Scanner : homosexuality

Cutié Priest Can't Resist Carnal Urges

Drew Grant — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:21:00 GMT

Hey, even Jesus had Mary Magdalene...and aren't we all human, after all? So what's the big deal about this Miami Beach priest and popular Latin television personality Father Alberto Cutie caught kissing and "fondling" an unknown woman on the beach? Maybe he was just giving her CPR? And also...no offense, but isn't this a step up from most priestly indiscretions? Even Time magazine is having a hard time condemning this guy.

To his credit, Favalora is trying to restore public trust in his archdiocese and the Church. But so long as Cutié wasn't frolicking with a minor (female or male) or using parish funds to buy margaritas for his paramour, many parishioners may actually be relieved that their popular priest has a libido focused on a woman who has reached the age of consent.

So listen, archdiocese, either you accept your hypocrisy and let Cutie back in the Church, or you pull out all those child molesters and embezzlers that you've turned a blind eye to all these years. You can't have it both ways.

Gay Marriage: God Is Gonna Getcha... Claim Scary Freaks

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The War On Sex Rages On...

You Can Take the Boy Out of Chelsea...

Emily Farris — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:01:00 GMT

In their 1979 book "Homosexuality in Perspective" William Masters and Virginia Johnson claimed they'd successfully "converted" more than 70 percent of of men and women who were homosexuals but didn't want to be. We can laugh and point all we want, but we're just a bunch of crazy sex-crazed armchair anthropologists on the Intertubes. But now, someone who is far more respectable than we are is doubting, officially, that Masters and Johnson could have pulled off such a feat.

In his new biography of the sexologists, "Masters of Sex," Thomas Maier questions the validity of the study, and summarizes his doubts in Scientific American:

Most staffers never met any of the conversion cases during the study period of 1968 through 1977. . . . Clinic staffer Lynn Strenkofsky, who organized patient schedules during this period, says she never dealt with any conversion cases. Marshall and Peggy Shearer, perhaps the clinic’s most experienced therapy team in the early 1970s, says they never treated homosexuals and heard virtually nothing about conversion therapy.

When the clinic’s top associate, Robert Kolodny, asked to see the files and to hear the tape-recordings of these “storybook” cases, Masters refused to show them to him. Kolodny—who had never seen any conversion cases himself—began to suspect some, if not all, of the conversion cases were not entirely true. When he pressed Masters, it became ever clearer to him that these were at best composite case studies made into single ideal narratives, and at worst they were fabricated.

Eventually Kolodny approached Virginia Johnson privately to express his alarm. She, too, held similar suspicions about Masters’ conversion theory, though publicly she supported him. The prospect of public embarrassment, of being exposed as a fraud, greatly upset Johnson, a self-educated therapist who didn’t have a college degree and depended largely on her husband’s medical expertise.

With Johnson’s approval, Kolodny spoke to their publisher about a delay, but it came too late in the process.”That was a bad book,” Johnson recalled decades later. Johnson said she favored a rewriting and revision of the whole book “to fit within the existing [medical] literature,” and feared that Bill simply didn’t know what he was talking about. At worst, she said, “Bill was being creative in those days” in the compiling of the “gay conversion” case studies.

As the New York Times' John Tierney asks, does being "creative" mean "making it up?" Um, probably.

[Scientific American via Tierney Lab]

Related:

The New York Times Knows What Women Want, And It's Not Bonobo Porn (Or Is It?)

Sloppy Seconds: Who Says Homosexuality and Polygamy Are The Same Thing?

This Week in Gayness: Matt Drudge Does Not Love Gay Sex With Men

Politician Probably Should've Taken Down Scandalous Facebook Profile First

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:26:00 GMT

This might be the first case of a political photo scandal on the internet eventually finishing off a politician's career. Ray Lam must be cursing the very existence of Facebook after two photos posted to his account caused him to drop out of an electoral grudge match.

Lam, who took down his Facebook account yesterday after the leak hit the Canadian press (the images above are of other Ray Lam's), didn't delete the photos from the web fast enough...

