News: Lindsay Lohan, Mitt Romney, Mercury, Scorpio Sky

Senator-Elect Tammy Baldwin, US Rep-elect Mark Takano and Ambassador David Huebner, all of whom are openly gay, will speak at the Victory Fund’s LGBT Leaders 2012 Conference, which starts today.

Mitt Romney stopped by the White House for a 70-minute lunch with President Obama. The campaign rivals had turkey chili and reportedly talked about "America’s leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership position in the future." The White House says the men "pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future." I have the same arrangement with summer camp friends from 1994.

According to Dr. Sylvia Rhue, her family history proves that Abraham Lincoln was gay and had an affair with William Herndon, his law partner.

David Petraeus wrote to a friend about his recent fall from grace, "I screwed up royally. I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing, at the end of the day... [But] Team Petraeus will survive though have obviously created enormous difficulty for us. Holly is however once again demonstrating how incredibly fortunate I was to marry her."

Rebel Wilson's on top of the world, and actually deserves to be there.

Low level pro-wrestler Scorpio Sky knows "faggot" is offensive, which is why he uses it early and often.

Sure, Jude Law, you're not as young as you used to be, but you still look pretty darn good.

NYU student Blake Pruitt talks to gay men about gay men.

Sigh. Lindsay Lohan, an actress I really wanted to see have a comeback, was arrested after getting into a bar brawl in New York City. That brawl was reportedly over Max from the band The Wanted.

Meanwhile, Lohan also faces charges for lying about a car accident in Los Angeles.

George Zimmerman is selling autographs to fund the team defending him for Trayvon Martin's murder.

Ellen DeGeneres shares road signs warning wheelchair-bound citizens of incline-assisted alligators and other out-of-the-ordinary public alerts.

Britney and Will.i.am, "Scream and Shout," the video.

Braison Cyrus, brother of Miley and son of Billy Ray, makes his modeling debut in the February edition of Troix magazine.

NASA's Messenger rover found enough ice at Mercury's poles to fill the Dead Sea.

Democratic Rep. Jackie Spier introduced a "Stop Harming Our Kids" resolution today that aims to stop "ex-gay therapy" for minors. "Any effort to change sexual orientation is not medicine, it’s quackery, and we should not be supporting it with taxpayer dollars," said Spier.

Terrible: 60% of youth infected with HIV in 2010 are African-American. "Nearly 29,000 new cases of HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, were attributed to gay and bisexual males in 2010, and 82 percent of those cases occurred in large cities," US News and World Report reports.

With marriage equality set to become the law of the land, Washington state is considering gender-neutral language for marriage and divorce certificates. "Our fight for marriage equality is in part a fight for gender equality, not just for the gay and lesbian community. It is a fight for equality of sexes and the idea that marriage does not in itself mean that women are subjugated to men," said State Rep. Jamie Pedersen.

Barbara Walters Discusses George Zimmerman Interview That Never Was: VIDEO

While Sean Hannity always had exclusive rights to George Zimmerman's first television interview, Barbara Walters was also supposed to have an interview with the man accused of shooting and killing 17-year old Trayvon Martin. That interview never happened.

According to Walters, she and her producers flew down to Florida to chat with Zimmerman, but the 28-year old had a demand they couldn't grant. Walters wouldn't say what that demand was — "It was a condition that, being a member of ABC News, I was unable to grant.” — but many speculate cash-strapped Zimmerman wanted ABC News to put him up in a hotel for a month.

Though she didn't get to conduct an official interview with Zimmerman, Walters did spend about an hour with him and describes him as "polite, soft-spoken and stubborn."

Watch Walters discuss the aborted interview mission AFTER THE JUMP.

Watch George Zimmerman Say Trayvon Martin Shooting Was 'God's Plan': VIDEO

George Zimmerman sat down with Fox News' Sean Hannity for his first interview since allegedly shooting and killing  17-year old Trayvon Martin.

It's a long interview, and I've included it in its entirety AFTER THE JUMP, but here are a few highlights: Zimmerman insists that, contrary to what some people think, he is not a racist — "I'm not a racist and I'm not a murderer," he said; the 28-year old also claims Martin said "you're going to die tonight" before reaching for Zimmerman's gun; and Zimmerman also tells Hannity he doesn't regret the sequence of events that fateful night, including taking his gun with him.

"I feel that it was all God's plan, and for me to second guess it or judge it…" he then trailed off.

Responding to Zimmerman's comments about God, Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin, remarked, "We must worship a different God. There is no way that my God wanted George Zimmerman to murder my teenage son."

Watch a snippet of Zimmerman's 'God's plan' remark as well as the entire interview AFTER THE JUMP.

A Mother's Day Message From Trayvon's Mom: VIDEO

Here's a Mother's Day message from Sabrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, made in partnership with "Second Chance on Shoot First" -- an organization which combats laws, such as Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, that encourage nervous gun owners to shoot in haste and repent at leisure.

