What It's Like Being Openly Gay At Langston University

LANGSTON, OKLAHOMA - Langston University was a choice out of three different universities. My choices were between Lincoln University in M, Tougaloo College in Miss., or Texas College in Texas. I chose Langston. I thought Langston University would give me an experience that I would never forget and it did. I had a few friends that went to Langston also, which is another reason why I chose Langston. My friends that attended Langston told me that I would have a blast, and that I would meet so many different people from different places, and I would fit in easily. Little did I know I was in for it.
The first day of school at Langston was rough because I was gay. In my elementary algebra class the class was packed and I saw one seat available. So I sat down. The guy next to me immediately got up and moved his seat from me and he told the teacher he wasn't sitting by a faggot. Then a girl traded him seats.
Another time I was going in the restroom in Moore Hall, and as I walked in a guy said this isn't the girl's restroom. Then he and his friends began to laugh. As I walked to the business office a woman and her son walked by and the words "gay boy" trembled out of her son's mouth. Then as I walked in the cafeteria to eat, people stared, mugged and whispered things about me.
Another time I was at a football game and I walked up the blenchers to find a few friends. This man told his son to close his eyes when I walked by and said, "Don't look at that faggot." Then when I finally got up to the top of the bleachers, my friends were sitting with their boyfriends and as I sat down their boyfriends left and told them they would see them later.
At a conference, a teacher asked me why I called this girl a bitch. I told her because she called me a faggot. The teacher said, "You are a faggot. A bitch is a female dog. Is that girl you called a bitch walking on four legs?" After that comment I left the classroom. Being at Langston has been one of the most miserable times of my life. Students are rude and mean. I ask myself what did I do to make people hate me so much. I feel like less than a person. As I walk the campus of Langston University, there's always rude comments and laughter being done behind my back.
Why is it that I'm being discriminated against by my own race? We're all African- Americans and our ancestors went through the same things. Our skin is the same. If someone shot a bullet at me I will feel it just like everyone else. I'm no different-just my sexual preference. We are all equal. So why is it that a lot of people discriminate against me because of my sexual orientation? I don't discriminate against anybody and I don't judge anybody, so why do I have to feel less than somebody? Sometimes I cry myself to sleep every night in my room, wanting so badly to go home. I just want to get my plane ticket back to California and leave Langston behind. The only reason I'm still here is because God and my mother. They gave me the strength, courage and faith to stay alive, and to not feel so depressed because of who I am. If people don't like me that's their problem, not mine. I must be doing something right if my name is in other people's mouths. I'm not at Langston University to make friends or to argue with students. I'm here for my education, just like the rest of the students. I deserve the same respect as everyone else. I know I'm a good person and there is a place for me in society. I am a proud gay African-American.
from The LU Gazette

Boyfriend's Gay Video Freaks Out Female Mate

Q. I have been with my boyfriend for over five years and have caught him watching soft core porn and buying skin mags before. It hurts me to know that I am not enough to keep his attention, but a few days ago I found something that really broke my heart - a guy-on-guy porn DVD hidden in our bedroom. I freaked out when I found it. When he got home from work, he told me it was because he had been having guy-on-guy dreams, so he bought the DVD to see if it did anything for him. He says he watched it twice and was relieved it didn't do anything for him. I know he had a sexual experience with a guy when he was younger, which he says was nothing. But he's asked me to do things like wear a strap-on, which I never did because that creeped me out. I don't know if his dreams stemmed from built-up sexual tension because we haven't had sex in a long time, but he always wants me when we do. If he was gay, he shouldn't get excited from kissing me or looking at me in sexy underwear. He said he was really freaked out by the dreams, confused and scared. Could he be bi? How common is it for men to be curious about other men? -- HIDING UNDER THE BED

A. Either your boyfriend is confused and trying to figure things out, or he knows and doesn't know how to talk to you about it. If you freak out, I can understand why he might be afraid to discuss these issues with you. He is probably embarrassed that you found his stash, and when you lost your mind over it, you solidified his belief that you wouldn't understand. If you didn't like him watching porn, you should have brought it up at the time rather than let it fester. As a rule, guys don't watch gay porn unless they are gay. Just because he enjoys non-traditional play in the bedroom doesn't mean he is gay or even bisexual, but if you have concerns, talk to him about them rather than screaming.
Guys are funny sometimes. If they have a dream about another guy, they may doubt their orientation and do whatever they feel necessary to figure out the truth. You said that he had an experience with another boy when he was young. While not uncommon for youth, it could be significant for him. As long as it wasn't an abusive situation, he was probably experimenting. Can you honestly say you have never had a dream or a fantasy -- about someone of the same sex?
As far as him getting turned on by you, that doesn't guarantee anything other than he is human, and yes, possibly bisexual. To get to the bottom of this discuss it with him. You could spy on him, but that brings up trust issues (not to mention you may look like a nut). If it is impacting him as much as you say it is, he would benefit from some support as well. And something to think about: if he watched the movie once and it did nothing for him, you might want to ask yourself why he watched it a second time?
from The London Free Press

Telling Your Co-Workers You're Gay

I finally watched the film Milk this summer. I loved the movie and was enthralled by Sean Penn's performance. But I couldn't help but feel a bit disheartened about how little some things have changed in the 31 years since Harvey Milk's assassination.
Sure, same-sex marriage is now legal in a handful of the United States and same-sex domestic partnerships enjoy the same employment perks as heterosexual ones at many forward-thinking companies. But between Proposition 8 being overturned in California, conservative forces using Referendum 71 to try to overturn Washington state's same-sex domestic partnership laws, and gays in the military still expected to keep mum about their sex lives, progress seems glacial at times.
In July, Wall Street Journal columnist Alexandra Levit offered up these sobering statistics:
"A recent Harris poll conducted with Out & Equal and Witeck-Combs Communications indicated that 44% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) participants feel unable to talk freely to co-workers about their partners, and up to 78% don't feel comfortable bringing their partners to corporate social functions."
Admittedly, I've always worked for LGBT-friendly employers. So I haven't witnessed firsthand an officemate having to hide the details of his or her personal life.
Curious about where my gay and lesbian pals now stood on coming out at work, I took an informal poll. Their answers ran the gamut: Those with gay-friendly employers didn't bat an eye at putting a picture of their partner on their desk or bringing them to company events. But some who worked in much more of a "don't ask, don't tell" environment kept quiet about their personal lives.
"I'd love to give you a quote using my real name," said one pal who works in academia. "But I'm trying to get tenure and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that."
A few responses took me completely by surprise:
"I'm not flamboyant, but it was obvious from the start that I was gay," said Michael, a pal from the San Francisco Bay Area who works at a boutique car dealership, a workplace he says is pretty macho and prone lots of locker room talk.
"I never hid my partner at all," Michael continued. "My co-workers have all met him, and he's always included in dinners and parties."
What about his straight co-workers' boasts of their latest dating conquests?
"I give it right back to them, and everyone takes it and laughs," said Michael, who's well aware that he and his colleagues could never get away with that much oversharing at other companies.
Say what you will about a bunch of bored office guys getting lewd around the water cooler, but the fact that my friend doesn't have to worry about his professional reputation -- or worse, his personal safety -- for crowing right along with them is progress.
from The Seattle Times