This photo, along with another one depicting Lam groping a woman's breasts, cost the candidate his standing in British Columbia's New Democratic Party and his spot on the ticket in a civil race. This is a setback for Canadian Scanner readers, for sure, as the Globe and Mail makes clear:

Mr. Lam's website says that he has a background in social services and non-profit groups.

Mr. Lam has been involved for several years with the Pride Society, a Vancouver-based advocacy group for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. According to a Pride Society web site, Mr. Lam has been involved in several community organizations and was chair of Youthquest, Lesbian & Gay Youth Society of British Columbia.

So, if he's interested in all this gay activism, there is a strong possibility he's a homosexual, which means he wasn't even bothering these people sexually. Oh well-- behold the power of Facebook: it can't find anyone who believes it will last another two years, but it can bring down politicians with harmless "risque photos." Scary.

Related:

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This Teenage Sex Tape Craze Is Getting Out of Hand...

This Week in Gayness: Boycott Jamaica

Top 10 Feminist Icons... From A Male (Part Two)

This Week in Gayness: Matt Drudge Does Not Love Gay Sex With Men

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:39:00 GMT

Tony Blair stood up to the Pope on homosexuality. Too bad no one cares what he thinks anymore.

Rick Warren tried to rewrite history on Larry King's show the other night. Apparently, he didn't support Prop8 or say all those hateful things.

Isn't it nice to finally have an Administration that allows gay couples with children to join the Easter Egg Hunt?

North Dakota had to get all "God hates you" on the gays. See you in the next century, guys.

More about the Vermont gay marriage law. And Iowa's.

Headline of the week: Graydon Carter Has Monster Cock, Is a Very Good Fuck (According to Rupert Everett)

Matt Drudge issued a sort-of non-denial denial from the platform of his right-wing hate blog: "I Do Not Love Sex With Men."

A gay mom with two kids is not going to be deported from the US after all. Yet.

Just because a thinking man like Barack Obama hails from Chicago doesn't mean people are taking it easy on the gays there.

The ads were meant to tell Chicago that health issues for gay men are about more than HIV and AIDs. Gay men practice yoga, swim and meditate, too. But someone removed or taped over three key words in the ads on the back of CTA buses: Gay, sexy and healthy. White tape had been affixed over the words on an orange poster on the back of a bus. Someone told him a red poster had been defaced with red tape. He also saw that the three words were cut out or scratched out on some posters. [Gay News Blog]

Related:

Senate Majority Leader to Conservatives Regarding the Gays: You've Already Lost

This Week in Gayness: Sacha Baron Cohen's Gay Sex

Gay Bishop is About to Get All "Gay Bishop" on Your Ass

This Week in Gayness: Fred Phelps Attacks London

This Week in Gayness: Aubrey O'Day May Be Gay

This Week In Gayness: America vs. Fred Phelps

American Woman: The Presidential Mistress

Emily Farris — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:54:00 GMT

When you think of presidential mistresses do you imagine Monica Lewinsky and her blue dress making nightly appearances on Inside Edition? Or maybe you picture Marilyn Monroe baring all for photographer Bruce Stern in The Last Sitting. In fact, save for America’s bittersweet love for Ms. Monroe, presidential girlfriends are rarely presented in a positive light. Until now.

British painter Annie Kevans has captured every presidential mistress—and one mister—on record in her oil-on-paper series All the Presidents’ Girls.
JFK's conquests make up more than a third of the collection, but they share the spotlight with the likes of Jefferson’s slave girl Sally Hemings, Monica Lewinsky and William Rufus DeVane King—who was elected Vice President under Franklin Pierce and was rumored to have been James Buchanan’s undercover lover.

Kevans recently closed a three-day gallery show in New York but the entire series can be viewed online.

