News: Nevada, Scholastic, Rihanna, Malta, Sean Hayes, GOP

Repeal of HIV travel ban in final stages.

Marriage equality campaigns push for early vote in Maine.

Scholastic bans gay-themed book from book fairs: "Luv Ya Bunches, about four elementary school girls who have little in common, but bond over the fact that they’re all named after flowers, is the first installment of a four-book series. But Scholastic says the book, released on October 1, failed to meet its vetting process because it contains offensive language and same-sex parents of one of the main characters, Milla."

The fleshjack for fangbangers.

New Yorkers plan calling party this Friday for Maine marriage equality.

GOP moderate who supports marriage equality in New York state in race seen as test for 2012 presidential elections.

Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth coming to Broadway in revival of Promises, Promises.

George W. Bush will never shut up about his rug.

Silhouette and initials of Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz shot at by Southeast Republican Club at gun range event: "Among the approximately 40 people at the event was Robert Lowry, a Republican seeking his party’s nomination to run against Wasserman Schultz next year. Lowry shot at a target bearing the letters 'DWS' next to the silhouette head. Lowry said he didn't know who wrote Wasserman Schultz' initials on his target, but said he knew they were there before he started shooting. He initially described it as a 'joke,' but after answering several questions he said it 'was a mistake' to use a target labeled 'DWS.'"

James Franco: Just don't ask him to pronounce Versace.

Rated R: Album cover drops for Rihanna's latest.

Billy Bell drops out of So You Think You Can Dance due to illness.

Scientists discover gene that makes rodent's cells "cancer-proof".

President of Malta condemns anti-gay discrimination: "He said he had LGBT people specifically in mind when referring to minorities and various families during his inaugural speech. President Abela stressed the important of anti-discrimination legislation in employment and agreed that Malta EU membership is a positive factor contributing towards greater debate on diversity and acceptance."

Daytime TV to see mass gay wedding of 22 couples on One Life to Live.

Ricky Gervais to host the Golden Globes.

Ang Lee has fond memories of the Brokeback kiss: "I was directing Heath kissing [Jake Gyllenhaal] and I told him that you would never kiss a woman that hard. He needed to do it in a heroic Western way, more passionately. I remember seeing Michelle watching while we filmed - at that point they were already 'friends' - and she had a look of concentration on her face because she also thought he should be stronger with Jake."

Madonna hits Malawi to break ground for her girls' school.

More than 1,000 couples have registered as domestic partners in Nevada: "he law took effect Oct. 1, and more than 700 couples pre-registered and picked up their certificates that day. Nevada's constitution bans gay marriage, but the partnership law extends certain rights previously enjoyed by only married couples to couples who live together. That includes community property and the right to seek financial support after a breakup."

News: Kay Hagan, UFO, Sean Hayes, Sex Education, Diddy

The Human Rights Campaign has released its annual scorecard, measuring support for equality in the 110th Congress.

Michael Phelps to get his own reality show?

Backstage war on The View over Elisabeth Hasselbeck's pro-McCain T-shirt: "If you do that again I will burn you down."

Researcher: HIV can lie dormant in a single cell.

Diddy goes "Black on Black" for L'Uomo Vogue.

After uproar over Roger Ebert's review of gay indie film Tru Loved (because he wrote it after only watching 8 minutes of it), Ebert goes back and reviews the whole thing: "A good number of my blog commenters pointed out that I picked on a small indie film. They are right, and I wish I hadn't. I discuss this in the new blog entry posted today, 'Definitely read me second!' Here I want to observe that it's a miracle any film gets made. Millions of tiny pieces have to come together. It takes courage and resolve to pull it off, especially on a limited budget. Stewart Wade, the writer and director of 'Tru Loved,' has achieved that miracle. Attention must be paid."

Filming to commence on Big Gay Musical.

Anti-gay offensive launched against North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan by NC Republican Party: "A new mailer in support of incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole claims that Hagan's agenda, with the help of 'liberal judges,' will be to advance a 'radical homosexual agenda' which includes same-sex marriage, removing 'Under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, and forcing the Boy Scouts to accept gay and atheist troop leaders."

Sean Hayes and Anne Hathaway hold secret reading, may be headed to Broadway in a revival of Promises, Promises: "Craig Zadan and Neil Meron opened the reading by introducing their producing partners John Gore and Beth Williams (Broadway Across America) and Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Assuming the show moves forward, this will be Zadan and Meron's Broadway producing debut after making the hit movies of Chicago and Hairspray. The production will also be a re-teaming with the infamous Weinsteins after they all worked together on Chicago during the Miramax days...We're told that Hayes and Hathaway stunned the audience with their performances (both singing and acting) and that they garnered many huge and consistent laughs throughout--as well as a few tears."

Tabloid: Pink cloud baffles Londoners.

UFOs over Turkey!

Yeti footprints!

Ugliness on the set of Ugly Betty.

Gay former Vallejo Councilman Gary Cloutier talks to high school students a year after his failed mayoral bid: "Cloutier, who delved into local politics in 1999, said he's always embraced his sexual orientation in office, but said that never defined him as a politician. He also criticized the media for paying too much attention during the mayoral campaign to his gay identity and Davis' race. The contest was often framed by some news media as a first for Vallejo no matter what - either the city would get its first openly gay mayor or first African-American mayor."

Lucas Grabeel's character in High School Musical 3 still coded gay.

Sex education to be made compulsory in primary and secondary schools in the UK: "Children will learn about body parts and the fact that animals reproduce from the age of five, puberty and intercourse from the age of seven and contraception and abortion from the age of 11. Schools will not be allowed to opt out of the rules but the government is promising separate guidance to faith schools, which could find elements of the new curriculum at odds with their spiritual beliefs. The schools minister, Jim Knight, said they would still have to teach the curriculum - which includes contraception, abortion and homosexuality - but will separately be allowed to continue to teach religious beliefs about sex."

