News: Queen Elizabeth, Daft Punk, Rhode Island, CPAC

Two Oregon men were attacked by a wrench-wielding man hurling anti-gay epithets as they walked their pink poodle. Police are looking into whether or not the incident can be considered a hate crime.

Queen Elizabeth has been hospitalized with gastroenteritis, an intestinal inflammation typically caused by a virus. Apparently these commoner viruses do not know the 86-year old is royalty!

Gay and lesbian couples, and the wedding industry, are gearing up for spring and summer ceremonies in Maine.

Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb sees marriage equality on the horizon. Civil unions, he says, are just the first step.

Lincoln Chafee, the independent governor of Rhode Island, where same-sex marriage recently passed the state House, makes an economic argument for passage: "Without marriage equality in Rhode Island...very desirable employer(s) will consider the difficulties and costs of hiring in Rhode Island against conditions in other Northeastern states. And the company may simply feel it's wrong to deny its gay and lesbian employees a fundamental freedom: the right to marry the person they love in the state they call home."

Could docs have a path toward a potential "HIV cure" for newborns? "A baby born with the AIDS virus appears to have been cured, scientists announced Sunday, describing the case of a child from Mississippi who's now 2½ and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection... A doctor gave this baby faster and stronger treatment than is usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth... That fast action apparently knocked out HIV in the baby's blood before it could form hideouts in the body."

Sequestration and HIV.

While litigation can create positive change in some cases, it likely won't work when it comes to breaking down homophobia in the NFL, says NBC Sports' Mike Florio.

"Palestinians Only" buses coming soon to Israel.

Gay Orthodox Jewish group preps for their first seder in Jerusalem.

Obama's second term will continue to see the judiciary undergo long overdue demographic shifts: "Reelected with strong support from women, ethnic minorities and gays, Obama is moving quickly to change the face of the federal judiciary by the end of his second term, setting the stage for another series of drawn-out confrontations with Republicans in Congress."

James Franco admits he teases people about his sexuality, and that questions about it are now a big part of his public persona. "One of the things that's very much part of my public image is the question of my sexuality. It's not something that bothers me in the slightest. It hasn't gone away and I get asked about it from all sides. It's partly my doing and partly not my doing," he tells Attitude.

From a New York Times op-ed called "The Perils of Perfection:" "Barriers and constraints — anything that imposes artificial limits on the human condition — are being destroyed with particular gusto. Superhuman, another mysterious start-up that could enliven any comedy show, promises to offer, as its co-founder recently put it, an unspecified service that 'helps people be superhuman.' Well, at least they had the decency not to call it The Übermensch."

Right wing magazine the National Review blasts CPAC for banning the gay group GOProud and not inviting Chris Christie: "...As friends of CPAC and fellow conservative advocates, we nevertheless regret that CPAC has excluded the gay conservative group GOProud and declined to invite New Jersey governor Chris Christie."

Daft Punk teases a new album.

The best type of reporters are the ravishing kind...

Jack the Giant Slayer topped the weak weekend box office with a meager $28 million.

James Franco Shows Jimmy Kimmel His 'Gay Town' Portraits of Speedo-Clad Water Polo Players: VIDEO

James Franco appeared on Jimmy Kimmel last night. After landing outside in a hot air balloon a la The Wizard of Oz, Franco showed off some of the art in his Gay Town show, without answering Kimmel's question about why the show is called Gay Town — although the pictures he shows off are part of the answer.

Watch (in three parts), AFTER THE JUMP...

James Franco Says Gay Rumors are Nothing New: VIDEO

James Franco tells MTV News that he was subjected to anti-gay bullying in high school:

"In high school these girls got mad at me and so they spread this rumor that I was having a gay relationship with one of my closest friends,. And they even made up a little dance they would do in the girl's locker room about me being gay. I still don't know what the dance was."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

James Franco Discusses His Gay-Themed Sundance Sex Films 'Kink', and 'Interior. Leather Bar': VIDEO

James Franco sat down with MTV News to discuss the films he has screening at Sundance, which include Lovelace (see here), Interior. Leather Bar (which we've posted about HERE), and Kink (trailer here), a documentary about SF's adult film studio:

Has this all been part of Franco's plan, the next step in his always-keep-you-guessing, is-he-really-going-there-now career? Or is it just happenstance, the entertainment gods smiling down upon us? Franco, predictably thoughtful on the subject, can see it both ways.