Related:

Mistress Contest Goes Horribly Wrong

Sloppy Seconds: Ron Wood's Mistress In The Buff

It Never Ends: Giuliani Billed NYC Taxpayers To Bang His Mistress/Future-Wife

Sloppy Seconds: Bristol Palin's New Gig

Emily Farris — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:33:00 GMT

Hey, Scanner Brian: Hayden Panettiere is single again. [Us]

Think your man might be a closeted homo? Take this super-reliable, scientific quiz to find out for sure! [MyDailyMoment]

A book written early in J.R.R. Tolken's career is about to be published for the first time. [Yahoo!]

Suze Orman had only one wish on Valentine's Day: that gay marriage be legalized. [AfterEllen]

Bristol Palin would now like to be an advocate, um, like, against teen pregnancy. "I wish [getting pregnant] would happen in like 10 years so I could have a job and an education and be, like, prepared and have my own house and stuff. ... I hope that people learn from my story and just, I dunno, prevent teen pregnancy I guess." [Slate]

Is Bristol Palin now Bristol Palin-Johnston?

Top 5 Rumors We'd Like to Start About Sarah Palin... But Won't

We Will Totally Crap Our Pants if Bristol Palin Pops Out a Mixed Race Baby

This Week in Gayness: How to Tell Your Boyfriend Is Closeted

[Image]

Sloppy Seconds: Kanye West Dresses Better Than the Gays

Emily Farris — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:01:00 GMT

It turns out T.R. Knight isn't the only actor leaving the cast of Grey's Anatomy. Katherine Heigl is on her way out, too. [Defamer]

Rihanna, who was allegedly beat-up by her boyfriend Chris Brown, has been released from the hospital but is postponing a show she's set to play in Malaysia. [Yahoo!]

We're totally onboard for the Michael Phelps backlash-backlash. [Jossip]

Want to know what the hell kind of fertility clinic would inseminate a 33-year-old single mother of six with eight fucking more babies? [SNAFU-ed]

Britney Spears took her assistant back from the Jonas Brothers. Damn straight. [Us]

Media outlets are looking for sugar daddies to get them through the recession. Come to think of it, we wouldn't mind one, either. [DailyIntel]

Guys, Kanye West is just really secure with his manhood, okay? "There's a lot of gay people that I dress way better than." [MTV]

[Image]

We've Changed Our Minds, We're Against Gay Marriage

Scanner Matt — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:00:00 GMT

After seeing this video our eyes have opened and our minds have closed. The evils of gay marriage are too sinister to unleash on our free-thinking, God-fearing America.

The wacky political site 23/6 brings us this insightful and informative video:

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

This Week In Gayness: Straight Man Sues Over Homophobic Taunting

Did Obama Sell Out The Gays?

The Human Herp: Ken Starr Returns To Defend Marriage Against People Who Want It

Pope Makes Insane Gay Metaphor

Gays Keep Nature In Balance?

Kelly Deerson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:47:00 GMT

While many scientists have long theorized that homosexuality is caused by a mixture of nature and nurture, there has remained the question: if part of homosexuality is inherited, why hasn't its occurrence disappeared from the gene pool, considering gay people are less likely to reproduce?

Well, a new study has a pretty good guess.

Researchers at the University of Padova in Italy found that homosexuality in men could be partly influenced by the same genes that cause their female relatives to be super fertile.

This team of researchers in Italy found that the close female relatives of gay men are more fruitful than the average dame. This could be a prime example of sexually antagonistic selection, which basically means that one of the sexes in a family takes a reproductive hit, while the other sex reproduces like they're a member of the Spears family (do Brit and Jamie Lynn have a gay half-brother somewhere?).

This concept has been seen in deer where high-ranking males often produce reproductively unsuccessful daughters. So, when sharing these kinds of genes, one of the sexes gets to have lots of babies and the other doesn't but, in the end, the family tree gets just as many branches as the others in the woods.

Scientists are still having a hard time explaining all the particulars, and they obviously don't believe this to be the one and only answer to the question of homosexuality in men. Still, it's an interesting theory.

