commitment. The leather gear Gay Eustice wears, of course, represents a past characterized by promiscuity and sexual excess. When Sullivan asserts that Gay Eustace is suspended between the past and the future, between the wedding band and the leather gear, he is arguing that commitment and dog collars are mutually exclusive. To move into the former you must, Sullivan would have us believe, unbuckle the latter. That is not the case. A man, gay or straight, can wear a wedding band and enjoy all it symbolizes—commitment, stability, family—and wear the fetishized skins of dead animals if that appeals to him. In fact, we should encourage him to do so. If we want to strengthen the institution of marriage—and that is what all in the gay family values movement want (although I’m starting to have my doubts about Mr. Sullivan)—we must fight with every tool at our disposal the pernicious notion that marriage, by definition, must always and everywhere signify the death of sexual experimentation and adventure. A man, gay or straight, can be married and trot about Manhattan in a dog collar, if it pleases him and his spouse. And he should be able to do without the depth or sincerity of his commitment being called into question. Just as we don’t presume that a man wearing a wedding band is incapable of adultery, Mr. Sullivan, we shouldn’t presume that man in a leather vest is incapable of commitment."

Sullivan replied to Savage's post by saying that they actually "almost" agree. Sullivan actually revised his post to exclude the line "Of course, there's no reason a leather queen shouldn't get married either."

Says Sullivan who wed his partner in Provincetown last summer: "Why did I delete the extra qualification? I guess what I was driving at in commenting on that image is that it represented some kind of collective cultural conflict, as much as a personal one. And while we'd like the conflict to be totally absent, it isn't. It's not either/or. But it isn't totally both/and either, is it? There is something about the most overt sexuality that isn't easily integrated into marriage in our culture. Maybe we need to adjust that, as Dan suggests. And maybe it isn't quite that easy, as my deletion implies."

A worthy conversation, one which says to me that the Tilly entry pictured here is a good one. Your thoughts on the collective cultural conflict, readers?

ADDENDUM: I did not mean to suggest by this post (but perhaps I framed it in too divisive a manner) that Sullivan and Savage are at war on this topic. They're not, and Dan's post was certainly meant as a humorous jab rather than an angry one.

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