News: Hubble, Ian Thorpe, South Park, Sean Hayes, Poland

New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel questions whether Sean Hayes is "virile enough" to play romantic lead to Anne Hathaway in revival of Promises, Promises.

Britney goes to South Park to escape the paparazzi.

The NYT talks to gay New Yorker Brendan Fay about the Polish President's use of his wedding video: "[Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, Poland’s consul general in New York] said he did not know why President Kaczynski’s staff members used Mr. Fay’s image. 'Probably they were just looking for a useful picture,' Mr. Karkowski said, 'a visible sign of what he and his followers are against and what, supposedly, his political opponents are for.'"

Huffington Post's Barbara Ehrenreich on Hillary's nasty pastorate: "You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that 'through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the 'Fellowship,' aka The Family.' Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a 'cult,' but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's 'Family,' which is organized into 'cells' -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power.

There's a new wolfman in town.

Australian Olympian Ian Thorpe against boycott of Beijing Olympics over Tibet crackdown.

The gay divide in doctor's advice: " Gay men are much more likely than straights to consult a medical specialist, while lesbians are more reluctant than heterosexual women to go to a family doctor -- if they even have one. The study for Statistics Canada found 29% of gay men consulted a medical specialist in a one-year period compared with 19% of heterosexual men."

Barack Obama gets his own plushy doll.

Ted Haggard escort Mike Jones told to keep his pants on in Naked B4 God: "In sharing his story, Jones drops tidbits about not just Haggard, but Paula Woodward, the TV reporter he first talked to (and who was in the audience at the premiere) and Peter Boyles, on whose radio show he went public. And on opening night, he also dropped his shorts around his sneakers — showing his jones as he demonstrated how he would massage Art. But that was before someone suggested to director Michael Dempsey that the full-frontal nudity that had been part of the play when it debuted in California might violate Denver ordinances."

Hubble telescope detects first-ever organic molecule on a planet orbiting another star: "Hubble found the tell-tale signature of methane in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet HD 189733b. Under the right circumstances, methane can play a key role in prebiotic chemistry – the chemical reactions considered necessary to form life as we know it. Although methane has been detected on most of the planets in our Solar System, this is the first time any organic molecule has been detected on a world orbiting another star."

Hugh Jackman isn't the only X-Men cast member enjoying the beach in Sydney.

The Daily Mail looks back on Sir John Gielgud's men's room arrest: "And so, despite his brand-new knighthood, one of the most celebrated men of the times found himself that October in a Chelsea lavatory well-known as one of London's favourite pick-up joints, looking for his usual evening's entertainment. But this time, his eye lighted not on a fellow member of the underground homosexual community, but on a plain-clothes policeman."

Sean Hayes to Join Dancing with the Stars

Via Star magazine: "Hairspray's Marissa Jaret Winokur, Will & Grace's Sean Hayes, actress Marlee Matlin and Elvis' ex-Pricilla Presley are among three of the famous faces you will see doing the salsa and tango on Season 6 of Dancing with the Stars."

Now this is going to be a good season.

Sean Hayes' New Years Resolution: No More Unprotected Sex

More celebrity New Year's resolutions, AFTER THE JUMP...

News: Whoopi Goldberg, NYC Cabs, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hayes

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. wins bid for Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal: "Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sealed a $5 billion agreement to purchase the publisher of The Wall Street Journal after three months of drama in the controlling family and public debate about journalistic values. One of the oldest and best-known franchises in the newspaper industry, beset in recent years by business pressures, now enters a new era as part of a world-wide media conglomerate. The 76-year-old Mr. Murdoch, whose properties range from the Fox television network to the Times of London, negotiated hard to win the paper he long coveted. He has promised to invest more in Dow Jones journalism."

Sean Hayes to play Bill Gates in "Nerds" musical? "From the writers of the Off-Broadway smash hit The Bomb-itty of Errors and the hot animated TV series 'Robot Chicken' comes a funny and irreverent musical take on the parallel stories of computer pioneers Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as they blaze a path from garage inventors to warring titans of the computer revolution. With its rollicking tunes and brilliantly off-beat humor, Nerds://A Musical Software Satire celebrates the inner nerd within us all!"

Whoopi Goldberg confirmed as new co-host on The View.

Cheney still unwilling to answer which branch of the government he works for.

Some of New York City's cabs of the future are here today...

Gay Pride festival launched by Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in Derry, Northern Ireland: "No-one should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation in the same way that it should not happen because of their age, race or indeed any other characteristic of their being."

Hamptons toga bash brings out Reichen, Ryan, and baby.

Hillary Clinton position on federal funding for needle exchange programs is illustrative of how she, as a candidate, is "informed and bound by her husband's administration."

Man who murdered wife with sledgehammer in 1986 after she threatened to tell his mother he was gay and received 16 years to life in prison for second-degree murder, may be released from prison next month.

Gawker: Why do straight men think they're gay men?

Rocks thrown through window of Colorado Springs Gay and Lesbian Fund building: It was a targeted crime. It was a hateful crime."

Montreal gay couple receives $10,000 after harassment by youths in their neighborhood: "Theo Wouters and Roger Thibault said four youths targeted them because of their sexual orientation. The Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission says the parents of one of the youths must pay the two men $10,000. Three other adolescents who were mentioned in the case now live in Calgary and are not targeted by the ruling of the human rights group. Wouters and Thibault have lived together for more than 30 years and got married a few years ago."