Science Fails To Explain Humanity

PROVO, UTAH - We are so used to the idea that science can give us answers that we rarely even challenge the assumption. But according to Daniel N. Robinson, an Oxford University philosophy professor and author, we need much more than scientific facts to answer the question, "What is a human being?"
Robinson used the shifting attitudes about homosexuality and imaginary visitors from Mars to illustrate how science falls short when explaining human individuals.
"It is more or less taken for granted, by persons facing the moral and social dimensions of life in the modern world, that the surest guide to the right decisions and the right attitudes will be supplied by science," Robinson said at the Truman G. Madsen Eternal Man Lecture, sponsored by BYU's Wheatley Institution.
Robinson demonstrated the problem through an imaginary visitor from Mars who came to find out what types of creatures live here. After consulting with scientists, the visitor returns to Mars to give his report. "A human being is a body that is 50 to 75 percent water. The percentage of water depends on the total amount of fat. On average, each human being is comprised of enough sodium chloride to fill three salt shakers. In the infant stage, the average amount of potassium is between seven and eight grams."
"The question that arises, obviously," Robinson said, "is whether the Martian community, in possession of all these facts, has even the foggiest notion of just what a human being is! Offered as an answer to the question, 'What is a human being?' this body of facts constitutes a deception -- a falsehood. ... these are 'false facts.'"
Only about 30 years ago, an essay by Gerald C. Davison argued that homosexuality should not be treated as a disease. Instead, Davison argued that homosexuality should be treated so patients could achieve more social acceptability. Robinson said that Davison's essay had no assumption that homosexuality was immutable and couldn't be changed.
Today the focus is on whether the homosexual impulse is inborn or even changeable. Robinson pointed to a 1991 article by Simon LeVay that found a difference in the hypothalamus structure between homosexual and heterosexual men.
"I think it is fair to say, that had such a finding been available in the 1950s, it would have been conclusive proof that homosexuality is a pathological condition, as evidenced by the homosexual's 'abnormal' cellular morphology," Robinson said.
Robinson then wondered aloud whether those homosexuals who have embraced a heterosexual lifestyle have also had a concomitant change in their hypothalamus. He asked this question, he said, to illustrate the simplification that scientists apply to the human condition.
"I offer these remarks on the scientific understanding of homosexuality to make clear that the (commonly accepted) 'facts' of science not only carry cultural and political weight -- no matter how carefully concealed -- but very often seem to be shaped and even 'discovered' by way of factors that are themselves ineliminably political," he said.
Human behavior and human values are filtered in the social sciences to serve political ends, according to Robinson. "It is to abandon the mission to understand in favor of the impulse to control."
Reducing explanations to their simplest forms has a purpose in science, but the danger is to take too much away that can explain the human condition. There is an "alphabet of man" according to Robinson -- a collection of the needful things for understanding humanity. Take away a vowel or a consonant and understanding is impossible.
Robinson believes there is more to mankind that mere facts. "All animals provide some form of shelter for themselves, but this surely is not a model of the Acropolis or the Cathedral at Chartres, neither of which was intended for shelter. Patterns of aggression are found throughout the animal kingdom, but only we are prepared to die for a principle, for a belief in something higher and more significant than our individual lives."
There is something in mankind that can't be named, quantified or measured according to Robinson. "If we attempt to hold it in consciousness, it darts away. ... It seems to be repelled by what is merely earthly. Those of its features which we can glimpse more readily in other lives than in our own suggest at once a moral and aesthetic dimension," he said. "When this is sensed or felt, no matter how fleetingly, there seems to be an expansion of the very terms of life itself."
from The Mormon Times

TV Dance Show Makes Peace With Gay Community

LOS ANGELES - Popular reality TV show "So You Think You Can Dance" has made peace with America's gay community by putting a same-sex Latin ballroom couple into a new round of competition and appointing an openly gay judge.
Producer and judge Nigel Lythgoe caused a furor in May when he told another gay couple he thought their samba routine would "probably alienate" a lot of the show's five million viewers.
Lythgoe later wrote a Twitter message saying he was "not a fan of 'Brokeback' Ballroom," alluding to the 2007 gay romance film "Brokeback Mountain." His message prompted a call for action by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a meeting with Lythgoe and executives at the Fox network, as well as an apology.
The Emmy-award winning "So You Think You Can Dance" currently in its 6th season on Fox, uses a format similar to singing contest "American Idol" to chose America's favorite dancer through a mix of judges' decisions and public votes.
On Wednesday's episode, Jason and Willem De Vries danced an emotional audition routine, causing choreographer and judge Mia Michaels to tear up and drawing a compliment from Lythgoe.
"I celebrate the courage that you guys have to just expose yourselves and your hearts and your passion and who you are," Michaels told them.
The pair told the panel they were determined to show the judges and America there is "a world of same-sex dancers."
Lythgoe, who started his career in Britain as a dancer, told the pair; "Thank you for showing me that same-sex ballroom dancing can be very strong and very good."
But to get through to the grueling next round in Las Vegas, De Vries and Jason had to prove they could dance other styles in a choreography test that also paired them with female contestants. The Top 20 finalists usually perform in male/female pairings.
Their inclusion followed the appointment to the "So You Think You Can Dance" judging panel earlier this week of Adam Shankman, an openly gay choreographer and director of the 2007 movie "Hairspray".
GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios said on Thursday that the treatment of Jason and De Vries on the show and the addition of Shankman "gives America a bold example of how to treat gay people with the same respect and fairness as everyone else."
from Reuters

