News: Meghan McCain, India, Alan Cumming, Joe Solmonese, Boyzone

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese suggests that the time frame in his 2017 letter can be seen as a "narrow window" in the scope of the gay rights movement.

Straight Italian couple sues cruise company after showing up for their vacation to discover they were departing on Italy's first gay cruise: "My clients were also left embarrassed because among the passengers were people they knew and had no idea that were gay, which was uncomfortable for all parties."

Gay Al is feeling tender.

Iowa NAACP President announces support for anti-gay gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats.

Report: Iran hanged a man last week for gay sodomy.

Gay activists plan kiss-in at Fort Worth Stockyards: "The kissing booth will be on Exchange Street, right in the heart of the Stockyards and its bound to stir up controversy. In fact, one old cowboy has been quoted as warning gays that if they are not careful, they might be in for a whuppin'."

Dan Savage has never slept with Janet Napolitano.

A Spice Girls musical?

Gus van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis collaborating on film adaptation of Vanity Fair article "The Golden Suicides".

Gujarat state in India becomes home to the country's first elderly home for gay men: "The brainchild of Manvendra Singh Gohil, popularly known as India's gay prince, the project will be ready to accommodate elderly homosexuals by the end of the year. Manvendra Singh Gohil says, 'We will offer food, drinks and medical facilities for the people staying here, it will be their home.' The Rs 25-crore project will be home to 50 elderly gay men to start with. Requests for accommodation have already started trickling in."

Alan Cumming in new photo shoot from David LaChapelle.

Gecko madness!

Boyzone to hold Stephen Gately vigil on night before the funeral: "Grieving Boyzone bandmates plan to stay in the church with Stephen Gately's body the night before his funeral. Ronan Keating, 32, Mikey Graham, 37, Shane Lynch, 33, and Keith Duffy, 35, have taken the decision because Gately 'would not want to be there on his own', a source close to the group revealed."

No! Mia Michaels quits So You Think You Can Dance.

Passerby mistakenly frees female killer of London gay man: "Police are looking for three young people including two blonde teenagers who were caught on CCTV arguing with Baynham and his 30-year-old companion. The victim's friend grabbed one of the girls, receiving cuts and bruises in the process, but the girl was freed by members of the public who wrongly thought she was being assaulted, said Detective Chief Inspector Clive Heys, who is leading the inquiry."

Britney Spears shoots video for new single "3".

Meghan McCain creates Twitter furor with cleavage photo.

Muslim football team kicked out of league for refusing to play gay team.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler: Repeal DOMA now.

Lesbian says she was the victim of a hate crime at the National Equality March.

Bishop Gene Robinson will be appearing tonight at an event in Portland, Maine: "Join us for an evening of edification and education as we gather to worship God and to hear the words of the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. Sponsored by the Religious Coalition Against Discrimination, the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine, Rev. Ann Fowler, the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, the Equity Fund of the Maine Community Foundation, and Integrity Maine"

News: Neil Patrick Harris, 2010 Census, True Blood, Stolen Warhols

Washington state to appeal judge's ruling keeping names of donors to R-71 private.

Neil Patrick Harris touches up New York magazine.

Ed Westwick wants Zac Efron's body.

Eye-popping: Hundreds of thousands expected to report they are same-sex spouses in 2010 Census.

NYT: Pass ENDA. "People who believe in workplace fairness should lobby senators to get on board. It is unacceptable that in a nation committed to equality people can still be fired in more than half the states for being gay."

Taylor Swift speaks out about Kanye West incident: "Well, I was standing on stage because I was really excited because I had just won the award. And then I was really excited because Kanye West was on stage. And then I wasn’t so excited anymore after that...”

Egale Canada, a gay rights group, writes to Jason Kenney, minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, asking that eight homophobic dancehall singers be barred entry to Canada.

Madonna and Janet Jackson pay tribute to MJ at the VMAs.

$1 million offered for trove of stolen Warhol works in L.A.

