“I’m not in anyway associated with that they are saying, this is disgusting.” – Florida state representative Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island), shortly after he was arrested for soliciting a male undercover cop for sex in a Titusville park restroom. The busted pol allegedly offered $20 if the cop would let Allen blow him. Because we both went to UCF and …

It appears to be based on DC coffee-house gossip, but the #1 story on Digg right now is a rumor that Dick Cheney is also on the DC Madam’s list of clients. As rumors go, it’s a sweet one. However, I imagine that with PDFs of the phone numbers on the list now widely available, Cheney would have been the …

Primarily fueled by the activism of Fidel Castro’s niece, Mariela Castro, LGBT rights are advancing in Cuba. The Communist Party is about to introduce a law which would legalize same-sex unions, allow gays to adopt, and grant lesbians access to state-run reproductive services. Trans people are being granted name-change rights, hormone treatments and surgery. Cuba has been under the rule …

Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) have attached the Senate hate crimes bill, the Matthew Shepard Act, to a Department of Defense reauthorization bill which may come to a vote as early as today. Call your Senators NOW and urge their support of S.1105. The right wing has been burying Senators with calls opposing the bill. Call them …

Over the protests of Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, the city commission voted to allow the Stonewall gay and lesbian book collection to be housed on city property. The archive is currently stored in a commerical property that is being redeveloped. Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the Stonewall Library and Archives request to move the extensive book, magazine and video …

“We are optimistic and hope this will shed some light on this issue and not have a potential cheap laugh and negative impact on couples fighting for their lives right now. It does have radical impact on same-sex couples and their families.” – Marriage Equality director Molly McKay, speaking about I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, a film opening …

Tonight my buddy Captain Steve plus-one’d me for a screening of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix at the Time-Warner screening room above Columbus Circle. The movie was much less gory than the last installment in the series, but it was also darker, more brooding, with much less humor than has been evident in the last four films. Harry …

Tandi Iman Dupree, contestant in the Miss Black American pageant, makes the greatest entrance in drag history. Give the clip about 30 seconds for her to appear. Eternal thanks to Johnny Is A Man for the heads-up. Tandi is totally made of the awesome.

“This is a real outrage. The Hollywood left is redefining the most basic institution in human history, and our two U.S. senators won’t do anything about it. We need a U.S. senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts values.” – From the campaign site of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who today was revealed to have been a …

LOGO and the Human Rights Campaign will be hosting a debate for presidential candidates on August 9th at 6pm. So far, only Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have confirmed their appearance on the one-hour commercial-free show, which will film live on LOGO before a studio audience with live streaming on LOGOonline.com. Out rocker Melissa Etheridge and HRC head Joe Solomonese …

In an editorial called “A Nominee’s Abnormal Views“, today the NY Times Op-Ed page calls for Congress to reject Dr. James Holsinger as Surgeon General, saying, “The Senate should not confirm a surgeon general who considers practicing homosexuals abnormal and diseased.” An excerpt: His [Holsinger’s] strongest statement on homosexuality can be found in a murky, loosely reasoned paper that he …

Luisa Fernanda, a television personality on Miami’s popular Spanish-language Cotorreando show, has been fired by the station’s parent company, Telemundo, for inadvertently using a disparaging slang word for gay men. Fernanda, who is Mexican, did not know that in Cuban Spanish the word for grouper, “cherna”, is considered a pejorative term for a gay man. Telemundo fired Fernanda on June …

The old Studebaker factory on 131st Street in the Manhattanville section of West Harlem near the Hudson River is part of a 17-acre parcel where Columbia University is planning a massive 25-year expansion project. Most of the buildings in the 4-block area along the Riverside Drive Viaduct will be demolished, but three will be preserved, including including the Studebaker site, …

Courtesy of Showtime, this week’s Swag Tuesday prize is an advance Season Two DVD box set of their hit series, Weeds, which goes on sale July 24th. And as a bonus, Showtime is throwing in a cute little Weeds gardening kit. From the Amazon product review: Funnier, darker and more daring, the second season of this acclaimed Showtime series reaches …

A new free service in Manhattan called MizPee.com allows you to locate the closest public restroom via your PDA. Restrooms are ranked for cleanliness on a scale of 1-5, in case you can hold it long enough to make it to a higher-ranked location. With the paucity of public restrooms around town (no robo-johns for us, sadly) I can see …

PlanetOut Partners has announced that the Advocate will now ship to subscribers without the cloaking cover that previously shielded its identity. Out will follow suit shortly. A good move, long overdue. Those that don’t want the mailman to know their business can still request their subscriptions be cloaked.

To hear Fox News and Bill O’Reilly tell it, we’ve got us a regular national lesbian gang crime wave on our hands. Oh, brother. Meanwhile here in NYC hardcore lefties are spinning a Free Mumia-ish web of support for the Newark Four, recently incarcerated for their stabbing attack on a straight man. I’m rather disappointed to see FIERCE! (an organization …

UPS is refusing to grant spousal benefits to gay couples who have civil unioned in New Jersey, saying that they can only do so for couples that are married, as the company does for married gay employees in Massachusetts. UPS joins a growing list of New Jersey companies refusing to recognize state law requiring full benefits be granted to the …

Time Magazine on gay adoption: While adopted children in gay and lesbian homes were scarce a couple of decades ago, they now number 65,000, or more than 4% of adopted children in the U.S., according to a new study by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Washington’s Urban Institute. Almost 2% of the nation’s 3 …