Soap Star Says Firing Was Over Gay Story Line

If you tuned in to the soap "One Life to Live" this week, you may have noticed there's been a change of character. One character in particular.
Actress Patricia Mauceri says she was fired and abruptly replaced for objecting to a gay storyline because of her religious beliefs.
Mauceri played the recurring role of Carlotta Vega on "OLTL" for the last 14 years. But when she objected to how the writers wanted her deeply religious character, a Latina mother, to handle a storyline involving homosexuality, she objected. And for that she claims she was fired.
Mauceri, 59, a devout Christian, told FOX News that character Vega's gay-friendly dialogue was not in line with the character she helped create by drawing on her own faith.
"I did not object to being in a gay storyline. I objected to speaking the truth of what that person, how that person would live and breathe and act in that storyline," she said. "And this goes against everything I am, my belief system, and what I know the character's belief system is aligned to."
Mauceri said she was replaced despite offering changes to the script and hoping for a compromise.
An ABC spokesperson said they were not aware of any such claims by Mauceri, adding such claims "would be frivolous."
When asked why Mauceri is no longer playing Carlotta Vega, the spokesperson said the show does not comment on personnel matters. The scene in question was scheduled to air Friday afternoon.
Mauceri told FOX News she is exploring her legal options. AFTRA, the actors union that represents her, did not respond to a request for comment.
from Fox News

Soccer Tarnished By Cold-Shoulder To Gays

Marcello Lippi, Italy's World Cup-winning soccer manager who seems to have both feet planted in the 19th century, says he's never come across a gay player in his 40-odd years in the sport.
Clearly, Lippi needs to take an eye-opening trip to Milan.
There's a gay soccer team there, competing weekly in an amateur league. The players' sexuality doesn't affect how they play. The ball, after all, is round for everyone.
Last season, Nuova Kaos Milano finished a creditable fourth in its league of 16 teams, not bad considering their opponents frequently try harder against them to avoid the "dishonor" of losing to gay players, says Nuova Kaos defender Klaus Heusslein.
"Here, people think, 'They have to share the same changing room. Who knows what might happen if they have gays in the locker room? They might attack people,'" says Heusslein, a 48-year-old German who lives and works in Milan.
"In Italy, it will take another 100 years to get rid of these misconceptions."
How depressing.
It's a terrible blemish on soccer that homophobia remains so rife in the sport. As long as there are no openly gay players in the English Premier League and elsewhere at the top of the game, the shiny gloss bought by soccer's wealth — in new stadiums, multimillionaire players and such like — is nothing but cheap veneer.
That players have their own perfume and fashion lines but still don't feel safe enough to be able to say that they are gay is a damning indictment on the sport. The smoke-filled backrooms may have vanished, but archaic mentalities remain. That was proved by the hooliganism that scarred an English League Cup match between West Ham and Millwall this week, where several hundred people confronted each other and hurled bottles and bricks at police officers. Those likely were the same kind of so-called fans who have taunted players with racist and homophobic abuse.
True, soccer is not alone in being behind the times. Institutional intolerance in many sports has meant that far too few top-level athletes have felt comfortable saying they are gay. All the more reason, therefore, why the world's most popular sport should take the lead. Peddling outdated views, as Lippi did this week, does soccer no favors. His comments were particularly unseemly given recent violence that has targeted gays in Rome.
Lippi, in a video interview with the Internet-broadcast program KlausCondicio, said he would advise gay players to stay in the closet. Because of the huge amount of attention that soccer gets in Italy, a gay soccer couple would create scandal if they came out, he argued.
"If a player came to me and confessed his homosexuality, I'd advise him not to express it, because it would create problems and could be exploited," he said. "I don't think it would be possible in football to have a relationship of this type. Maybe it already exists, I don't know."
Somewhere in Italy, perhaps in the national team he coaches or in the Serie A sides that Lippi once managed or played for, secretly gay players must have been shaking their heads.
Heusslein, the openly gay amateur, certainly did.
"It's just repeating the same old stereotypes," he said. "He's either blind or he's stupid."
"He should ask himself what really would be the problem if he had gays on his team. Would that change his capacity to play, would it change his skills?" Heusslein asked. "People should see what they are doing on the field, not what they doing in their own bedrooms."
According to British gay-rights campaigners, mentalities are only moderately more enlightened in the Premier League. The chanting of homophobic abuse by fans has been banned, on paper at least, at grounds since the start of the 2007-2008 season, and police this year charged 11 men who hurled abuse at former England defender Sol Campbell.
Nevertheless, the only top British player to date to have gone public was Justin Fashanu. The former Nottingham Forest and Norwich City striker hanged himself in 1998, fearful that because he was gay he wouldn't get a fair trial in the United States on sexual assault charges.
Activist Peter Tatchell, a friend of Fashanu's, says he knows of several gay players in the Premier League who want to come out but dare not because they are concerned that their clubs and sponsors wouldn't support them. This despite the fact that Tatchell believes British soccer has progressed sufficiently since Fashanu's death for gay players to be able to go public.
"They'd get a rough ride from some teammates and some fans for a while, but eventually it would calm down and most people would accept them," he says. "They'd also get quite a lot of support and admiration from liberal-minded fans."
That day, when it comes, will be a moment to celebrate because it will show that soccer is becoming the all-inclusive sport it professes to be. As a leader in the sport, Lippi should be a force for such progress, not standing in its way.
from The Associated Press

