NEWS: Villains, Vectors, Vladimir

 From Carl Panzram to Holmes: " ... the truth is,  there will always be another loner with a grudge."

 One girl's escape from sexual slavery:

Forced to use drugs and drink alcohol, Maria says she thought her life would soon end. She was horrified when she saw a very young girl brought into the house where she and others were being kept. She asked the girl how old she was. The answer: eight years old.

Maria says she attempted to escape once. She ran away and asked some police officers on the street for help. What she didn't know was that the officers were on the payroll of the pimp and took her right back into the brothel where she got another savage beating ...

 All-girl Russian punk band faces seven years in prison for protesting Putin in a church. 

 Australian Prime Minister halfway explains her opposition to marriage equality during a Google hangout; promises a conscience vote: 

One of the more challenging questions came from Shane Bazzi, a 25-year-old Sydneysider who topped the poll on the OurSay.org website with more than 12,700 votes.

He asked the Prime Minister to explain her opposition to gay marriage given she is as an atheist and leader of a "self-described socially progressive party".

"I don't think that heterosexual relationships are more valued than same-sex relationships," the Prime Minister replied.

"I think people who are in loving, commited relationships, all of those relationships should be valued. I think my relationship should be valued and I'm not married."

She said her view about gay marriage was based on its cultural status and differed from Mr Bazzi's.

"These are very individual personal perspectives on the world...This should be a conscience vote in Labor. We will have a vote on changing the marriage act by the end of the year."

 Science shocker: Anal sex is a major vector for HIV transmission.

 "NAACP develops HIV manual for black churches."

 Following the Boy Scouts' vote to continue discriminating against gays, Major League Soccer announces it will cease partnering with the organization.

 Proposed rule from the US Office of Personnel Management would grant benefits to the children of employees' same-sex spouses:

... children will be eligible for coverage if a parent is in a domestic same-sex relationship with a federal employee who receives coverage through federal programs. These children would be eligible for coverage — both under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the Federal Employees Dental & Vision Program — regardless of whether or not they’ve been legally adopted by the federal employee.

...  Emily Hecht-McGowan, the Family Equality Council’s public policy director, said the proposed rule is important because many LGBT families throughout the country live in states without legal protections.

“Most of the two million children raised by LGBT parents live in states where their parents cannot marry, cannot secure legal ties to their own kids and cannot get their children covered under a health insurance plan,” Hecht-McGowan said. “This rule change means that federal workers can now be assured that a high fever, broken arm or debilitating illness won’t jeopardize their child’s health or their family’s finances.”

 Chinese dictionary writes gayness out of existence. 

 Feet are burned in a botched Tony Robbins firewalk.

 Gay wedding fatigue:

“The equality people will have a fit about this, but I’ll say it anyway: I have gay-wedding burnout,” Mr. Shields, 35, said one day this spring. “I spent my 20s going to weddings, being in weddings, shopping for weddings, helping to plan weddings. In my early 30s they finally started tapering off, and I was like, ‘Oh, thank God, we’re over the hump.’ ”

He paused for dramatic effect. “Nope. Here come the Gays.”

Gay American AP Intern Found Dead In Mexico City

Twenty-two year old Armando Montano, an American journalist interning for the Associated Press, was found dead in an elevator shaft this weekend. The causes of the Colorado Springs resident's death are unknown and the U.S. Embassy there is monitoring the investigation.

The Washington Post offers more information about Montano's regrettably short career:

The Colorado Springs, Colorado, resident arrived in Mexico City in early June after graduating from Grinnell College with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and a concentration in Latin American studies.

During his time in the bureau, Montano covered stories including the saga of nine young elephants from Namibia who wound up on an animal reserve in Mexico’s Puebla state, and the shooting of three federal policemen at the Mexico City airport.

He was not on assignment at the time of his death.

...

"Armando was a smart, joyful, hardworking and talented young man," said Marjorie Miller, AP’s Latin America editor based in Mexico City.

"He absolutely loved journalism and was soaking up everything he could,” said Miller. "In his short time with the AP, he won his way into everyone’s hearts with his hard work, his effervescence and his love of the profession."