Via The Guardian [image]

Why We Like Shoes, And Boys

Emily Farris — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:01:00 GMT

New research suggests that there's a reason gay men share more than just a love of cock with straight women.

Apparently our brains are similar.

Using MRI technology, researchers at the Stockholm Brain Institute in Sweden learned that:

[T]he right-hand brain hemisphere was larger in heterosexual men and homosexual women, while homosexual men's and heterosexual women's brain hemispheres were symmetrical.
Homosexual men showed another brain similarity with heterosexual women in their amygdala connections, which process certain emotions, as did homosexual women and straight men.
"The amygdala has a key role in emotional reactions to external stimuli, including stress," the authors of the study said, hypothesizing that the amygdala of straight men and gay women could be "wired for a greater fight-or-flight response," reportedly more common in men.

See, Mom? I like boys because my brain made me that way, not MTV. Same for Uncle Bob.

[AFP: Homosexual brain resembles that of opposite sex: study]

Related:

"Nerve O" Will Rock Your Sex Life, Nose

How to be Gay, Not 101

"It's always the gays spooking you."

Good Question: What Were Paul and Julio Doing Down by the School Yard?

Emily Farris — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:13:00 GMT

We always wondered exactly what Paul Simon and Julio were doing down by the school yard. Whatever mama saw, it was against the law.

[DestinyLand: What Did Me and Julio Do Down By the School Yard?]

Sloppy Seconds: Who Says Homosexuality and Polygamy Are The Same Thing?

Emily Farris — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:01:00 GMT

We'll never think of Folsom Prison the same way again. [Fleshbot]

Ultra-Orthodox residents of Jerusalem have demanded a "Sex and the City" movie billboard be taken down because it contains the word "sex." Hm, "And the City," kind-of sounds like our life lately. [Defamer]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has officially become college curriculum. Maybe it's finally time for us to start watching. [elPasoTimes]

Ted Kennedy's recent seizure was apparently caused by a brain tumor. So sad. [NYT]

Chocolate-covered bacon? We'll take 17, please. [Slog]

Giant carnivorous mice make us think of those scary rats from The Princess Bride, except scarier, because they're real. [Guardian]

Yeah, Ellen Degeneres should not get married because homosexuality is just like polygamy, according to a crazy woman who is "concerned for women" and, apparently, marriage. [Queerty]

Homosexuality Turns 140 Today!

Katie Halper — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Happy Birthday Homosexuality! We can't believe you're turning 140 today. And to think you were almost never born.

It was 140 years ago to the day that the word homosexuality was first recorded in a letter written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (or Károly Mária Kertbeny), the Austrian-born Hungarian journalist who coined the term.

Box Turtle Bulletin has the story.

One hundred and forty years ago today, on May 6, 1868, the word homosexuality was invented.

Before then, there were very few value-neutral words to describe people who experienced romantic or sexual attractions toward others of the same sex. Pejoratives such as “bugger,” “molly,” “sodomite,” or “pederast” were common, words loaded with condemnation and shame. But as the budding science of sexology began to grow, and as same-sex loving defenders began to speak out about what same-sex love was all about, their first problem was with how to name it. “Abominable vice” wouldn’t do. A new word was desperately needed to describe their lives and feelings.

The love that dared not speak its name couldn’t. It didn’t have one.

The first to try to name this love was the German gay-rights advocate Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. In the 1860’s, he described the urning as a “male-bodied person with a female psyche,” who is sexually attracted to men and not women. An Urningin was a “female-bodied person with a male psyche,” and Urningthum came to mean homosexuality itself. Ulrichs devised an entire system of classification based on different combinations of attractions and gender roles. Some of these words gained usage in English, although the less foreign-sounding sexual inversion and inverts to describe homosexuality and homosexuals respectively fell more naturally to English ears. But in a few short years, those words would become obsolete, replaced by the creation of an aspiring Hungarian writer.