Gays More Likely To Seek Counseling

Gay patients seek out mental health counseling more often than their heterosexual counterparts, researchers say.
More than twice as many lesbians, gays, and bisexuals reported receiving mental health treatment in the preceding year compared with heterosexual men and women, Susan D. Cochran, PhD, of UCLA School of Public Health, and colleagues reported online in BMC Psychiatry.
And homosexual women were more likely than homosexual men to seek counseling, they said.
"This study builds upon previous epidemiological studies that have shown higher prevalences of mental health or alcohol and drug disorders among sexual minority populations," the researchers said.
Previous research has found that lesbians, gays, and bisexuals use mental health services more frequently than do heterosexuals.
To draw that picture in more detail, the researchers surveyed 2,074 California residents ages 18 to 64, oversampling for sexual minorities.
They found that 48.5% of homosexuals reported receiving treatment in the preceding year, compared with 22.5% of heterosexuals.
A greater proportion of gay and bisexual men reported receiving treatment, compared with heterosexual men (42.5% versus 17.1%).
Similarly, more lesbian and bisexual women received treatment during that time, compared with heterosexual women (55.3% versus 27.1%).
But lesbians were more likely than gay men to seek counseling. These women had a 2.08-fold increased likelihood of getting treatment, while gay and bisexual men had a 1.57-fold increased likelihood compared with heterosexual women.
Heterosexual men, on the other hand, had about half the likelihood of seeking treatment as heterosexual women.
The researchers said it's well known that women generally tend to seek out mental health services more than men do.
In their survey, overall, 33.8% of women reported receiving treatment in the preceding year compared with 24.5% of men.
Ethnic minorities were less likely to seek out mental health or substance use services, possibly because they aren't familiar with what types of services are available, or because of a greater stigma attached to use of these services by their families and communities, the researchers said.
They said sexual minorities may be more likely to seek out help because they're more exposed to discrimination, violence, or other stressful life events.
The fact that homosexuality has historically been categorized as a mental health problem may contribute as well.
And gay and lesbian communities may promote the norm that therapeutic services are appropriate places for coping with the stresses associated with being a sexual minority.
The authors noted that their study may be limited in its generalizability because they surveyed only Californians.
Further research is needed, they said, on how psychological distress, impairments in functioning, and social norms influence the way people seek treatment, and how these factors are different for men and women of all sexual orientations.
They also called for more research into the effects of treating people who don't have diagnosable disorders, as well as studies of the factors that encourage sexual orientation minorities to seek treatment, in order to improve delivery to those who underutilize it.
from MedPage Today

Therapy Won't Change Being Gay

The nation's leading psychologists' professional organization has issued a new statement advising mental health professionals against leading patients to believe that therapy may somehow reverse their sexual orientation.
On August 4 the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution that says there's no scientific evidence therapy can make gay people straight. In a review of 83 English-language, peer-reviewed studies from 1960 to 2007, an APA task force found nothing to suggest that therapy could steer a member of a sexual minority (a term that encompasses all varieties and degrees of same-sex attraction) toward heterosexuality. Moreover, the task force found insufficient evidence to illuminate whether such therapy might in fact do harm.
The APA statement counters the notion that "sexual orientation change effort" or "reparative therapy," approaches embraced by a small but dogged group of therapists, can make gays and lesbians straight.
The APA has been chipping away at this issue for years; in the mid-1970s the organization helped establish that homosexuality and its variants are normal expressions of human sexuality and should not be considered pathologies in need of treatment. The new statement reaffirms that stance.
The new statement also takes care to address the concerns of those whose sexual identities are at odds with their religious beliefs. Such people should be counseled about accepting their sexuality in light of their religion.
Similarly, gay youths and adults seeking therapy should be offered guidance in coming to terms with their sexual identity and in dealing with societal reactions to that identity, the paper says.
Does this news surprise you? Or do you find it more surprising that we're still having this discussion?
from The Washington Post

Exodus International Chimes In On APA Resolution

When the American Psychological Association makes a resolution, people listen. When the APA makes a statement about reparative therapy, Exodus International listens for a way to twist the words.
Recently, the APA passed a resolution stating that therapy is quite unlikely to cause any change in a person’s sexuality, and trying to do so could be harmful. The group has opposed reparative therapy before; this resolution, passed 125-4, states how therapists should deal with clients who struggle with being gay and a member of a religion that demonizes homosexuality.
The APA says mental health care providers should help clients “explore possible life paths that address the reality of their sexual orientation, reduce the stigma associated with homosexuality, respect the client’s religious beliefs, and consider possibilities for a religiously and spiritually meaningful and rewarding life.”
Then, in a craftily worded statement, Exodus International’s president, Alan Chambers, says, “not only is faith an essential part of life for many gay men and women, it is almost always the motivating factor behind their decision to leave it behind and that many in Exodus have experienced a shift in attractions along the way.”
Chambers further notes how grateful he is that the APA acknowledges that religious belief “is an essential element of many people’s lives and creates great moral conflict and tension for those who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction.”
Exodus International positions itself as a ministry that offers “freedom from homosexuality through Jesus Christ,” and counts thousands of successful transformations. Its work also gave rise to the phrase “ex-ex-gay,” describing people who realize they can’t change what they are and exit Exodus.
In what turns out to be a research duel, an APA task force looked at 83 studies, dating back to 1960, on therapy designed to help a gay person become straight.
Evangelical psychologist Mark Yarhouse of Regent University and Prof. Stanton Jones of Wheaton College took a shot. Their six-year study of people in Exodus programs shows that more than half of 61 people changed to heterosexual lives or “disidentified” with being gay and embraced chastity. Thus their conclusion that people indeed can change, and there is no harm in trying.
Exodus International continues helping gays “leave homosexuality behind,” as if they would hang up their winter coats when the weather changes.
If only these people had a sense of humor, they’d remember the old joke: If I could change and not be gay, why would I continue to put up with this?
from MSN Health & Fitness

