News: Walt Whitman, Submarines, Leona Lewis, Polaroid, Steve-O

HRC's Joe Solmonese responds to 2017 letter uproar.

18-year-old arrested in beating death of Oakland Park, Florida gay man.

Clinton disappoints gay activists in Moscow by not decrying anti-gay abuses of Mayor Luzhkov at Walt Whitman statue unveiling, but does urge Russia to respect human rights and the democratic process: "In an innovative society, people must be free to take unpopular positions, disagree with conventional wisdom, know they are safe to challenge abuses of authority."

Man punches singer Leona Lewis in the face at book signing.

Gay poet Carl Phillips a finalist for National Book Award.

House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks sexual orientation is not an immutable characteristic, and that's why he opposes hate crimes legislation that includes it.

Ed Westwick explains his giant feather tattoo.

Navy considers allowing women to serve on submarines: "Some sailors and wives warn that putting men and women together in extremely close quarters underwater for weeks at a time is just asking for sexual harassment cases and wrecked marriages. But supporters of the idea say it is a matter of fairness and equal opportunity, and what worked on ships can work in subs."

Last-minute donations pour in for Referendum 71 in Washington: "The campaign in favor of R-71, called Washington Families Standing Together, now has nearly $1 million in the bank. Big donations include $60,000 from a special fundraising committee set up by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group. Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates each gave $25,000. The campaign against R-71 also has some last-minute donors. A relatively new committee called Vote Reject on R-71 has collected about $200,000 from the Family Policy Institute of Washington, a Lynnwood-based conservative religious group."

GQ launches in China.

Patrick Swayze gets a memorial jack-o-lantern.

Masks come off: Michael Jackson's kids to co-star in Jackson family reality show.

Gay sex club closes after man falls to his death in D.C.: "At Men’s Parties, safety doesn’t mean ensuring that the apartment’s stairs, surfaces, and exposed metal pipes provide a secure sexual landscape for party attendees. It doesn’t even mean encouraging members to engage in protected sex. At 1618 14th St., 'safe' means ensuring anonymous sex for a group of gay men sporting wedding rings, sensitive careers, or shame."

Same-sex marriage state by state: an interactive map.

Polaroid instant film cameras to make a comeback.

Video Phone: Beyoncé and Lady Gaga team up for super secret music video.

Steve-O stands up for frogs.

Senator Olympia Snowe, the sole Republican vote on the Senate Finance Committee which approved the health care bill yesterday, says any final bill that includes a public option won't get her vote.

Queer theory: "Vampires have overwhelmed pop culture because young straight women want to have sex with gay men."

Make love on a real train and get crabs while you're at it.

John Mayer gets $800 haircut, debuts new video, wants to sodomize an editor at New York magazine.

Hillary Clinton and Homophobic Moscow Mayor to Inaugurate Monument to Gay American Poet Walt Whitman

Will Hillary Clinton mention the human rights abuses against LGBT people inflicted by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov when she and Luzhkov inaugurate a monument to gay American poet Walt Whitman in Moscow tomorrow?

Luzhkov has said publicly that he suppresses the opinions of gays because they spread AIDS, arrested gays rather than their attackers following a violent 2006 Gay Pride parade, and has branded gays "satanic".

Yet he is erecting a monument to a gay American poet who wrote overtly about sexuality.

UK Gay News reports:

"The monument to Walt Whitman, an author forever linked to gay culture and its history will be located in the gardens of the Moscow State University, where last May the Mayor ordered the arrest of 32 gay and lesbian activists from Russia and Belarus who were attempting to stage a Slavic Gay Pride. Among the people arrested were also British human rights activist Peter Tatchell from Outrage! in London and Andy Thayer from Gay Liberation Network in Chicago. Mr Luzhkov was accused last week of trying to shut down Moscow’s oldest and most popular gay club. The Club is due to close by November 15."

Said prominent Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev: "Hillary Clinton will have a good chance to publicly express her position on gay rights to one of the top homophobic politicians in Europe. I think that no one would understand her silence on the breach of fundamental rights of LGBT people in Russia, the day she inaugurates the monument to a gay poet together with the homophobic Mayor of Moscow."

Russian Court: Lesbian Couple Can't Marry

Irina Fedotova (Fet) and Irina Shipitko, a lesbian couple who went to court after being denied a marriage certificate, have had their case thrown out of court:

"Irina Fet and Irina Shipitko had asked the Tverskoi district court to overrule a decision by a registry office which refused to endorse their marriage in May. It quoted Russian laws which describes a marriage as a 'union between a woman and a man.' ... The judge refused their request,' spokeswoman Alexandra Berezina said without giving further details. Although post-Soviet Russia no longer prosecutes homosexuals as criminals and many high-profile Russians manifest their same-sex alliances, gays and lesbians remain public outcasts...A bid by Fet and Shipitko to register their marriage, the latest in a string of similar failed attempts, has been aimed at changing public perception of homosexuality in Russia."

News: Gerard Butler, Gay Adoption, Dominick Dunne, Anchorage

Florida ban on gay adoption goes before appeals court.

Summer of loss: Writer Dominick Dunne, songwriter Ellie Greenwich die.

