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By Saul Landau
$34.95
Tom Brokaw
$22
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amazon.com
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Amazon fell into hot water with the gay community after gay-themed books began disappearing from the site’s sales rankings. Amazon blamed the problem on a “glitch” and has restored some of the titles, but one author says a representative from the site told him his work had been recategorized as “adult.”
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AP photo / Ed Andrieski
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While trying to teach her students about homophobia, Debra Taylor could have done without what appeared to be an illustrative demonstration: The Oklahoma high school teacher was forced to resign in a controversy that grew out of a gay-related project undertaken by her class. Taylor and her students had been working on their own production of “The Laramie Project,” a play and film based on the murder of Matthew Shepard.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Not only would a proposed Nigerian law mean prison for gay people who live together, but also anyone who “aids and abets” them. A giant step beyond outlawing gay sex, the law would give police the power to arrest suspected cohabiting gays as well as human rights workers who deal with gay rights.
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Flickr / commorancy
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Anyone who’s ever worn a headset while on Xbox Live, Microsoft’s multiplayer gaming-chatting-shopping nexus, knows that it’s dominated by adolescent bigots. It’s bad enough that Redmond hasn’t cleaned things up, but a gamer named Teresa says she was actually banned from the service for being openly gay and allegedly offending the bigots who were harassing her.
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Hats off to the Scandinavians, who continue to make the world’s progressives green with envy. Even as Iceland faces economic catastrophe, the volcanic island nation has made history by naming the world’s first (for the most part) openly gay national leader. Johanna Sigurdardottir will become prime minister. (The New York Daily News says Norway briefly had an openly gay man as prime minister.)
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Here’s the footage of openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson’s invocation, which he delivered Sunday before the inaugural concert festivities began—and which was not included in HBO’s special broadcast of the show. But was it the network’s choice or Team Obama’s?
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U.S. Army / Sgt. Whitney Houston
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Here’s what Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama’s top talker, had to say about whether the next president would work to end the military’s policy of discrimination against gay service members: “You don’t hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it’s ‘Yes.’ ”
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AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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It is unsurprising that a group like Human Rights Watch has condemned the Bush government for jettisoning the U.S. role as a defender of global human rights: Numerous examples—Guantanamo, gay marriage, Iraq, etc.—accentuate this failure.
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Flickr / laverrue
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New England is becoming a gay marriage zone. Five of the six states already have protections for gay couples, and state lawmakers and groups like Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders are pushing for full marriage rights in all six by 2012. Beyond human rights, that could mean big bucks for the region.
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gayspirituality.typepad.com
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Clearly Barack Obama and his legion of inauguration planners have registered the gay community’s dismay over the selection of the Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation on Jan. 20, as Obama has tapped the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson to lead the prayer session at an event two days prior.
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amazon.com
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A revelatory account of a hidden chapter of the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II deepens our understanding of American prejudice and the abuse of power.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — By inviting Pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, President-elect Barack Obama has alienated some of his friends on the left, but the choice also enrages conservatives who fear the breakup of right-wing dominance in the white evangelical community.
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Rep. Barney Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress, isn’t happy about the “high honor” Barack Obama has bestowed on the Rev. Rick Warren, who recently likened gay marriage to incest and pedophilia. This isn’t a speech at a forum, the congressman points out, but a role that is “traditionally given as a mark of great respect.”
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ruggedelegantliving.com
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So we’re aware by now of Obama’s “team of rivals” strategy for his upcoming tenure in the White House, but it’s still startling to hear that Pastor Rick Warren of Southern California’s Saddleback Church, home of the notorious “cone of silence” interviews with Obama and John McCain last August, is going to give the invocation at Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
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The town of Eureka Springs, Ark., is held up as a cautionary example of how “well-organized” squads of homosexuals are taking over God-fearing hamlets across America in this instructional video promo.
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filminfocus.com
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By Sheerly Avni — Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is a movie to be thankful for. Go see it, tonight if you can, and in a crowded theater. Then open up some merlot and watch the documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk,” by Robert Epstein—because these two films belong together.
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AP photo / Phil Bray
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By Larry Gross — Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is the first major Hollywood “gay themed” film since “Brokeback Mountain,” and moreover (unlike “Brokeback”), this one is about openly gay activists, not tortured closet cases. Yet, once again, the lead gay roles couldn’t be filled by openly gay actors. What’s going on here?
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courtinfo.ca.gov
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The California Supreme Court has agreed to examine the state’s recently adopted marriage ban, scheduling a hearing for March. The court will decide whether Prop. 8 was a sweeping revision or a simple amendment to the state’s constitution, and whether legally married same-sex couples should suffer a blanket divorce.
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One-hundred-and-four retired admirals and generals have signed a statement calling on the military to allow gay soldiers to serve openly. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” has lost support since the Clinton administration originally negotiated the compromise, but Barack Obama will likely avoid resurrecting one of his predecessor’s biggest headaches.
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Flickr / scott92007
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Is Jerry Brown just doing his job, or is he trying to be all things to all Californians? The attorney general said in a statement that the state’s high court should review the recently passed gay marriage ban, but until then, “... The public interest would be better served by allowing Proposition 8 to remain in effect ... .”
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LAist.com
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If you’re looking for an opportunity to support the well-dressed and maritally oppressed, you’re about to get your chance. On Saturday, protesters will take to the streets all across this great, if slightly homophobic, nation to take a stand for equality. Find out where to go here. And for inspiration, we turn to Andrew Sullivan.