Watch the video AFTER THE JUMP, and pay a visit to Second Chance on Shoot First, which allows American visitors to see where their states stand on Stand Your Ground, and provides links to the appropriate state webpages so visitors can tell their governments how they feel about it. 

NEWS: Television Is Gay, GLAAD Goes Scouting, Geraldo Was Defiled, And Obama, And Obama, And Obama

We really do need each other. 

NPR on the gayification of TV.

Facebook "hate" page exposes gayfolk in the Australian military.

Ricky Martin, Julianne Moore, and a whole bunch of others team up with GLAAD to get a Mother's Day message to Boy Scouts of America.

Geraldo "raped" by TSA worker:

“The last time I flew to Afghanistan I got manually raped by a guy who – the scanner wasn’t working,” said Rivera, before adding that his “junk was junked” by a TSA screener.

“This guy, it seemed to me, was getting off on it…And the more and the tighter I got and the angrier I got,” said Rivera. “You know, he just wanted to be a little more intimate.”

Rivera explained how his trouble with the TSA began when he got put on a ‘no fly list’ and was continually subjected to “enhanced interrogation and search” every time he took a flight.

“And I was so frustrated. I called the TSA, and I called and I called. I went on television. I exposed them, I embarrassed them. I said, ‘can’t ya?’ And they just could not remove my name from the computer that had the no-fly list.”

"Trayvon Martin"-styled gun-range targets prove wildly popular:

WKMG’s Mike DeForest reported on Friday that the unidentified seller told him that the targets “sold out in 2 days.”

“The response is overwhelming,” the seller said.

While the item appears to have been removed from GunBroker.com, a cached version of the page was still available at the time of publication.

Photos of the item, which was titled “10 Pack Trayvon Martin Targets,” showed crosshairs over a hoodie similar to the one Trayvon Martin was wearing when he was shot by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in February. The figure has a bag of Skittle in his pocket and is holding what appears to be a can of iced tea...

Around the world, disappointment with Obama. He failed to close Guantanamo or acknowledge American responsibility for the financial crisis, and:

... Obama has been the U.S. president "least involved in the Palestinian issue," said Mohammed Ishtayeh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We were very optimistic when Obama was elected. He talked in his meeting with us without looking into his notes; that tells how much he knows about our issue," he said.

But since Obama made his Cairo speech, Ishtayeh added, "he found his hands tied and couldn't make much progress."

... but angriest of all are Kenyan clerics, who really disliked Obama's announcement this week:

Speaking to the Nation in Mombasa, Council of Imams and Preachers Organising Secretary Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa accused President Obama of playing god by legalizing what "God Himself objects".

“Simply because he has risen to be the President of a super power does not mean he can now start acting as God. He is nothing in the eyes of God and his plans will not succeed just like those who preceded him in such plans,” said Sheikh Khalifa ...

“God created man and woman so that we can procreate. How come we now want to behave worse than dogs who do not go for their own gender but know the difference between the two?” asked Sheikh Khalifa. [Ed. note: Actually, several of my dogs have been confused on this point.]

Can somebody please explain this joke from Sen. Rand Paul?

"The president, you know, recently weighed in on marriage. And, you know, he said his views were evolving on marriage," the first-term senator said Friday evening. "Call me cynical, but I wasn't sure that his views on marriage could get any gayer."

The Los Angeles Times asks: "Will black voters follow Obama on gay marriage?"

... historically, homosexuality was a nonissue. Then, in the 2004 presidential election, anti-civil union and marriage equality laws were put on ballots in key states to draw "values voters" to the polls. Part of the Republican strategy was to have white evangelical leaders actively recruit black clergy to the anti-gay movement. For example, the Promise Keepers, the Traditional Values Coalition and other evangelical groups organized meetings of black clergy from Washington to Texas to California to oppose gay marriage.

As important as the church's role is, this fact remains: A gay rights movement never really happened among African Americans. The fight for civil rights took up almost all of the justice oxygen. For a black person to be "out," he or she was most likely also out of the black community ...

Finally: After President Obama made his announcement last week, I saw trolls on no fewer than three internet forums begin pointing to this site as evidence of the POTUS's perversion. If they want people to visit it so much, I figure: Why not give 'em a hand?

FOX Affiliate Calls Neo-Nazi Group Patroling Sanford, Florida a 'Civil Rights' Group: VIDEO

Late yesterday, Brandon made note of the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest and most prominent neo-Nazi groups in the United States according to the SPLC, which is patrolling Sanford, Florida in the wake of the Trayvon Martin killing,  to protect "white citizens in the area who are concerned for their safety."

Fox Orlando affiliate, WOFL, broadcast a shocking, uncritical report yesterday, calling the neo-Nazis a "civil rights group"

Watch WOFL's report, AFTER THE JUMP...

More on the group's background from Pam Spaulding HERE.