News: Will Young, National Equality March, Shot Put, Bernie Madoff

Muslim footballers agree to play Paris gay team: "Bebel director Zahir Belgharbi insisted there had been 'a misunderstanding' and sent out a statement through club lawyer Benedicte Puybasset indicating they were indeed ready "'to play the match'." Background.

Obama swastika carved into Massachusetts golf course. GOP Tweets clip of Hitler praising Pelosi.

Rad: Guess who's returning to Broadway?

Rex Wockner's report on the National Equality March: "The praise for Obama inside HRC's fancy dinner and the denunciations of Obama in the streets of D.C. seemed to unequivocally confirm the split that's emerged in the gay community in the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8 in California."

Listen: Michael Jackson's new track "This Is It".

Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis attended National Equality March: "The 'Girls Gone Wild' creator told us, 'With the gay movement, it's personal. The same religious-right [bleep]holes who took away my civil rights and put me in jail for a year because they don't like what I do for a living have taken away gay rights. I know firsthand how it feels to have your civil rights stripped from you.' Francis added, 'P.S., lots of lesbians marched, too.'"

Taylor Lautner strips for GQ.

Singer Will Young pregnant in new video.

Gay Navy veteran Joseph Rocha in the Washington Post: "I even saw "don't ask, don't tell" used against heterosexual female service members who had reported being the victims of sexual assault. If my chief acted on their statements, he would be forced to punish a friend of his, so the easiest way to make the problem go away was to scare the women into silence by saying something like: 'You weren't sexually assaulted by a male in my unit. I hear you're a lesbian.' After all, homosexuals have no rights in our military. You can't sexually assault someone who doesn't exist."

Male model fix: Joel West.

100-year-old breaks shot put record in Sydney: "All eyes were on Ruth Frith, from Brisbane, as she arrived for day two of the World Masters Games, hoping to win gold in the shot put and feeling pretty confident as she was the only competitor in the over-100s category. But her 4.07 metre (13 ft 4.2 in) throw on Sunday didn't just win her gold, but also broke a world record."

Justin Timberlake used to get called "sissy" by the football players.

Jesus Luz gets $18K for half hour of DJing in Brazil.

The Obamas and art: demand innovation, not admiration.

Russian singers and writers call for end to discrimination against gays: "They met after a local official tried to close Moscow's longest-running gay club, Dusha i Telo, where many of the artists have performed. Activist Nikolai Alekseyev, who called the meeting, said it was the first time celebrities had come together publicly to denounce homophobia."

AIDS cases trending upward in Montana...

Bernie Madoff in prison brawl.

Toys"R"Us reprimanded by sixth grade class for gender discrimination: "According to the youngsters, the Toys"R"Us Christmas catalogue featured 'outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive', according to a statement from Ro."

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: Ryan McGinley, Russia, Posh, Channing Tatum, Himalayas

Activist David Mixner on the mend. We are happy to hear it.

New Ryan McGinley solo exhibit in London features naked young people in caves.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn restores budget funding for HIV/AIDS services.

How did Posh Spice's first day as an American Idol judge go?

Russian Big Brother contestant sues over claims he is gay and a prostitute: "His legal team says the case is the first time that a Russian public figure has sued over allegations that he is gay."

NPR covers New York's Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.

New anti-healthcare ad tactic: scare the hell out of seniors.

U.S. Attorney won't investigate Rainbow Lounge raid: "In a statement e-mailed to the Star-Telegram, Jacks wrote that although his office monitors reports of excessive force by local or state police, it is the role of the FBI to investigate complaints of civil-rights violations." Gay rights group continues push for outside inquiry...

Christian group in Russia wants gay culture to vanish: "Everything that is connected to the propaganda of gay culture must be moved away to limit the impact on ordinary people, because it leads to degradation."

Now this is what I'd expect Thor to look like.

WWF: Over 350 new species discovered in Himalayas in last decade. "This enormous cultural and biological diversity underscores the fragile nature of an environment which risks being lost forever unless the impacts of climate change are reversed."

Game Show Network's Newlywed Game seeks gay couples...

UK water park bans Speedos: "To prevent embarrassment among fellow members of the public and to maintain the family friendly atmosphere at the resort, bosses have taken the extreme measure of banning these tight trunks from their popular waterpark located within the Splash Landings Hotel."

Channing Tatum's stripper past.

Tennessee's first male strip club to open in Nashville over Labor Day Weekend. Metro Councilman: "I'm sick to my stomach - I'm just absolutely sick. It's different for a man to show himself than a woman. It's another step in the wrong direction."

Promo pics for yet another vampire series.

Michael Jackson buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills.

The Shake Weight: with this and thighmaster you'll be all set.

John Mayer spends "mature and beautiful" evening out.

Survey to reveal number of gay clergy in England: "Inclusive Church, a network of individuals and organisations working for better recognition of minorities, says the survey will be the first of its kind and will prove that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) clergy play a crucial role in the everyday life of the church.

News: Oscar Wilde, El Niño, Pepto-Bismol, Vladimir Putin, Iraq

U.S. military probing claims by Iraqi refugee that servicemembers were involved in the executions of gays in Iraq.

Provincetown player Ryan Landry stars as Oscar Wilde in production of Moises Kaufman's Gross Indecency.

Save the Earth, piss in the shower.

New El Niño may be second-strongest.

The Majority: Condé Nast's 'A-gay' tower of power?

Bolivia bans all circus animals: "Bolivia has enacted what animal rights activists are calling the world's first ban on all animals in circuses. A handful of other countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses, but the Bolivian ban includes domestic animals as well."

Phyllis Schlafly unleashes on the National Education Association for supporting gays at its annual convention in San Diego.

Allen Thornell, LGBT leader in Georgia, dies after suffering stroke.

Leonardo Dicaprio hits the beach in Ibiza.

Pepto-Bismol ice cream: hangover cure?

Murses and the dudes who dig them. (via the awl)

Stonewall Shooting Sports: Gay Utah group to join gun rights march in Salt Lake City.

Killer of gay seaman August Provost, who committed suicide while in custody, had tried to kill himself twice before.

Movieline interviews photographer Bruce Weber.

Maybe the only reason to see the new G.I. Joe flick?

The NYT visits the John Bartlett boutique: "It’s not as if this store is exclusively gay; it’s just secure in its sexuality. Contrary to current film and television, there is a large segment of confident gay men out there who aren’t that obsessed with fashion. They work hard, and just need some nice clothes for jobs and second dates."

What Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Will Smith will be wearing this fall.

Russian PM Vladimir Putin shows off his macho self again. FLASHBACK: A river runs through Russia: Fishing with Pin-up Putin.

75% of Poles against same-sex marriage.

Glenn Beck: Don't get violent, even though I've been riling you up for years.

Error rate increases as signatures are counted in Washington state anti-gay ballot measure.

Massachusetts teen held on $1000 bond after anti-gay assault: "According to the victim, he and his female friend were walking on Bay Street when they were approached by a group of four boys. They identified two of the four as Ambers and Gregg, who appeared to be intoxicated when they directed their attention toward the victim in an aggressive manner. Though she tried to keep Ambers at a distance, the victim’s friend told officers her attempts were futile. Reports say Ambers and Gregg shouted homosexual slurs as they punched and kicked the teenager until he fell to the ground."

Annie Lennox, backwards and forwards.