Karl-Maria Kertbeny (or Károly Mária Kertbeny) was an Austrian-born Hungarian journalist, memoirist and human rights campaigner. Kertbeny reportedly became interested in homosexuality when a close friend committed suicide after being blackmailed by an extortionist. Kertbeny later said that this, combined with his “instinctive drive to take issue with every injustice” — as a Hungarian, he knew what it was to be a minority in Vienna — drove him to advocate for civil rights for gay people.

Kertbeny’s own sexuality remains unclear however: He described himself as “normally sexed,” but his diaries reportedly document his appreciation for the male form. When he moved to Berlin in 1868 at the age of 44, he was still unmarried. It was at around this time that Kertbeny coined the word Homosexualität — “of the same sex” — from the Greek prefix homo- (same) and the Latin root sexualis (sex). His first known usage of this word is documented in a letter he wrote to Ulrichs on May 6, 1868.

Homosexualität made its first known public appearance the following year, when Kertbeny anonymously published the pamphlet Paragraph 143 of the Prussian Penal Code and Its Maintenance as Paragraph 152 of the Draft of a Penal Code for the North German Confederation. This pamphlet advocated for the repeal of Prussia’s sodomy laws, saying that private consensual sex acts shouldn’t be subject to criminal penalties.

Homosexualität gained usage as other German advocates began putting forth the idea that homosexuality was inborn, a “medical problem” which placed homosexuality as a form of pathology or illness. Today of course we recoil at the abuses which arose from this “homosexuality as pathology” mindset, but in the nineteenth century this “medical model” represented a significant improvement in attitudes to homosexuality. Before Ulrichs and Kertbeny, homosexuality was viewed as a mere wickedness or moral degeneracy to be severely punished — often by pillory or death.

But Kertbeny appeared to understand the dangers behind the “medical model.” He not only saw that the “innate” argument was potentially dangerous, but that it was also irrelevant. In that vein, his advocacy for gay civil liberties was remarkably modern:

To prove innateness … is a dangerous double edged weapon. Let this riddle of nature be very interesting from the anthropological point of view. Legislation is not concerned whether this inclination is innate or not, legislation is only interested in the personal and social dangers associated with it … Therefore we would not win anything by proving innateness beyond a shadow of doubt. Instead we should convince our opponents — with precisely the same legal notions used by them — that they do not have anything at all to do with this inclination, be it innate or intentional, since the state does not have the right to intervene in anything that occurs between two consenting persons older than fourteen, which does not affect the public sphere, nor the rights of a third party.”

Kertbeny had another thoroughly modern idea about homosexuality, and this one is probably the most salient for understanding homosexualität’s triumph over urning and invert. The word homosexual doesn’t refer to any assumptions about gender roles or attributes. An urning, remember, was a “male-bodied person with a female psyche.” This of course bore a direct reference to effeminacy, a presumed hallmark of all gay men. And urningin, a “female-bodied person with a male psyche,” referred to lesbians’ perceived innate masculinity. (The English term invert carried with it similar assumptions of “inverse” gender characteristics.) But in writing about homosexuality, Kertbeny pointedly noted that homosexual men were not necessarily effeminate, citing several heroic historical figures as examples.

In 1880, Gustav Jäger used Kertbeny’s homosexualität in his book Discovery of the Soul. That book also included Kertbeny’s other useful word heterosexualität. Then the German sex researcher Richard von Krafft-Ebing borrowed those terms for his highly influential 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis. Homosexuality appears to have entered the English language at about 1895, which is when Charles Gilbert Chaddock translated Psychopathia Sexualis into English. And when Sigmund Freud used it in his books and lectures, he propelled its use among psychologists and psychoanalysts as well as in popular culture.

But admiration for the new word wasn’t universal. English sexologist Havelock Ellis, whose 1897 work Sexual Inversion became one of the first widely published English texts to deal with homosexuality, hated its bastardization of Greek and Latin. “‘Homosexual’ is a barbarously hybrid word,” Ellis wrote in a footnote. “It is, however, convenient, and now widely used. ‘Homogenic’ has been suggested as a substitute.”