Montano planned on getting a master's in journalism at the University of Barcelona come fall. The Massachusetts-born journo was also a member of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

Mother Whale Lifts Calf Up to Get a Look at Humans on Boat: VIDEO

One World One Ocean posts a gray whale encounter in Laguna San Ignacio, on the Pacific coast of Mexico's Baja peninsula, where the mammals migrate:

The gray whales in San Ignacio Lagoon frequently approach small tourist boats, seeking the human interaction. While they could easily avoid the people, whose small boats are not allowed to closely approach whales, they actually seem to enjoy making contact.

They also note:

Whale watching here is highly regulated, with limits on how many boats can be on the water, how long they can stay, and how close they can get; rather than closely approaching the whales, they must idle their engine and wait for the whales to approach the vessel, which is a common occurrence.

Check out this amazing video of a mother holding up her calf, AFTER THE JUMP...

Find out more about One World One Ocean here.

Mexican Trans Activist Agnes Torres Brutally Murdered: VIDEO

Mexican transgender activist Agnes Torres was found dead this week outside her home in Puebla, Mexico. Her neck had been slashed, her body burned in signs she had been tortured.

The Puebla-based organization Vida Plena Puebla released a statement, 2bmag reports:

“We condemn this crime against a woman, an academic, a psychologist, educator, role model and activist for human rights for women in general and for sexual diversity as a whole,” the Puebla-based organization Vida Plena Puebla. “We are distraught, pained, enraged and saddened by this crime, and feel powerless over how, yet again, a brave person has succumbed to the most brutal of gender-based violence… in this case, violence against a transgender woman.” The organization demanded in their statement that Torres’s murder case be treated the same way as that of “the daughter of any governor, politician, or attorney” and that it be solved swiftly.

Queerty's Oscar Raymundo adds:

The 28-year-old psychologist, educator and human-rights advocate had been leading the march for acceptance for trans folk in her native country.

News of Torres’ death spread quickly among LGBT activists in Mexico: On Monday, close to 2,000 people congregated outside Puebla’s civic plaza, seeking justice and demanding the murder be classified as a hate crime. Onán Vázquez Chávez, president of Vida Plena Puebla, a local LGBT group, told CNN Mexico that violence against queer individuals should not be treated as “crimes of passion” when there is clearly a “luxury of rage” involved.

Torres' murder is the 6th murder of an LGBT person this year in Puebla.

Watch videos of the vigil for Torres and news reports, AFTER THE JUMP...

Anti-Immigration Sheriff Paul Babeu's Gay Affair With Undocumented Immigrant

Sheriff Paul Babeu, of Pinal County, AZ, is one of the most recognized faces of American anti-immigration sentiment. He's been a FOX News regular. He appeared in a John McCain campaign ad calling for a border fence. In January, Babeu announced his run for the United States Congress in a macho press release headed "It's Time For a New Sheriff In Washington," in which he decried the "400,000 illegal crossings into our state every year."

Well. According to a story broken this week in the Phoenix New Times, Babeu spent much of the last decade in a long-term gay relationship with an undocumented immigrant named Jose, whom Babeu threatened with deportation after their relationship ended.

From The Phoenix New Times:

He says [Babeu's] lawyer Chris DeRose demanded he sign an agreement that he would never breathe a word about the affair. But Jose (New Times is withholding his last name because Babeu and his attorney have challenged his legal status) refused.

The 34-year-old from central Mexico charges that the sheriff's lawyer warned against mentioning the affair with Babeu. DeRose said gossip about Babeu would focus attention on Jose, attention that could result in his deportation, Jose says.

... Babeu didn't respond to requests for comment by publication time for this article, but his attorney, DeRose, says the dispute between Jose and the sheriff concerned Jose's work on Babeu's websites. He says Jose was a former volunteer who hacked into a campaign website.

DeRose didn't immediately address the other claims against him and the sheriff, except to say, "I never threatened to deport anybody" and that "[Babeu's] not threatening anybody."