UK footballer Trevor Morley says gay rumors nearly ruined his career: "The rumours about me being gay killed me for a while. I’ve got nothing against gays – I now have friends who are gay – but it’s not nice to be called a homosexual when you aren’t one. How many times does Robbie Williams have to come out and tell the world he isn’t gay. The more you say it, the more people start to believe it’s true… It ruined my football for a while. I’d go out onto the field and hide. I didn’t want to be there."

Values to guide Republican Bob Vander Plaats Iowa gubernatorial campaign: “Marriage is one man, one woman, period.”

Charles Darwin film can't find U.S. distributor.

David Beckham adjusts himself.

True Blood: What's coming next season - spoilers...

Matt Damon was responsible for the Venice Film Festival gay stripper-gram George Clooney received, and Clooney says he's out for revenge.

Inside New York's new Boom Boom Room.

Big spending predicted in Michigan by bigots hoping to block Kalamazoo's anti-discrimination ordinance: "Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, says Hoadley is a hired political gun who has the ability to raise a quarter-million dollars and deliver a cadre of national volunteers..."

Oscar buzz for...Mariah Carey movie?

Bud Light Lime is like anal sex, apparently.

Iran to allow transsexual marriage? "The woman, named only as Shaghayegh, told Tehran's family court she wanted to marry a school friend who had recently had a sex-change operation to become a man, but was unable to obtain her father's blessing, as legally required. Her father was summoned to court and agreed to the union on condition that the male partner, Ardashir, who was previously a woman called Negar, underwent a medical examination to prove it would be a proper male-female relationship."

News: Gay Exorcism, Father Cutie, Rosie O'Donnell, Neda, Nixon

Karger: Is the Mormon Church hiding its funding for the National Organization for Marriage?

Exorcism in Connecticut: Getting the gay demon out.

Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on hate crimes bill.

Body of pilot Marc Dubois and flight attendant among those recovered from Air France crash site. Black boxes not found. Will ping for only a few more days.

Transgender in a virtual world.

Rosie O'Donnell to host Sirius XM radio show.

Iran: Neda's family forced from home. "The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world. Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said."

Is Father Cutie gay?

Amsterdam Deputy Mayor Carolien Gehrels flies to New York City in support of marriage equality: "Mrs. Gehrels brings a personal perspective to the issue: she is married to a woman. She said that while the approval of gay marriage in the Netherlands that took effect in 2001 was 'a milestone in equal rights,' even eight years later 'equality and freedom are never self-evident.' Same-sex partnerships were legalized in 1998."

Douchebag warns that straight men will give up women once they try the gay.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was pushed into confessing affair: "As the newspaper disclosed on CNN tonight, it has since December had emails between Sanford and his Argentine mistress, it's just been trying to authenticate them. Then this morning the paper busted Sanford returning on an airplane from South America when he was supposed to be on the Appalachian Trial. The paper then informed Sanford it would finally be publishing the emails, exposing his adultery, according to The State writer John O'Connor."

Whitney Houston announces title of new album.

Seattle's The Stranger publishes Queer Issue 2009. NY's Village Voice goes Queer too.

Delaware General Assembly passes bill protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination after ten-year battle.

City investigation of Canterbury UK finds that, yes, the city is gay enough.

Adam Lambert collaborating with Sam Sparro on new album.

Violence not expected at this year's Jerusalam Gay Pride: "Amit Lev, a spokesman for the gay rights group behind the parade, said organisers had been negotiating with ultra-Orthodox leaders in Jerusalem after "long years of silence" between the two communities. 'We've agreed that violence doesn't serve any of us or any of our goals,' he said."

And even more skin from men's fashion week in Milan.

New batch of Nixon tapes reveal more homophobia: "Discussing Nixon's political opposition, Colson says it included 'the blacks and the poor.' Nixon adds: 'And the intellectuals.' Colson goes on to say that it also included 'the lavender shirt mob . . . the homos and the queers.'" Previously: Nixon understood homosexuality but didn't want it on TV.

News: Volcano, Andy Cohen, Generation Gap, Neda, Apple, Bruno

Letter to Obama from People for the American Way calls for him to make major speech on LGBT equality and to move Congress to act.

International Space Station gets lucky shot of erupting volcano.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck sued.

Watch What Happens: Andy Cohen to host weekly live late night talk show.