Homogenic never caught on, and Ellis ended up using the word homosexual himself more often in his text than the terminology found in his volume’s title. By the 1930’s the homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual had almost completely erased the Urning and the invert for describing an individual’s sexual orientation.

Kertbeny however didn’t live to see his Homosexualität in widespread use. He died of a stroke in Budapest in 1882 at the age of 58, still unmarried. He was buried in Budapest’s Kerepesi Cemetery. In 2002, members of Budapest’s gay community placed a new tombstone over his rediscovered grave, where it is now customary to lay a wreath during Hungarian gay festivals.

Perry Mason Was Gay?

Bryan Christian — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:41:00 GMT

Did you guys know that? More importantly: did you gays out there know that? 'Cause we had, like, no idea. No. Idea. Frankly we're a little surprised he had sex at all! See, we grew up watching reruns of Perry Mason every morning during summer break, just before Dick Van Dyke. And frankly that whole time, or in all the years since: never once did we think about Raymond Burr's sexuality. Not once. And then, you know, here we are, years later, chatting with the roomie and drinking our coffee, nice Sunday afternoon, and all of a sudden, there in PageSix:

Michael Starr will discuss his new bio, "Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr," on the "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson"

Which, like, what the heck else could that mean? That he was Mossad or something? Nope. Apparently the unfailingly generous star of Ironside and the American version of Godzilla was so determined to keep his longtime partner Robert Venidedes a secret that he invented wives -- and a son who died in childhood! -- to keep his cover going with the press. Which, now that we think about is, is some Mossad kind of shit, actually.

Woah, hang on - should we be impressed or depressed by this? Again, we have, like, no idea.

Lou Dobbs: Homophobic or Homo?

Katie Halper — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:02:00 GMT

Last week Lou Dobbs told his viewers "I can’t say ‘I love you’ to a fellow in San Francisco." Me think he doth protest too much. Who was he talking about anyway? Find out after the jump.

Dobbs "came out" about having “one of those days” when “some folks are kind of just on you.” Specifically, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom "got on Lou" for hating on anyone who thinks that immigrants are human beings and not aliens. Menendez softened his criticism of Dobbs by saying "I love you, Lou" but a relentless Newsom spoke of "cable TV, where careers are literally being saved and salvaged, like Lou Dobbs."

Lovable Lou responded by saying "Senator Menendez said he loved me, and so I'm going to say I love you back. I can't say 'I love you' to a fellow in San Francisco I suppose." (Think Progress has the video) Hmmm. Is Lou engaging in some good old fashioned "Made in America" homophobia? Or is he trying to tell us something? Would saying I love you to Gavin Newsom be too close for comfort? I mean if there's one man who could awaken the latent homosexuality that lurks in the heart of another man, it would have to be Gavin "I can't believe he's not gay except I can because if he were he wouldn't be this comfortable with gay people and with legalizing gay marriage" Newsom. His sex appeal is so disarming, lesbians literally line up to get a piece, as this photo shows.

Just So You Know: Bush DoJ Firings Included "Rumored" Lesbian

Bryan Christian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:33:00 GMT

We don't like to jump on Scanner Brian's turf, but we found this particularly infuriating last night and had to share it with you. NPR is reporting that the Department of Justice -- in addition to the many people they fired simply for not showing undying fealty to the Bush Administration -- fired a Department of Justice attorney in early 2007 based simply on the rumor that she was a lesbian. Said one colleague after her firing:

"I felt at the time she was the best qualified person in the nation to fill that job... I was never consulted about her performance as liaison to the Native American Issues Committee, and I never heard any criticism of her performance from any other component within the department."

Innit great how even after years of having to put up with this sort of shit from Bush cronies, they still have the power to enrage us like it was the very first time?

Gay Iranian Teen Denied Asylum in The Netherlands

Emily Farris — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:37:00 GMT

Nineteen-year-old Mehdi Kazemi said his boyfriend was executed in Iran after admitting to being in a gay relationship. So when Kazemi, an Iranian, was denied asylum in Britian where he was staying on a student visa, he fled to The Netherlands and sought refuge there. Now, The Netherlands has rejected his request for asylum, as well.