Can't Sue For Being Called Gay

NEW YORK - A companion of late Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith can sue an author for defamation but not over gay sex claims because homosexuality is no longer viewed as contemptible, a U.S. judge said on Wednesday.
Howard K. Stern is suing Rita Cosby and the Hachette Book Group over Cosby's bestseller "Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death."
Stern is the former lawyer and boyfriend of Smith, the Playboy playmate and Guess jeans model who died in 2007 from an accidental prescription drug overdose.
Stern claimed the book, which was published six months after Smith's death, contained 19 libelous statements, including that he had engaged in oral sex at a Los Angeles party with Larry Birkhead, the father of Smith's child, and that Smith had later called Stern gay.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin ruled the defamation case could proceed on 11 of the statements.
Chin dismissed Stern's claims that statements implying he was homosexual were defamatory, although he acknowledged that gays and lesbians still suffered prejudice.
"I respectfully disagree that the existence of this continued prejudice leads to the conclusion that there is a widespread view of gays and lesbians as contemptible and disgraceful," the judge said.
Chin ruled that Hachette could not be sued because it had no reason to doubt the truth of the book. But he noted Cosby, who is also a television reporter, had to answer to claims that she knew some of her sources were not truthful.
"Cosby's actions are extremely troubling, and suggest that she was attempting to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses," the judge said.
Hachette gave Cosby an advance of $405,000 plus royalties for the instant bestseller, the ruling said.
A lawyer for Cosby, Elizabeth McNamara, said she was pleased the case had been narrowed down.
"As to the remaining statements, we are fully confident that a jury will dismiss them as well once it hears all the evidence surrounding Howard K. Stern's life with Anna Nicole Smith," she said.
Stern's lawyer, Lin Wood, called the decision a victory.
"Defamation cases brought by public figures, such as Mr. Stern, only go to a jury in the most egregious of cases, and Judge Chin has found the case against Cosby to be one of those cases," Wood said in a statement.
In a separate case, Stern, 40, and two doctors face an October hearing in Los Angeles on charges they were illegally supplying Smith with prescription drugs for years.
from Reuters

Gay Exorcism

BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT - The boy writhes uncontrollably on the floor, but the church members remain calm, if increasingly loud. They're trying to drive a "demon" out of him.
"You homosexual demon, get up on outta here!" they say. "You demon, loose yourself!" "You sex demon ... you snake!"
The shouts, the convulsions, the references to homosexual spirits -- they are all captured on a video posted on YouTube by the Manifested Glory Ministries. The video has sparked anger among gay youth advocacy groups and put the small church from Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the middle of an ongoing national debate on gay issues.
Patricia McKinney, pastor of the nondenominational church who describes herself as a prophet, said she has even been receiving death threats as a result of the video, but doesn't understand the outrage.
"I believe in deliverance, I believe in anointing, I believe in the power of Jesus," she said in a phone interview with CNN. "I've been threatened already, I've been attacked, and it doesn't make any sense to us. Really, what they're doing, they're putting me out there on the mat."
McKinney says she doesn't refer to the events of the video as an exorcism, but rather a "casting out of unclean spirits." She said this isn't the first time that an event like this has taken place at her church, but it is the first one centered around homosexuality.
McKinney said the boy approached the church and told her he wanted to be a pastor, but was struggling with his sexuality. "We allow [gay people] to come into our church. We just don't allow them to come in and continue to live that lifestyle," she said.
"God made Adam and Eve," she said. "He made a woman to be with a man, and a man to be with a woman."
Robin McHaelen, who worked with the 16-year-old boy at the center of the video in her position as executive director of True Colors Inc., a gay youth advocacy and mentoring program in Connecticut, said the video was taped in March. She would not identify the teen.
McHaelen said she doesn't think the church acted maliciously -- but that's part of her problem with the video.
"None of the people in this video were intending to hurt this kid," she said. "They performed this ritual in an attempt to rid him of feelings that he didn't want to have."
The boy is the fifth teen True Colors is aware of that has undergone an event like the one documented in the video. But unlike the boy, not all the teens approached a church or religious organization.
The event, McHaelen said, reflects a culture and society that doesn't believe a person can be both Christian and gay.
"That's what makes me so sad and so mad," she said.
McHaelen said she talked to the boy since the incident and said he's feeling very conflicted and confused in trying to reconcile who he is with his religion.
"He's 16 and having the feelings that he's having, the relationships he's having, and then [he's] being tormented by 'What if I'm going to go to hell because of what I feel and who I am?'" she said.
McHaelen notified the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, as she's mandated to do in her position when she suspects abuse or neglect of a minor. However, she told CNN the department will be looking into whether or not abuse or neglect occurred by the parents and family of the boy, not the church. The department declined to comment Thursday.
Isaiah Webster, Director of Communications for the National Youth Advocacy Commission, said he was deeply saddened by the timing of the video and the accompanying uproar.
"It's very, very sad that this still takes place in society," he said. "It's also very sad that it comes about during this week, [as the] 40th anniversary of Stonewall is this weekend."
The so-called "Stonewall Riots" are believed by many to have kicked off the gay liberation movement.
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"That is really something to celebrate," Webster continued, "and it's unfortunate that young people still have to endure things like this."
McHaelen said that as an advocacy group, she doesn't think True Colors can take any legal action against the church, and said she would rather engage in an open dialogue with its members.
from CNN