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The New York Times / Shana Sureck
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In the face of California’s unsettling passage of Proposition 8 barring gay marriage, gay couples in Connecticut are beginning to exercise their equal rights after a final court hearing cleared the way for same-sex unions, ending a long legal battle in the Constitution State.
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Flickr / ingridtaylar
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Andrew Sullivan has words of encouragement for the protesters who’ve taken to the streets of California: “A word to those discouraged by last Tuesday: don’t be. We will win because we’re right. It’s as simple as that. We are equal.”
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“This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics,” says the “Countdown” anchor, who points out that the president-elect would not exist if Americans had never “redefined” marriage.
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Flickr / zoonabar
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Californians voted 52 percent to 48 percent to approve a despicable ballot measure banning gay marriage. The two sides spent more than $74 million, and in the end proponents of Prop. 8 won out by convincing voters that the measure would somehow protect children.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — With Obama’s victory, it’s time to hope that the era of racial backlash and wedge politics is over. Time to imagine that the patriotism of dissenters will no longer be questioned and that the world will no longer be divided between “values voters” and those without a moral compass.
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AP photo / Kevork Djansezian
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By The Rev. Madison Shockley — The thousands of same-gender couples who have married in the few months since the California Supreme Court cleared the way are in fact married. The notion that a majority vote by people who are not party to these marriages of love, commitment, care and family will have the power to impose a divorce on these couples is flatly repugnant.
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time.com
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Two weeks after the death of Joerg Haider, former leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, media attention has moved from Haider’s fascistic political life to his personal life, with the politician’s sexual identity undergoing a bit of a queering, much to the surprise of his ultranationalistic supporters. Haider was a 58-year-old married father of two.
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By Ellen Goodman — While gay marriage is losing its stigma, abortion is once again retreating to the closet.
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Co-founder Sergey Brin explains on Google’s blog why the tech giant officially opposes California’s Prop. 8, a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in the state: “While there are many objections to this proposition ... it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8.”
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AP photo / Al Grillo
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By Chris Hedges — Sarah Palin may be a governor and a vice presidential candidate, but in the hyper-masculine world of the Christian right, she is subservient to a male hierarchy that claims to speak for God.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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Jokes about religion often play with the boundaries of tolerance and taste, but they don’t always carry the consequences that Sabina Guzzanti now faces. The Italian actress could go to jail for upsetting the powers that be with a satirical zinger about the pope and two gay devils.
Jokes about religion often play with the boundaries of tolerance and taste, but they don’t always carry the consequences that Sabina Guzzanti now faces. The Italian actress could go to jail for upsetting the powers that be with a satirical zinger about the pope and two gay devils.
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thecommonwealth.org
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The United States is in far worse shape when it comes to HIV infection rates than researchers previously thought, according to a new study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that attributes the whopping 40 percent adjustment to more precise research methods.
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Flickr / PLAN.9
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Back when Mitt Romney was the (allegedly gay-friendly) governor of Massachusetts, he used an obscure 1913 law with racist origins to keep the state from becoming “the Las Vegas of gay marriage.” Bay State lawmakers have just repealed that law, but the new situation in Massachusetts won’t be a first because California already permits same-sex weddings for out-of-state residents.
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Politicians usually try to explain away their records once they bid for higher office. Take the case of just about any big-time Democrat and the issue of gay marriage. But San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who formally launched an exploratory bid Tuesday for the California governorship, says he’s not worried about his gay rights legacy: “We’re about civil rights and equal rights, you better believe it. ... I’m proud of that, I’m not going to hide from that.”
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Army.mil / Mike A. Glas
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Although women make up a small percentage of Army and Air Force personnel, nearly half of all discharges last year related to “don’t ask, don’t tell” were of women. The Pentagon could not explain to The New York Times why the numbers were so much higher for women, but it continues to stand by the policy.
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Bill O’Reilly is just beside himself about a new, ultra-confusing British advertisement for Heinz mayonnaise. He’s so troubled, in fact, by the sight of two men kissing (!) for no apparent reason (?!), that he enlists the aid of two other talking heads, Jane Hall and Bernard Goldberg, who are also willing to pretend this matter deserves airtime and extended commentary.
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With a soundtrack as shifty as its logic, here is another captivating self-parody from the Sam Graves campaign. The shameless Missouri congressman, who has tried to paint his Democratic opponent as an unholy champion of gayness because she held a fundraiser in San Francisco, has launched another attack ad allegedly based on that city’s values.
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cnn.com
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John Amaechi is not your typical basketball star. The former center for Utah, Orlando and Cleveland is the first NBA alumnus to openly declare that he’s gay, and now he’s combining sports and cultural politics in another sense by serving as Amnesty International’s sports ambassador to this summer’s Beijing Olympics.
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AP photo / Markus Schreiber
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Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, was on hand for the inauguration of a new memorial in the German capital dedicated to the 55,000 gay men who were branded criminals by the Nazi regime before and during World War II—and of whom about 15,000 were killed in Nazi camps. Above, the artists who created the monument.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Imagine what it would be like not to be able to marry the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. Then imagine how tens of thousands of gays and lesbians in California must have felt last week when the California Supreme Court declared that homosexuals have a right to marriage under the state’s constitution.
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Flickr / bobster1985
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The California Supreme Court has ruled that gays and lesbians have a right to marry. Chief Justice Ronald M. George aptly explained the landmark 4-3 decision: “Even the most familiar ... traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed.”
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AP photo / Jorge Rey
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Be it through changes in cell phone restrictions or proposed legislation recognizing same-sex unions and transgender rights, Cuba’s political future is looking up for many of its citizens.
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Fish Migration Reveals Ocean Warming
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