A Council of State spokesperson said that for the Dutch court to consider Kazemi's asylum application, he would have had to prove that Britian incorrectly handled his application there. Because Kazemi was not able to prove that, The Netherlands would not grant him asylum.

He is now being allowed back into Britan, for a short while:

Kazemi's lawyer will have the option of taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights to request an "interim measure" that could allow Kazemi to stay in Europe until further notice.

"If anybody signs his deportation papers and says, look, he's got to be deported to Iran, that means they have signed his death sentence," said Kazemi's uncle Saeed, who asked CNN to withhold his last name over safety concerns.

Gay rights activists in Europe and Iran are also researching Kazemi's case.
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"When Britain is prepared to send a young man back to possible execution, that is inhumanity on a monumental scale," said Peter Tatchell, an activist for gay campaign group OutRage. "And I hang my head in shame, as a British citizen."

In a written statement, Britain's Home Office said that even though homosexuality is illegal in Iran and homosexuals do experience discrimination, it does not believe that homosexuals are routinely persecuted purely on the basis of their sexuality.

[CNN: Gay Iranian teen loses asylum appeal]

JK Rowling Comes Out Against Homophobia

Katie Halper — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:50:00 GMT

When Harry Potter author JK Rowling outed Dumbledore in October, we were a little disturbed. (JK, there's something called TRUST!) At least she did it in New York, a safe space. And for those of you asking yourselves "how did the disco-dancing Dumbledore got past their gaydar?" it's called wizardry, Einsteins. Anyhoo, now Rowling herself is coming out-- against homophobia, which she describes as "a fear of people loving, more than it is of the sexual act." Speaking to Student, Edinburgh University's newspaper (which must have a very good journalism department) Rowling said:

"There seems to be an innate distaste for the love involved, which I find absolutely extraordinary.The issue is love. It's not about sex. So that's what I knew about Dumbledore. And it's relevant only in so much as he fell in love and was made an utter fool of by love."

But Rowling isn't a total prude. She realizes homosexuality isn't just about the lovin'. And, like R. Kelly, she "don't see nothing wrong/ with a little bump and grind." Rowling acknowledges that after falling in love, Dumbledore "lost his moral compass" for the first time. So that's what the Brits are calling it these days.

Sally Kern Speaks Truth To Gay-Terrorist Power

Katie Halper — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:15:00 GMT

The liberal, gay, secularist, vegan media has it's panties all up in a bunch over a leaked youtube video of Oklahoma state rep by day, freedom speech activist by night, Sally Kern. Kern delivered a free speech privately (she thought) to a group of Republicans:

[homosexuality] according to God's word, that is not the right kind of lifestyle. It has deadly consequences for those people involved in it.... [they] have more suicides… there's more illness, their life spans are shorter… studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades.This stuff—it's deadly and it's spreading, and it will destroy our young people. It will destroy this nation. Not everybody's lifestyle is equal, just like not all religions are equal.

Kern explained that homosexuality is even a bigger threat than, "terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat." The speech was leaked and sent around on youtube.

Kern is just the latest victim of the homosexual agenda which runs the media, this country, and the universe. As usual, as Kern rightly points out in a post-leak interview, the homosexuals are trying to take away people's rights to free speech and privacy. "There are indisputable facts that show its a deadly lifestyle... What is wrong with me, as an American, exercising my free speech rights?" Amen!

Besides, Kern's words were distorted and taken out of context. Kern herself explains "I am totally against hate speech.... The account given on YouTube took my words out of context and omitted other parts stringing certain words together to make it appear I was engaging in hate speech. I was not and would never do such a thing." The context that was omitted was Kern's preface that "some of my best friends are gay."

So, now watch the video, taking this omission into account. If you're looking for homophobic hate speech, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. But if you are looking for an American freedom-fighter, standing up for free speech, you're in for a treat!