Gay City Employees Fight To Block Release Of Their Identities

SEATTLE - Several City of Seattle workers have sued to prevent the release of names and membership lists of a gay and lesbian employee organization.
At issue, according to a complaint filed in King County Superior Court, is a request by Seattle City Light employee affiliated with a conservative Christian organization who claims the city has opposed his efforts to launch a group for formerly homosexual workers.
The City Light employee -- Philip Irvin, 58 -- wants the city to release the names of organizers of city employee groups, specifically those of a Seattle Public Utilities "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Friends" group. According to court documents, Irvin has also requested the names and city departments of those who are members of the group, or who have attended the group's meetings, as well as copies of the group's sign-in sheets, minutes and agendas.
Speaking to seattlepi.com Thursday, Irvin said the city has previously opposed his efforts to start a group for employees who had identified as homosexuals but have since become heterosexual.
"They are the most vilified sexual minority, and I'm sorry to say that they're not really welcomed in the religious community either," Irvin said. "This is something where they are vilified on the right or the left."
After receiving Irvin's request in early May, city public-disclosure officers notified employees whose identities would be released. In response, an unspecified number of employees have sued the city asserting that state public-records law demand their identities be withheld.
Plaintiffs' attorney Cecilia Cordova said the issue, plainly, is the privacy of these city employees.
"The information that we're talking about is personal information," said Cordova, who is representing the employees with noted gay-rights attorney David Coffman. "The risk is privacy, and that's something that is taken very seriously by the court system."
Coffman and Cordova were able to secure a temporary restraining order blocking the city from releasing the documents until a more complete hearing is held later this month. At that time, the employees' attorneys will ask that the city delay release of the documents until a final ruling is made.
Defending the city position that the documents are releasable, City Attorney Tom Carr said that, despite his personal view to the contrary, he believes state law mandates that the information be released.
Carr argued that no relevant exemptions exist in the state open-records law to protect the identities of public employees participating in such groups. Earlier case law held that the courts could weigh the public good of release with the privacy concerns, but the Legislature has since revised the law to seriously limit such discretion.
"This is a group of people who have historically been discriminated against and in some cases physically attacked, and I would prefer to protect their names," Carr said. "But my preferences aren't relevant here, and the law is clear. … If the law's wrong, the people who can change it are in the Legislature."
Irvin said he has asked to become an intervenor in the complaint filed by the city employees, a position which would allow him to file pleadings in the case. He said he is preparing to file a brief demanding disclosure of the documents.
Rather than to harass group members, Irvin said he intends to use the documentation to show that the city has allowed the group to operate. He also said he intends to attend the group's meetings, and will use the identifying information in a civil rights complaint should he be barred from doing so.
Irvin said he believes the city is extending privileges to the employees' group that were denied him during an earlier effort to launch a group for formerly homosexual workers. The city did so, he contends, because organizations such as his are "politically inconvenient," and, in doing so, violated civil rights law.
"Some people would say that I'm a civil rights leader," Irvin said. "I'm asking for equal rights, and, to that end, I'm attacking the internal inconsistency of gay rights laws."
On the Web site of the Bellevue-based Faith and Freedom Network, group president Gary Randall republished a memo apparently sent to the organization by Irvin. In it, Irvin complains that LGBTQ&F group members have used the city e-mail system and meeting rooms for the organization's functions.
"Curious to find out who was using City resources, I, a City Light employee, filed a public disclosure request seeking the names and attendees of their meeting," Irvin wrote, according to the Faith and Freedom Network site. "Call me a homophobe if you want to," he added, "but I don't think the city should fund a secret gay employees group."
Irvin went on to accuse the employees of hypocrisy for fighting the release of their identifying information. Gay-rights groups have announced plans to publish the names of voters who sign Referendum 71, a Faith and Freedom Network-backed effort to repeal a state law expanding the rights of registered domestic partners.
That effort was announced earlier this month, weeks after Irvin filed his public-information request.
Irvin's request will face its first test Wednesday, when King County Superior Court Judge John Erlick will hear arguments on whether to block release of the documents.
from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Six Gay Men Shot To Death In Iraq

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Six gay men were shot dead by members of their tribe in two separate incidents in the past 10 days, an official with Iraq's Interior ministry said.
In the most recent attack, two men were killed Thursday in Sadr City area of Baghdad after they were disowned by relatives, the official said.
The shootings came after a tribal meeting was held and the members decided to go after the victims.
On March 26, four additional men were fatally shot in the same city, the official said, adding that the victims had also been disowned by their relatives.
The official declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Witnesses told CNN that a Sadr City cafe, which was a popular gathering spot for gays, was also set on fire.
from CNN

Jim And Tammy Faye Bakker's Son To Preaches On God's Love For Gays

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA - Jay Bakker, Christian punk preacher and son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, will speak in Raleigh, N.C., on Sunday about God's love for gays and lesbians, building on a theme his late mother championed.
The pierced and tattooed Bakker grew up in Charlotte at the heels of his parents' Praise The Lord ministry and television network.
The PTL empire imploded in scandal in the 1980s. Afterward, Tammy Faye, who divorced an imprisoned Jim Bakker and married Roe Messner, re-emerged as a television and cult personality - this time embracing gay men infected with the AIDS virus. She died of cancer last year.
Her son is following in her footsteps - fighting to end religious and political discrimination against gays and lesbians, and presenting a nonjudgmental, inclusive face to his Christian faith.
"I'm going to talk about loving your neighbor as yourself, God's amazing grace and the dangers of apathy in our lives," said Bakker.
Now 32 and living in Brooklyn, N.Y., he leads Revolution New York City, a church that meets Sunday afternoons in a bar. Services are recorded and posted on his Web site (www.revolutionnyc.com) "to create an online church for people who have given up on church."
Bakker's activism on behalf of gays and lesbians started three years ago, after he saw friends mistreated because of their sexual orientation.
He began to study the Bible and now says he's convinced that passages condemning homosexuality refer to worship of a fertility god or male prostitution but not the caring and respectful relationships established between people of the same sex.
"I don't think that two people in love is a sin," he said.
Bakker himself is not gay, but is now separated from his wife, Amanda.
The celebrity preacher has paid a price among conservative and evangelical Christians for his convictions.
Engagements to his widely sought-out church appearances were abruptly cancelled, and he stopped speaking publicly for a year.
His journey was the subject of a documentary series broadcast on the Sundance Channel called "One Punk Under God."
Bakker said the scandal that embroiled his parents taught him that he shouldn't compromise his principles - even if it cost him money or church contacts.
Jim Bakker had a sexual affair with a church secretary and was later convicted on federal charges that he sold time shares he could not provide at his S.C. theme park and resort.
Jay Bakker's Raleigh appearance is sponsored by St. John's Metropolitan Community Church, which serves gays and lesbians. It coincides with NC Pride's annual festival today at Duke University's East Campus.
from Myrtle Beach Online

