The Movement Advancement Project has a nifty interactive map which pops up pertinent LGBT rights info when you scroll over a state.

Islamic and Christianist groups are finding common ground in Ghana’s recent campaign against LGBT people. Last month high-ranking government officials began calling for “rounding up” and arresting all homosexuals in the country.

Openly gay Sen. David Norris has dropped his bid for the presidency of Ireland after revelations that he once pleaded for clemency for a former boyfriend imprisoned for statutory rape. Mr Norris held a press conference outside his home in Dublin this afternoon to inform supporters he was withdrawing from the race. “I deeply regret the most recent of all …

Steve Kleinelder, an openly gay man (and JMG reader) has been appointed as executive editor of the American Heritage dictionary. The Advocate notes the value of having one of our own in such a position: In 2009, Kleinedler’s husband died suddenly, just two months after Kleinedler and fellow editors had revised the definitions of several marriage-related words to reflect the …

The bill is being debated on the Senate floor at this writing. The vote should take place within the hour. UPDATE: The Senate has passed the bill 74-26.

Peter LaBarbera has posted a notice regarding yesterday’s news that his SPLC-certified hate group has lost its tax-exempt status. Porno Pete claims to have gotten the news on June 10th, but until yesterday his site still claimed that donations were tax-deductible.

The American Family Association today posted the below montage of gay pride events as part of their ongoing boycott of Home Depot, who are turning the nation’s young girls into an army of flannel-draped carpenters. Or something.

Baseball-sized hail pelted parts of Queens yesterday, smashing cars and home windows.

“I am truly sorry for the hurt or embarrassment regarding the gay and lesbian t-shirt incident at Dollywood’s Splash Country recently. Everyone knows of my personal support of the gay and lesbian community. Dollywood is a family park and all families are welcome. I am looking further into the incident and hope and believe it was more policy than insensitivity. …

The above is what results when you microwave Ivory soap.

The witch hunt in Ghana ramps up. From an anti-gay news site: The Ghana Education Service has conceded that same sex schools in Ghana are becoming breeding grounds for gays and lesbians. GES, however says that neutralizing these schools, will not address the issue of homosexuality creeping into the Ghanaian society. Teachers in some single sex schools have been reported …

Guess what they don’t like?

Another classic. Watch this.

Clip description: “Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998.”

A Native American tribe in Washington state has approved gay marriage. On Monday, the Suquamish Tribal Council formally changed its ordinances to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. The Suquamish ordinance means gay couples are afforded all the rights heterosexual couples are allowed on the reservation and other places in which gay marriages are allowed. The new law allows the …

Represented by the anti-gay Thomas More Society, the parents of a recently deceased Philadelphia lesbian are suing their late daughter’s wife to prevent her from receiving her partner’s profit-sharing benefits. Lawyers for the parents argue that the couple’s Canadian marriage cannot be recognized under DOMA. Via Christian Newswire: Thomas More Society attorneys argue that the parents are entitled to the …

“We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond. The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention …

Resigned in scandal, but waited to vote on the debt first.

And the vote was not very close. Passage came after weeks of brinksmanship and backroom dealing that left few satisfied in the more liberal or conservative wings of the House, but drew just enough from each party to put a compromise over the top in time, assuming the Senate goes along, to avert what might have become a calamitous default …