Hey, Did Ellen Page Just Come Out on "SNL"? -- UPDATED

Bryan Christian — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 05:59:00 GMT

So, um, did you guys happen to see that sketch just now on SNL where Ellen Page was playing a young girl jumping around so excited about a Melissa Etheridge concert and then it turned out that she might have gone gay at the concert, and she totally mimed grabbing a lady with her legs and it was funny, and then that Dick-in-a-Box guy was all like "Well, I'll love you just the same if you are gay" and they like hugged and that was it? Like, it. As in the sketch was over. Heck, the whole show was over.

Was that supposed to mean something? Like, was it supposed to make us think something about something? The last SNL sketch we remember with an ending like that was that hysterical one from 1985 where Oprah and Danitra Vance talked about abortion, and we're pretty sure we're supposed to have thought quite deeply about something after that. So maybe this one too? Or not. Are we being confusing? 'Cause we're totally confused. (Also, we're kidding about that Oprah sketch being hysterical. It was interminable.)

Oh, and did you see this also?

So, seriously: what just happened? A grudging acknowledgement? A full-on response? Or something more? Or was it maybe just like so many other weeks on SNL: an incomprehensible, mostly unfunny final sketch. We have no idea, and frankly might never have even brought up the question of Ellen Page's sexuality without something dramatic happening. Like what maybe just happened. Or not. Yeah, we're confused. Thoughts?

(And yes, in case you're wondering -- we just had to blog about this the minute it happened. We officially have no life.)

UPDATE: Video via the fine folks at Wired News, who seem to think that the point of the sketch was that it doesn't matter whether she's gay or straight -- which we totally agree with, but could think of a dozen other sketches to make the point more effectively. (Like, for instance, have her fighting crime with the Ambiguously Gay Duo -- which, as a bonus, would have saved us from that muddled Obama cartoon.) Anyways, have a look after the jump and let us know what you think.

Painful Link of the Day: Hobosexual.com

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:30:00 GMT

If you've been watching The Wire, you're probably not really that interested in seeing pictures of naked homeless dudes. And if you haven't been watching The Wire, you may not be cool enough to get the humor here anyway. Don't worry, there are no pictures here, thank God, only pure dumb comedy.

Something Awful's Link of the Day is to a site we hoped would never have to exist, but apparently needs to: hobosexual.com. People, we have a strong suspicion that the comedy below is unintentional. Here's a list of their "underwebsites":

Black Eye Saloon: Old drifters, weathered men
Smegmen: Mature hardened men, oldneck
Rough Trade / Fuck or Fight: Street Love, lock up memories

I wish these were jokes, too. From the disclaimer:

The sexual orientation of individuals pictured in and writers for Hobsexual.com should not be assumed.
ARM THE HOMELESS.

And you're welcome for sparing you photos of naked hobos. In fact, we tried to avoid looking at them altogether. But, if you must...

Gene Mutation Makes Flies Bi-Curious, Seeking Same

Bryan Christian — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:59:00 GMT

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered that, with just a little tweaking of its genes, the Drosophila melanogaster (or fruit fly) can be totally cool with, you know, whoever.

Scientists in the US found that a mutation in a gene known as “gender-blind”, or GB, can make flies bisexual, and that manipulating its activity can switch this sexual trait on and off.
The findings, from a team based at the University of Illinois, suggest that homosexuality has a clear biological basis, but that this is not necessarily hard-wired by the genes. A combination of genetic and environmental factors seems to be required.
[...]
The GB gene is involved in the function of glial cells, a type of brain cell that supports the active nerve cells. When the gene was inactivated, the strength of the synapses between nerve cells was affected, and the scientists noted that male flies began courting other males. “The GB mutant males treated other males the same way normal males would treat a female,” Dr. [David] Featherstone said. “They even attempted copulation.”

"Attempted"? How many of them followed through is what we wanna know. 'Cause in our experience, it doesn't matter how much gene therapy you get in 'em -- fruit flies are all talk.