Babeu and Jose allegedly met on Gay.com in 2006. At some point, Jose began doing web work for Babeu, maintaining his campaign websites, Facebook profile and Twitter feed. Their relationship began to disintegrate after Jose discovered Babeu's profile on Adam4Adam and created a false profile to see if Babeu was amenable to an affair. After many messages and explicit photos exchanged between Babeu and Jose's alter-ego (including Babeu's self-portrait, above), Jose's alter-ego arranged a date with Babeu at a steak house. (Babeu told Jose's alter-ego to "pack an overnight bag.") Babeu showed up and was shocked to discover Jose in the parking lot.

After the couple split, Jose began posting disparaging remarks about Babeu online. Texts exchanged by the men during that time are both sad and illuminating. From New Times:

Jose shared text messages between him and Babeu with New Times. A September 4, 2011, text from the sheriff reads: "You can never have business after this and you will harm me and many others in the process . . . including yourself & your family."

A couple of minutes later, Babeu followed with: "And you say you have loved me? Papi . . . this is no good."

Jose responded: "Good threats. Wont work. Im already hurt me . . . and you didn't care."

They exchanged more texts on September 6.

Jose: "Dont threat me. Thats illegal. Im just speaking . . . true."

Babeu: "You have crossed the line. Better get an attorney. You brother will also be contacted."

Since then, Jose claims he's been a constant target of harassment by Babeu and his lawyer. New Times writer Monica Alonzo solicited comment from Nancy Jo-Merritt, a "long-time Phoenix immigration attorney":

"If what [Babeu's attorney] says is correct [about Jose's being illegal], either the sheriff had a long relationship with someone he knew was undocumented, while all the time being Mr. Bluster about the border and using it for political gain," or he threatened to deport someone he just broke up with, Merritt says.

"That's just the worst kind of hypocrisy."

She adds that federal immigration-enforcement agents have better things to do than "take care of Babeu's boyfriends."

NEWS: Gingrich Cries, Mexico Marries, And Katy And Russell Split

 It's over: America's worst singer and Britain's worst comedian to divorce.

Newt Gingrich tears up discussing mother.

The scheduled end of the world next year will be excellent for Mexico's tourist industry.

Cancun to exploit vague legal verbiage to perform gay weddings, attract tourists.

The NYT on the fine line Obama walks on LGBT issues:

Mr. Obama’s strategy, administration officials and gay-rights advocates said, reflects two conflicting forces. He recognizes that support for gay rights and same-sex marriage is growing, particularly among young voters.

But he is reluctant in an election year to be drawn into a culture-war issue — one that reliably helps Republicans turn out evangelical voters in their favor and that also strikes a particular nerve with religious black voters, a bedrock Obama constituency in battleground states like North Carolina and Florida.

The 10 best physics books of 2011.

Happy birthday, Patti Smith. Catch some vintage, savage Smithery AFTER THE JUMP ...

The AP's big story on the plight of LGBT seniors:

Experts say many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender seniors fear discrimination, disrespect or worse by health care workers and residents of elder housing facilities — ultimately leading many back into the closet after years of being open.

That anxiety takes on new significance as the first of the 77 million baby boomers turns 65 this year. At least 1.5 million seniors are gay, a number expected to double by 2030, according to SAGE, the New York-based group Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.

 "Sista P" to return to Jamaican leadership after "landslide" election.

Neal Polack knew Christopher Hitchens better than anybody:

It was 1972, the height of our mutual virility. He and I went to a pub to celebrate his most recent intellectual victory over the establishment press. I intimated that sometimes women could be funny on purpose. Even back then, the thought enraged him. Hitchens threw a drink in my face, pressed a lit cigarette into my neck, and hit me over the head with a barstool. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was lying hogtied and naked beside the M5. Hitch had already severely damaged my reputation in a vicious essay in the Guardian. But that’s how he operated, and that’s why we loved him.

Need a New Year's resoluton? Presenting Paul Angelo, gay matchmaker and noted crazyperson, who suggests an "urgent" moratorium on anal intercourse. (HT: Michelangelo Signorile)

Longform.org names the 10 best long-form sex stories of 2011. I wrote one of them!