"If you think about the origins of each of these films, it is a coincidence," he told MTV News. "But if you think about it as there's something in the air — and I do believe there are waves of things that interest filmmakers and people in television — then maybe it's not such a coincidence." ...

"This is for all the '50 Shades of Grey' fans," he told us. "This is what you're reading about. This is the real thing. This is what it looks like. This isn't the dime store version of bondage. This is what bondage is like."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

News: James Franco, Barbara Walters, Albuquerque, Bird Strikes

A 15-year old boy has been charged with the shooting deaths of two adults and three children in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Police say the teen had at least one assault rifle.

Five people were injured in separate incidents during yesterday's "Gun Appreciation Day."

Vicco, Kentucky, population 344, may be the smallest town in America to ban anti-gay discrimination.

What promises made during his first inaugural speech did President Obama keep?

Can former NYC Mayor Ed Koch's AIDS record be discussed without whispers about his sexuality? "Absent the hostility, a more speculative version of this position is offered in the film by Ethan Geto, a media and political strategist, who says simply that during the epidemic "it would have been so incredibly valuable for a popular mayor of New York to declare he was gay."

Labour MP Paul Flynn is introducing a bill that would allow gay royals to marry and for their children to be potential heirs to the British thrown.

This is horrific and graphic but definitely something you should pay attention to: video of a CVS manager strangling a homeless shoplifter to death while pedestrians hold the man down. No criminal charges are pending.

Daniel Radcliffe is already tired and "weirded out" by all the questions about the gay sex in his new film, Kill Your Darlings. "What weirded me out the most last night was people were asking me all these questions about the gay sex scenes. I was like: 'You know I did Equus?'. Some people are asking me questions like this is a more shocking subject, which is so strange," he said.

A review of James Franco's Interior Leather Bar, an homage to the graphic gay sex cut from the controversial gay classic Cruisin': "Interior Leather Bar does contain one very graphic sex scene - a tender encounter between two men we are told are a real-life couple, which seems to be entirely against the film's idea of re-queering gay sex. And in general it's much more about talking about sex than actually showing it, which also makes its claims toward provocation a little weaker."

Did you see Jennifer Lawrence host Saturday Night Live?

ABC News' Barbara Walters was hospitalized after falling and hitting her head at an inauguration party.

Loneliness is bad for your health: "[A new study] reveals that people who are lonely experience more reactivation of latent viruses in their systems than the well-connected. Lonely people also are more likely than others to produce inflammatory compounds in response to stress, a factor implicated in heart disease and other chronic disorders."

More on American anti-gay crusader Brian Brown's efforts to block marriage equality in France.

Want to stop bird strikes? Turn up the bass.

Jared Padalecki's a hot daddy.

Justin Bieber shared his butt with the world.

When Florence Welch met A$AP Rocky.

Hundreds of activists gathered to say adieu as Steven Goldstein prepares to step down as Garden State Equality's executive director.

Dave Franco Reflects on F**king Himself

Dave Franco addresses his homoerotic Funny or Die videos in a new interview with Bullett:

Franco has made a career out of accepting his own dares, specifically a series of ultra-raunchy videos he wrote and starred in for the humor site Funny or Die. The the one where he takes an ex-girlfriend’s suggestion to “go f**k yourself” literally and ends up lustfully pounding his own bottom was particularly popular.

“I give the special effects guy so much credit, because my initial idea was to just find a guy who looks like me and film the back of his head,” he says. “But to superimpose my head on somebody else’s body makes the whole thing unique.” This bizarre waggishness has familial roots, the Palo Alto native says, explaining that his two older brothers—artist Tom and actor James—exposed him to certain things “sooner than I should have known about them.”

The resulting twisted sense of humor is on full display in a two-part series of skits for the site in which he and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (with whom he costarred in Superbad and Fright Night) play a game of sexual chicken, delivering come-ons to each other until there’s no choice left but to laugh or vomit. They do both.

“Every meeting and interview I have, people mostly want to address the Funny or Die videos, which I’m happy to do because I feel like they’re an accurate representation of my humor, as twisted as it may be,” he says. “I’m actually excited to talk about them, whereas an actor, at least when you’re first starting out, does a lot of jobs that you wouldn’t necessarily choose to do.”

(top image via GQ UK)