We needed this kind of great news today, we really did. Via press release: Today the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center was awarded a landmark $13.3 million, five-year grant from the Federal Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Administration on Children, Youth and Families to create a model program that will provide life-saving support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender …

Just in from the ACLU: We made our own videos to contribute to the It Gets Better Project, featuring several LGBT staffers from the national ACLU’s New York and Washington, D.C. offices. Staff from many different departments — including fundraising, database, and human resources — stepped up to contribute. The ACLU’s executive director, Anthony D. Romero, joined in the effort …

Stereogum reports: “Coyote Song is the first official track from Sound Strike Songs, a benefit collection supporting legal defense for immigrants caught in Arizona’s immigration laws.”

“The suicide of that teen was not only a tragedy it was a crime. The young people who violated laws out of mindless desire to bully or embarrass or whatever the heck kids do this stuff will be prosecuted and probably jailed, I hope. Nothing in the press accounts suggest the kids who did this were motivated by homophobia, and …

NOTE: In case it’s not clear, this is a spoof account. And totally hilarious.

Tea Party candidate Rick Scott, whose hospital group paid the largest federal fine in history for defrauding Medicare, has a small but growing lead over Democrat Alex Sink. The averages still call it a toss-up, but the two most recent poll show Scott pulling ahead. Scott is also the founder of the astroturf group, Conservatives For Patient Rights, which pretends …

Prints are now onsale on Etsy.com: My painting “The Cher Within” depicts the magical moment when a drag performer prepares to cross the line between ambiguous guy in his underwear to full-on diva extraordinaire, in this case fashioned after his ultimate heroine, Cher. The painting also represents the diva in everyone, those who have actually taken their sequinned acts to …

The Detroit News has issued a correction to yesterday’s story. An assistant attorney general who has attracted national attention for a controversial blog that ridicules and denounces a University of Michigan student leader for his gay advocacy, religious beliefs and character has taken a personal leave following intense public scrutiny, a spokesman for Attorney General Mike Cox said today. Cox …

On Wednesday the Senate approved a bill requiring TV stations and cable networks to keep the audio volume of commercials at the same level of the shows they interrupt. The House has passed a similar bill already. Correcting sound levels is more complicated than using the remote control. The television shows and ads come from a variety of sources, from …

“The body count of the gay rights movement grows by one. Despite literal decades of preaching about the morality of homosexuality, despite the pansexual propaganda of the public and private schools, the knowledge that what he was doing was shameful and wrong still managed to penetrate Mr. [Tyler] Clementi’s mind. A normal man being forced to confront his immorality in …

“How much longer can they continue without a fresh batch of bona fide female stars to draw inspiration from? Since the 1960s, such role models have been scarce. Sure, there have been beautiful-freak performers like Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli, with their surreally emotive song stylings (descended from the patron saint of musical drag queens, Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland). “But …

If you’ve seen last night’s very moving episode of Project Runway, jump in and discuss. Otherwise, stay out of the comments. I’d never watched the show, but my pal Ray in Chicago emailed me to insist. Luckily, my cat-sitter Dr. Jeff has it programmed into my DVR.

The American Family Association says that the sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws passed five years ago by Indianapolis were a terrible thing. Because that means being forced to sell rainbow cupcakes. Controversy arose this week after the owners of the bakery cited moral objections to a special-order request for rainbow-decorated cookies for next week’s “National Coming Out Day” observance at a …

Christwire’s Stephenson Billings has created a fleet of amusing pulp novel covers taking jabs at various bloggers, websites, and personalities. I am opening the door to their obsessions and predilections, their narcissism and their lust, the very things that they are too afraid to admit to themselves. If today’s so-called artists and thinkers had the energy and wherewithal to actually …