Wednesday, January 30th, I’ll be appearing again at Rapture Books’ Reading For Filth: Queer Writers Look At Queer Sex series. Also on the bill that night is Eric Leven and Sherry Vine, with more to be added later. I’ll be reading an X-tra filthy new story and will post a reminder next week once the ad comes out. Next week’s …

Mike Huckabee, talking to Belief.net :” Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and …

I met John Hughes, author of Johnny Is A Man and the fab 80’s music blog, Lost In the 80’s, back in the late 90’s when we starting chatting online about music after Johnny had been a winning contestant on the short-lived Rock-N-Roll Jeopardy. These days he’s also writing for PopDose. Check out his stuff, I dig his latest piece …

Some happy news from my hometown: ORLANDO – When her lone opponent dropped out of the race, Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan was left sitting on a pile of campaign cash with no campaign to spend it on. The law allows candidates to distribute their unused contributions to charities of their choice. On Tuesday, Sheehan presented a check for $25,000, …

Dateline covered the lavish lifestyle of Pastor Benny Hinn, which includes a $10M oceanside mansion, personal jets, and numerous stays at opulent resorts where the daily room rates are in the thousands of dollars. But it’s OK, cuz he totally uses the rest of his time exhorting his millions of viewers to send him money to feed the starving children …

Several hundred Iowans gathered at their state capital yesterday in a “prayer walk” against gay marriage. The attendees are demanding that legislators launch an effort to amend the state constitution. The issue of gay marriage gained attention last August when District Judge Robert Hanson ruled that Iowa’s marriage law is unconstitutional. He ordered the Polk County recorder to permit same-sex …

Yesterday NPR did a story about Colossal, a new apparel company that is targeting bears as their first niche market. Bill Devine is a bear in Minneapolis. He says he sometimes has trouble finding clothes that flatter a belly he calls “rotund”. DEVINE: After a while you get to the point where you just don’t want to go shopping. You …

I can’t remember the last time I read a celebrity autobiography, but I gotta say that I’ll probably read George Michael’s. HarperCollins just announced they’ve secured the rights to his story in “one of the biggest publishing deals in UK history.” Michael promises the book will be very frank and will cover the gamut of his life – from the …

What are you afraid of?

Colorado Springs police have reported that they recovered a copy of Mike Jones’ autobiography from the vehicle of Colorado church shooter Matthew Murray. In December, Murray killed himself with a shot to the head after killing two people at the Youth With A Mission ministry in Arvada, Colorado, then killing two congregants at Denver’s New Life Church, once home to …

December 30th, on Meet The Press: “I’ve never tried to come out with some way of imposing a doctrinaire Christian perspective in a way that is really against the Constitution. I’ve never done that.” January 14th, speaking to evangelical supporters in Michigan: “What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so that it’s in God’s standards rather than …

Denise Simmons became the first openly lesbian black woman to be mayor of an American city yesterday after her election by the city council of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Simmons was backed by the Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBT candidates nationwide. The outgoing mayor of Cambridge is an openly gay black man.

From the New Yorker, via Raw Story: National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a “walk in the park,” according to an interview published in the New Yorker‘s print edition today. Debate on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “will be a walk in the …

After yesterday’s news that PlanetOut is planning to sell itself, its stock tumbled another 23%. The company has lost 87% of its value since January 2007. In an effort to retain their NASDAQ listing, last year the company performed a 1-10 reverse stock split. Companies must maintain a stock value of over $1 to maintain their listing on the exchange. …

A University of Texas lecturer is in the third day of a hunger strike to protest the school’s lack of same-sex domestic partners benefits. Uri Horesh, 37, is subsisting on water and vitamins until his demands are met. “The fact that the university is conducting itself in this manner makes me feel like I’m a persona non grata here, a …

Two commonly prescribed HIV drugs have been shown to prevent mice from contracting the virus. One of the drugs, tenofovir (sold as Viread), is reportedly already being sold in gay dance clubs as an HIV preventive. Tenofovir is most commonly prescribed in combination form with Emtriva as the single pill Truvada. After 25 years of researchers around the globe being …

More music industry woes. The head of the venture capital firm that bought EMI last year is planning to cut hundreds of artists from from the label. An interesting tidbit from the linked article: About 85% of what EMI does release never makes a profit, in part because of the cash spent signing bands and partly due to overestimating demand. …

The ACLU has filed a friend of the the court brief in support of Sen. Larry Craig’s bid to overturn his disorderly conduct conviction, arguing that according that people who have sex in public restrooms have an expectation of privacy. From the brief: “The government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Craig was inviting the undercover officer to …

“We’ve come to expect hysteria and gross distortions from an organization like this and normally their bigoted rants don’t even warrant a response. But the statement today about MRSA is beyond the pale. In typical fashion, they disregard the facts and instead chose to demagogue the issue in order to fear-monger. Serious medical issues deserve serious consideration, not wildly off-the-mark …

Better Burger, Chelsea, 8pm Angertwink 1: Hurry up. The Biggest Loser is on. Angertwink 2: Please. If I want to see sad fat people I’ll go to the Dugout.