Trial resumes for killers of South African lesbian football star Eudy Simelane, targeted with "corrective rape" and stabbed to death because of her sexuality: "Men are unemployed and feel traditional male preserves — such as football or drinking in a bar — are under attack. That was Eudy’s crime. An aggravating factor was that she did not look like a typical female. People are just getting killed here because they are different, like HIV-positive people have been killed in the past. What is important is to get a verdict which includes murder."

Gerard Butler and his pug Lolita in doggie dust-up.

Dueling dot-coms battle for .gay domain address.

State senator Ed Murray mulling write-in campaign in Seattle mayoral race.

Lesbian Houston City Controller Annise Parker is among top contenders in mayoral race: "She’s the most experienced, most well-known candidate in the race, but the anti-gay far right knows this too, so we fully expect them to use her sexual orientation to divide and distract the voters. We’re preparing for that."

Ed Westwick hangs out with his Gossip Girl gay kiss recipient Neal Bledsoe.

Tom Ford's London home on the market.

Advocate interviews gay men who created Miley Cyrus 'Party in the USA' Fire Island video.

New Jersey Catholic bishops launch campaign against marriage equality.

Celestia is back and crazier than ever.

Kylie Minogue talks about first North American tour with Black Book magazine.

Freelance writer goes undercover at "ex-gay" seminar.

Russian lesbians protest postponement of court hearing over marriage challenge with a kiss: "Ms Fedotova-Fet and Ms Shipitko applied to marry at a Moscow registry office in May, but were refused on the grounds that same-sex marriage is illegal in Russia. The couple argue that Russian law does not forbid such a union. A court ruled the refusal was legal and their complaint would be heard today."

First online gay rights and support group formed in the Maldives. Official site.

Afton, Minnesota home targeted with anti-gay graffiti.

Gay High Line founder Robert Hammond rewarded handsomely by board of directors.

In Anchorage, it looks unlikely that the Assembly will move to override the veto of a gay rights ordinance by Mayor Dan Sullivan: "The first opportunity for the Anchorage Assembly to override Mayor Dan Sullivan’s veto of an ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation went by Tuesday night without action."

News: Billy Mays, Orgullo, Kevin Jennings, Avenue Q, Prop 8

NCLR, ACLU, and Lambda Legal back federal challenge to Prop 8: "In legal documents filed late Thursday, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the ACLU signaled a significant break with past legal tactics that avoided taking the fight to federal court."

NYT revelation: Gay men and straight men can be friends.

Zachary Quinto has a couple of male beach dates in Malibu, on the same day.

Scenes from the coup in Honduras.

Won't resign: Governor Mark Sanford compares himself to King David.

Despite ban, Russian gay activists plan to protest Obama next week on his trip to Moscow: "In a statement, Nikolai Alexeyev said the Moscow authorities had banned a proposed demonstration outside the U.S. embassy next Tuesday, the second day of Obama's July 6-8 trip...'We don't intend to abandon our plans and in the near future we will determine the format of action on July 7 during the visit of Barack Obama in Russia.' A Moscow municipal spokeswoman confirmed city authorities had turned down a request from gay activists to protest in front of the U.S. embassy on July 7. She said the area had already been booked for another event and that Muscovites were against the gay protest."

The last days of Heath Ledger.

Madrid's Orgullo gay pride festival a two-week event. Obama called out on gay rights in Paris.

Avenue Q to close on Broadway in September as 20th longest-running show of all time.

City of Toronto data sheds light on gay neighborhoods, marriages from out-of-state, etc.

Famous TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead in home.

The 5 strangest products pitched by Billy Mays.

Ashton Kutcher's spread - nsfw.

Wingnuts attack former GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings over Department of Education appointment.

Going to Rome this summer? You may want to check out these spots.

Gayby Boom: CNN on the children of same-sex couples.

Best banner ad ever?

Male model fix: Edilson Nascimiento.

Michael Jackson: UK's Daily Mail publishes tell-all; LAPD questions cardiologist.

NYDN: It's time to end LGBT discrimination. "That Stonewall has hit its fourth decade is only part of the reason that the media are giving this anniversary attention. The other reason is that there is a sense of excitement that, with the spread of gay marriage to more states, the struggle for gay rights may be about to reach a new high-water mark. But all this excitement glosses over a critical fact: Gay people have the same federal protections against discrimination in terms of the most basic civil rights that we had at the time of Stonewall. And that is exactly: zero."

Moscow Mayor Luzhkov Sued for Condemnation of Gays

Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov restates ban on gay parades:

"First, this is society's moral. Our society has a healthy moral and rejects all these queers. If you even imagine that they get permission to hold their parade and gather, they will simply get killed. We have radical Christians who have hard feelings against these demonic manifestations, as they see it. By the way, when there were attempts to hold a gay parade during the recent Eurovision Song Contest, we had to isolate 19 radicals who were going to beat up these queers. I ban such parades, and this decision is well-thought. Moreover, this is not only a mayor's decision. Our society itself is against such demonstrations."

Luzhkov has been sued for the remarks: "Leading gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev filed a defamation lawsuit for 1 kopek against Mayor Yury Luzhkov on Wednesday for saying 'queers' undermine a morally healthy society...Alexeyev said he held little hope that he would win the lawsuit that he filed in Moscow's Tverskoi District Court. 'Nobody in Russia can win against the authorities. This is about raising awareness,' he told Reuters."