Luke Macfarlane Says He Is Gay

LOS ANGELES — Next month, in the season finale of his hit television series Brothers & Sisters, Canadian actor Luke Macfarlane will dress his best and say his vows as his character, Scotty Wandell, marries his partner, Kevin Walker.
It's an episode the London, Ont.-born actor is looking forward to, on may levels: It's one of the few shows on network television to portray a gay marriage between two main characters - a feat the 28-year-old actor is quite proud of, from a professional perspective. But the episode also holds personal resonance for Macfarlane, who wants to be married himself some day, and has finally decided to go public with his own sexual orientation.
Though no secret to his family and close friends, Macfarlane has, until now, been guarded about his personal life as a gay man. Over lunch in Los Angeles, where he lives, he initially insists that he has no concerns about his public revelation - but a few seconds later he is shifting nervously in his chair, and concedes that he is "terrified."
"I don't know what will happen professionally ... that is the fear, but I guess I can't really be concerned about what will happen, because it's my truth.
"There is this desire in L.A. to wonder who you are and what's been blaring for me for the last three years is how can I be most authentic to myself - so this is the first time I am speaking about it in this way."
The episode, which started shooting yesterday and will air on May 11 on ABC and Global, is a monumental step in television culture, he says.
"From a standing outside perspective, and also as someone who is gay, I think that it's a very exciting time. How exciting that we're saying, 'This can be part of the cultural fabric, now,' because it is two series regulars, two people that you invite into your home and you see every week. It's telling of the beginning of more waves and I'm very proud of that."He does, however, note that a certain irony still exists: While a show featuring a gay marriage may be an important step toward building tolerance, it's still an attention-grabber in today's television world.
"Most importantly, in portraying gay people, the more we realize it's just like portraying anybody else and, gay marriage, it's not about two people being gay, it's about two people who love each other and who have decided to commit to each other for the exact same reasons any other couple would get married. Hopefully, the more that becomes part of the cultural awareness it won't be," he pauses and says, employing a mock, exaggerated voice of a television announcer, "a spectacular Sunday episode."
Sitting on the patio of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, wearing a grey T-shirt and red jacket, Macfarlane says he does intend to keep a certain amount of his life private. Asked if he is currently in a relationship, his answer is quick: "That is my personal life. That is where I draw the difference." He does allow though, that he would like to be married some day.
Macfarlane's road to Hollywood was relatively smooth, and mostly free of bit parts and day jobs most struggling actors undergo. Growing up with two sisters (one of which is his fraternal twin), he attended London Central Secondary School, where he was interested in maths and sciences, briefly toiling with the thought of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a doctor. He spent his summers in Cedar Springs, Ont., exploring the wilderness with friends. At Lester B. Pearson School For The Arts, Macfarlane decided to change his course.
"I was in a band when I was in high school and I was bitten by the performance bug, if anything else. I had this notion that maybe I wanted to be an actor. ... I thought it might be a neat career. I thought if I was going to try that, I should shoot for the best and I auditioned for Julliard.
"I was the only Canadian at Juilliard at the time," he says. "When you go somewhere different, you immediately have to determine yourself ... everyone made fun of me because I was like, 'I am Canadian' and it was a way to create my identity through separation, which I think a lot of Canadians do. There's a kind of integrity to being an observer of a culture. I think Canadians have that privilege innately. We are like the observers of the American culture."
Barely out of Juilliard, he was cast in off-Broadway plays, the Robert Altman miniseries Tanner on Tanner, the 2004 film Kinsey and a starring role in the 2005 Steven Bochco television series Over There. It was his stint in theatre that landed him his current television role - Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz saw Macfarlane on stage in the show Where Do We Live, and asked him to play Scotty Wandell, originally a guest-starring role which grew into a regular part.
"Roles tend to pick me. That's sort of where I am in my career. I've always been very lucky, especially in TV, which is something that really interests me. ... I don't turn my nose up at it like a lot of people do. There are very few things that 13 million people tune in to witness, so television is a really relevant and powerful thing."
Though he will soon be seen in the CBC miniseries Iron Road alongside Peter O'Toole and Sam Neill, Macfarlane, has little free time to pursue other roles at the moment. "[ABC] bought and paid for me as a series regular," he says with a smile, "so I will be there for a long, long time."
from The Globe And Mail

Bromances Aren't Uncommon As Guys Delay Marriage

In a 2007 episode of NBC's hospital-based comedy "Scrubs," the show's two main characters, J.D. and Turk, break into a musical duet proclaiming their mutual affection. "Guy love. That's all it is," the song goes. "Guy love, he's mine, I'm his. There's nothing gay about it in our eyes."
Turk and J.D. are two straight male doctors who are, without a doubt, in a bromance, a relationship defined as "the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males," according to urbandictionary.com.
From "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" to "Good Will Hunting," popular culture is filled with examples of straight guy love. The sitcom "Friends" often crafted jokes around the ultratight nature of Joey and Chandler's relationship, and in the 2005 film "Wedding Crashers," Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson seemed to have something more like a tortured love affair than a friendship.
But close male friendship isn't just a quirky television fantasy or a running gag in the movies. Real-life bromances are everywhere. Kevin Collier, 26, a New Jersey construction manager, has lots of manly things in common with his best friend, including but not limited to, "tattoos, motorcycles and chicks," as Collier put it. But that hasn't stopped his friends from accusing him of having a "man crush" on his best friend Don Carlo-Clauss, 28, a semiprofessional fighter whose day job is in marketing.
They first met on the wrestling team at the University of Virginia. It was a bromance founded on shared misery. "When you spend six months out of the year being miserable together, you wind up with a lot of close relationships with your teammates," said Collier.
In No Rush To Settle Down
Experts say the prevalence of these friendships can in part be explained by the delay in major life milestones. Fifty years ago, a man could graduate from college, get a job and get married all within a couple of months. But today's men are drifting, as opposed to jumping, into the traditional notion of adulthood.
"The transition to adulthood is now taking about a decade longer than it used to," said Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at Stony Brook University in New York whose upcoming book is called "Guy Land: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men." One set of men Kimmel interviewed for the book were fraternity brothers at Dartmouth College. Following graduation, seven of them squeezed into a two-bedroom apartment in Boston.
Financial pressures help fuel bromances because they make living with a roommate a sensible option. In addition, men are getting married later — an average age of 27, according to a 2007 report by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, up from the average marrying age of 23 in 1960. Men with more education are marrying even later, in their 30s.
David Popenoe, director of the marriage project and an emeritus professor of sociology at Rutgers, cited the acceptance of premarital sex and the greater numbers of men and women who live together as reasons for the delay in marriage.
Freedom Fuels Friendship
Men in bromances agree that when singlehood abounds, male friendships flourish. "Being single as opposed to married allows us to do things like go on these random excursions," said Joe Tipograph, 27, a graduate student at Emory University who recently spent a week in Key West with his two best friends from high school.
Tipograph, David Abrams and Greg Kopstein have a triangular bromance of sorts that began when they were kids growing up as neighbors in Rockville, Md. They went to separate colleges but reunited one summer to work as camp counselors in New Hampshire.
"Greg and I would always get in trouble, but they knew if they fired either one of us, Dave would quit," said Tipograph of how the three became a package deal. Recently Tipograph wouldn't join in a football gambling pool unless he could do so with Kopstein. Their friends dubbed them "Team Brokeback," referring to the 2006 tale of cowboy romance between Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger.
Since graduating college, they've played a game of musical apartments, each having lived with the other, in one city or another, over the years.
Gay? Who Cares?
According to Peter Nardi, a sociologist at Pitzer College who specializes in male friendships, all these phrases are safer than they used to be because men are less afraid of being perceived as gay. It has become more acceptable for them to show some emotion. Al Gore and Bill Clinton hugged when they won the 1992 election and sports figures cry on camera when they're busted for steroids, Nardi pointed out.
There seems to be little worry about perceptions of homosexuality in a bromance filled with macho pursuits like drinking beer, watching sports and playing video games. But rifts can occur when serious girlfriends enter the picture or someone moves to another city. Tipograph and Kopstein both have girlfriends and make it work.
Bromancers say they keep spark alive by making an extra effort to see one another and keeping an open and honest communication. Collier and Carlo-Clauss rode Harleys from San Diego to Las Vegas together. Varellas is temporarily playing water polo professionally in Italy, while Hopkins trains just north of Los Angeles, but the two talk on the phone once a week.
Gerrity will be moving out of Mariner's apartment come fall when he heads to graduate school, and they'll be trying long distance. "We had a long talk about it," said Gerrity. "I won't see him everyday," said Mariner. "But I don't think we're going to break up our bromance."
from The Seattle Times

