The Courage Campaign today announced their withdrawal from the campaign to place a repeal of California’s Proposition 8 on the 2010 ballot. Most major LGBT and progressive groups have opposed a 2010 effort, preferring to wait until 2012. Via press release: “For months, we have laid out the criteria for moving forward. Like the Obama Campaign, we understand that we …

The hilarious folks at Rescue Marriage, the group that faked out the American Family Association with their tongue-in-cheek campaign to ban divorce in California, have really stepped up their game.

Realizing that complaining about one’s cable provider is as fruitless as complaining about the weather, I still must vent about Time-Warner’s “paperless” billing system. In addition to providing your 87 digit account number, to pay online one must also enter a “customer code,” which, hello, is only available on the paper bills. And of course, to get your customer code …

Atlanta, according to one survey, is the third-gayest city in the nation. That may be why both candidates in the city’s mayoral runoff election are battling to win the LGBT vote. “I cannot recall a mayor’s race when there’s been so much attention placed on the gay and lesbian vote,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, the state’s …

The Flying Pickets, Only You, 1983. In 1980 Vince Clarke was going through two divorces, one with his wife and one with Depeche Mode. It’s not known which divorce inspired Only You, but when Clarke’s former band declined to record it, he brought the track with him to Yaz/Yazoo. As the new band’s first release, in 1982 he and vocalist …

The fakery tipoff is on the side of the bus. (Via – Gothamist)

Over at The American Prospect, Gabriel Arana discusses the risks and payoff inherent in David Boies and Ted Olson’s gambit of taking the repeal of Prop 8 to federal court. The stakes are high. If Perry v. Schwarzenegger reaches the Supreme Court and Boies and Olson are successful, gays and lesbians nationwide would not only have the right to marry, …

Chase Bank is running a holiday contest on Facebook in which readers can vote for which charities should get a chunk of Chase’s $5M donation fund. Among the list of anti-gay (and gay-friendly) groups is NOM. Queerty notes that the drop-down menu of charities probably came from a “standard non-profit database provider, without much editing on Chase’s part.” But also …

Four decades of the cinematic destruction of New York City, stirringly set to George Gershwin.

I guess I’m presently rocking the “ironic” stache, but that’s only because I accidentally left the guard off the clippers while trimming my beard. (Via – The Daily What)

In a decision sure to rile the Christian right, the Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts has granted priests permission to solemnize same-sex weddings. The decision by Bishop M. Thomas Shaw III was immediately welcomed by advocates of gay rights in the Episcopal Church, who have chafed at local rules that allowed priests to bless same-sex couples, but not sign the documents …

Last month we learned that Uganda, where being gay can already bring a life sentence, was considering a death penalty for homosexual acts in certain situations. The proposed new law is now before Uganda’s parliament. Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda’s parliament. If the accused person …

The Chinese government is opening a gay bar in the Yunnan province in order to help stem the country’s rising incidence of HIV/AIDS. The bar for gays will open tomorrow, World AIDS Day, financed by public funds to the tune of 120,000 yuan ($17, 576), the Beijing News said, offered by Dali Prefecture government, and is to be run by …

Earlier this month, Oxford American Dictionary declared “unfriend” to be the word of 2009. Now some outfit called the Global Language Monitor has named Twitter as the most popular English-language word of the year. The Global Language Monitor has announced that Twitter is the Top Word of 2009 in its annual global survey of the English language. Twittered was followed …

Dubya, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, Wall Street. TIME Magazine gets it right when they call the aughties “the decade from hell.” Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World …

In his confession to the decapitation murder of gay teen Jorge Mercado, Juan Martinez Matos (left) claimed that Mercado had been dressed as a woman in an area known for prostitution, driving him, he claimed, to murder Mercado in “gay panic” once he discovered Mercado’s true gender. But according to Puerto Rican activist Pedro Julio Serrano, those close to Mercado …

Students at a culinary school in Colombia have created a Viagra-laced parfait called “the love dessert.” But it can’t actually be sold because of prescription drug laws. Points for passion fruit as an ingredient, though. (Tipped by JMG reader Richard in Vancouver)

A columnist in the Boston Globe notes the problem some folks have with “no problem.” As “no problem” has caught on and spread, replacing “you’re welcome” in situations ranging from casual personal encounters to business deals, the number, vigor, and shrillness of the complaints in etiquette columns and Internet forums has spread along with it. The reasons given – or …

BBC radio host and newspaper columnist Father Brian D’Arcy says that the blame for the Catholic Church’s unfolding child molestation cover-up scandal in Dublin goes all the way to Rome. One of Ireland’s best-loved priests, Father Brian D’Arcy, has called for the resignation of clergy who knowingly covered up for child sex-abuse priests. Five bishops who once served in the …