Boy Culture's visit to Broadway Bares. The event raised over $800K.

Iranians mourn Neda: "To those who knew and loved Agha-Soltan, she was far more than an icon. She was a daughter, sister and friend, a music and travel lover, a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life. 'She was a person full of joy,' said her music teacher and close friend Hamid Panahi, who was among the mourners at her family home Sunday, awaiting word about her burial. 'She was a beam of light. I'm so sorry. I was so hopeful for this woman.'"

It's men's fashion week in Milan.

Barna Study: "People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts. A substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life, consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today." (study)

Anti-gay informercial Speechless: Silencing the Christians, which was stifled in Michigan, resurfaces in California and North Carolina.

NYT goes inside Apple: "Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas. Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said."

New York mag on the gay generation gap.

Austria pissed at Sacha Baron Cohen over Bruno: "So it comes as no surprise that some local media are not happy with seeing Austria become 'the new Kazakhstan', thanks to Herr Bruno. Now these 'fears have become a reality', reads an article in the tabloid newspaper Österreich."

Rapper Eve to appear on Glee in the fall.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have twins through surrogate mother.

60,000 U.S. inmates sexually abused each year: "Inmates who were short, young, gay or female were more likely to be victimized than other inmates."

Manhattan synagogue makes $10K off Westboro Baptist Church protest: "Leaders of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a West Village synagogue that caters to gays and lesbians, didn't want to ignore a planned visit by members of the rabidly anti-gay and anti-Semitic Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church. Instead, they asked supporters to pledge a dollar or more for every minute that six protesters stood near their synagogue hurling epithets and holding signs that read "God Hates Fags" and "Jews Stole the Land." The final haul after 50 minutes: $10,000."

Obama Remarks on Iran, Answers Question About Vote Legitimacy

 

In a press conference today, Obama remarked on the situation in Iran, saying, in part:

"This is what we have witnessed. We have seen the timeless dignity of tens of thousands Iranians marching in silence. We have seen people of all ages risk everything to insist that their votes are counted and their voices heard. Above all, we have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets. While this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history."

Later, he was asked a question, via Huffington Post reporter Nico Pitney, from an Iranian citizen.

Watch both clips, AFTER THE JUMP (transcript of HuffPost question below)...

QUESTION: Yes, I did, but I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions on tonight from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online. And one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of — of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?

OBAMA: Well, look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground. We can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country.

What we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.

And so, ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States.

And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately, this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government.

What we can do is to say, unequivocally, that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with the peaceful dissent, that — that spans cultures, spans borders.

And what we’ve been seeing over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles.

I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that — that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.

Watch both clips, AFTER THE JUMP...

Neda: An Iranian Woman's Death Touches Millions

A 27-year-old woman named Neda who was killed indiscriminately by a Basij member over the weekend has become a martyr and a symbol for the opposition uprising in Iran. Footage of Neda's death posted to YouTube has been broadcast internationally. It is profoundly disturbing, but its existence and mode of distribution via the internet is perhaps the most potent example of the way new media has proven its power throughout this conflict.

Videos, AFTER THE JUMP...

Andrew Sullivan, who continues his unflagging coverage of the events in Tehran, received this email:

"At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart.

I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know."

A later report said she was shot by a Basij riding by on a motorcycle.

More: "The girl in the video below is called Neda Agha Soltan. born 1982, she was a philosophy student. Neda's body has been given back to her family by the police under the condition that there is a quick and disrete / secret / low profile funeral. The Mosques in Tehran are under pressure not to accept the funeral proceedings for Neda. Already the original ceremony at Masjed Al-Reza Mosque located on Niloufar Square was cancelled. It was scheduled for 4.30pm tomorrow. The man with the striped shirt is her father."

TIME writes about the death of Neda: "'Neda' is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime. The belief in martyrdom is central to modern politics as well as Shiite tradition dating back centuries in Iran. It too helped propel the 1979 revolution. It sustained Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq, when over 120,000 Iranians died in the bloodiest modern Middle East conflict. Most major Iranian cities have a Martyrs' Museum or a Martyrs' cemetery."

Videos, AFTER THE JUMP...