New Life Church And Haggard Reach New Agreement

COLORADO SPRINGS - The New Life Church has announced that former Pastor Ted Haggard has requested to end his official relationship with the New Life Church Restoration Team. The church has accepted his request.
According to those familiar with the arrangement, the agreement releases Haggard from restrictions imposed on him in November 2006 after he was removed from the New Life Church leadership. Haggard was the lead pastor and founder of New Life Church until it surfaced he had visited a gay male escort and had bought methamphetamine.
9Wants to Know first reported the story after interviewing the escort, Mike Jones, and talking with then Haggard.
Haggard and his wife and part of their family are now living in Phoenix.
The change in the status of the relationship between Haggard and leaders of the church who were in charge of his restoration process means the legal contract initially signed by both sides is no longer in place. One person familiar with the arrangement said it's less of a separation between Haggard and the church and more of a trust that both sides will abide by any further agreements.
The news release from the New Life Church was first sent to parishioners on Tuesday night and then sent to the media. New Life Church states it "recognizes the process of restoring Ted Haggard is incomplete and maintains its original stance that he should not return to vocational ministry. However, we wish him and his family only success in the future."
from Nine News

Jerusalem's Only Gay Bar Closes Its Doors

JERUSALEM - The owner of the only gay nightclub in the Israeli capital decided this week to call it quits apparently due to the establishment's failure to turn a large enough profit.
The Shushan nightclub was as much a political and ideological statement as it was a business. But owner Saar Netanel told Ha'aretz that "with all due respect to ideology, ideology does not pay the rent or municipal taxes."
Netanel insisted that Shushan had plenty of patrons, including individuals from the traditionally anti-homosexual Orthodox Jewish and Muslim Arab communities. However, downtown Jerusalem is home to a large number of thriving bars and nightclubs, so it was difficult to understand how one that was purportedly flush with clientele could not remain in business.
Netanel noted that it is difficult for one to flaunt his or her homosexuality in Jerusalem, where two-thirds of the population is comprised of the aforementioned Orthodox and Muslim communities, and many of the rest maintain a more conservative or traditional outlook than those in other parts of the country.
Earlier this year, Jerusalem's tiny gay and lesbian community forced itself upon the rest of the city by holding an outlandish "gay pride" parade through the streets of the holy city. Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders - including Evangelical Christian leaders abroad - decried what they called the desecration of Jerusalem and urged the Israeli authorities to not allow the parade.
from Israel Today

Harry Potter Stars React To Gay Twist

The stars of the Harry Potter films have been giving their reaction to JK Rowling's revelation last month that the one of her characters, Hogwarts school headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is gay.
"I thought it was hilarious," said Daniel Radcliffe, who has played the lead role in all five Harry Potter films.
He said actor Michael Gambon, who has played Dumbledore since the third film, had been "really camping it up for the last three weeks ever since he found out".
Rowling announced that Dumbledore was gay to a packed house in New York's Carnegie Hall as part of her US book tour in October.
Radcliffe told BBC News: "JK Rowling is an incredibly intelligent woman. She can't have thought for a moment that that would go down well in the Bible Belt of America, but she put it brilliantly herself: 'He's my character - I can do what I want with him.' Which I think is fair enough."
David Yates, who directed the fifth Harry Potter film - Order of the Phoenix - said he was told in September by JK Rowling during a read-through for the next film on the set of the Great Hall at Hogwarts.
"Jo leaned over to me and said: 'You know Dumbledore's gay don't you, David?' And I thought 'Wow that's pretty cool'."
Yates, who was speaking at the press launch of the Phoenix DVD, added: "He's a wonderful character, Dumbledore - graceful, wise, powerful, quirky, terrific sense of humour, loves knitting. There's a jumble of things in there and his sexuality is just another thing."
Filming on the sixth film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, began in September, with Yates again at the helm. But he said not to expect any changes to the way Dumbledore is portrayed on film.
"Michael Gambon hasn't changed his approach. A person's sexuality is just one part of who they are, and so it hasn't really shifted where we're taking him."
Producer David Barron confirmed that Dumbledore would remain "the character Michael Gambon has already established".
But he added: "Michael's camped it up a bit off-camera, he's just been amused by it."
Emma Watson, who plays Harry's friend Hermione Granger, said: "It never really occurred to me before, but now JK Rowling's said that he's gay it sort of makes sense."
She added: "I think what surprised everyone was the amount of media attention it's received. I think it's nice that the story has ended but there are still things that people don't know."
Evanna Lynch, who plays the part of eccentric student Luna Lovegood, said she had always thought that a younger Dumbledore would have made an ideal partner for Luna.
"If only Dumbledore was a 100 years younger they would be perfect, and I put that to JK Rowling," she said.
"But as we know now, that's never going to happen."
from The BBC