Each weekday, xtra.ca tells you what stories have queer people talking.
Jun 6, 2008
Defamer uncovers a double standard in reporting on gay male celebrity marriages compared to lesbian marriages.
But lesbian couples don’t get a free pass — just ask this couple that was evicted from a Seattle Mariners game kissing in the bleachers.
Rosie O’Donnell buries the hatchet with Howard Stern, then teams up to disgust the world by describing her sex fantasies about Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
And this is my last Round Up before going on indefinite hiatus while I tour my show, Balls!, to Fringe Festivals across Canada.Hope you can make it! Enjoy the summer!
(Editor’s note: Best of luck, Rob! Readers: the Daily Roundup will continue on Monday with a new face — check back for your daily dose of queer pop-culture goodness!)
Jun 5, 2008
Gay.com releases results of its masturbation survey. The “eye-opening” stats, which include the revelation that “41 percent of straight men have masturbated in a gym locker room — while only 34 percent of gay men have,” are perhaps most notable for suggesting that the straight men who fill out masturbation surveys on gay.com form a representative sample.
One step forward for gay Israelis, two steps back, as lawmakers introduce a bill that would ban Jerusalem Pride. Pride events in Jerusalem are no stranger to hostility and controversy.
More controversy over the recent gay marriages in Greece, and yet polling suggests that Greeks are not as opposed to the idea as the politicians think. Even the Orthodox Church seems unconcerned. Is this a tempest in an ouzu jug?
Jun 4, 2008
Same-sex marriage performed in Greece. Could this be the country’s big windfall?
Harper MP Tom “homosexual faggots with dirt under their fingernails that spread diseases” Lukiwski complains that he was too busy to attend Regina Pride and we should all ease up on holding him to his promise to spend the rest of his life campaigning for tolerance because he was probably drunk or something when he said it.
Halton Catholic School Board trustees vote against allowing health care workers to administer HPV vaccines for eighth-grade girls in board schools, preferring to impress to to students “that abstinence before marriage was an important feature of the Catholic faith.” Also, Jesus didn’t get an HPV vaccination, so why should you? Do you think you’re more special than Jesus?
Jun 3, 2008
Greek gay couples line up to get married after discovering a legal loophole that does not specify the genders of spouses seeking marriage. Greek officials plan to defend traditional marriage, but since the traditional Greek defense involves groups of men huddling together in leather bikinis, this may be a one-sided fight.
Rosie O’Donnell is
Almost one-quarter of Canadians don’t believe in god, a poll says, which is just more ammunition for this.
Jun 2, 2008
Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski, who you may remember pledged to spend the rest of his life apologizing for making a videotaped statement in 1991 about “homosexual faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases,” fails to respond to an invite to Regina Pride. Let’s not jump to conclusions, though. Lukiwski hasn’t been available for comment all weekend, so maybe the rest of his life was shorter than we’d thought.
Meanwhile, Latvia’s President uses Riga Pride to make an open call for tolerance and understanding for that country’s queer community. If anyone in the current Canadian government was wondering what they should have done at Regina pride, that was a pretty classy example.
Meanwhile a gay group is allowed to participate in a non-gay Idaho parade, but only on the condition they never identify themselves as a gay group. Baby steps, baby steps.
May 30, 2008
Stephen Colbert tackles Family Research Council president Tony Perkins over gay marriage in California.
Hilary Clinton is clearly gunning for the gay vote ahead of the Puerto Rico primary, as she lists Madonna, Elton John, and Barbara Streisand among her celebrity supporters.
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth set to become an opera. Canadians who can’t wait for the 2011 opening in Milan can check out An Inconvenient Musical this June in Toronto — when it premiered last summer, it starred Queer As Folk’s Fabrizio Filippo.
May 29, 2008
Washed-up Irish boyband Boyzone reunites for a tour naked (possibly Not Safe For Work). Apparently, some of the former boys have spent the years since 1999 sleeping in a very greasy ditch. They can wax their chests but can’t do anything about that awful facial hair? Boyzone had a gay exposé before ‘Nsync. Can you remember which one it was? No? It was www.stephengately.co.uk (Malware)this one (Not Safe For People who don’t like awful fonts and aggressively obnoxious audio greetings).
A new gay Republican sex scandal? Um, apparently not.
A Texas high school teacher backpedals after okaying a yearbook spread including several gay student couples. Since I know of only two things that come from Texas, I assume that the spread was meant to include pictures and interviews with local cattle.
May 28, 2008
Politicians of all stripes line up to watch Young People Fucking. The movie. *ahem*. And while several Conservatives were on the guest list, a Tory staffer was fired yesterday for ordering tickets for her boss, Conservative MP Gary Goodyear.
Pride season is in full swing when the biggest gay festival in the world coincides with one of the smallest. And good news: police in Bucharest, Romania apparently maintained order.
Bad news: The police in North Carolina are apparently less gay-friendly than their brothers in Romania, and also unaware of US constitutional rights.
May 27, 2008
Regina gay groups feign surprise that Tory MP Tom Lukiwski still hasn’t reached out to the city’s gay community as promised in the wake of his “homosexual faggots with dirt under their fingernails who transmit diseases” video release.
Canada.com reports that gay couples are just as committed as straight couples, which may be cold comfort, since the same site also reports that almost a third of gay men get straight married before they come out.
Serbian gays who’d been hoping their country’s hosting the Eurovision Song Contest this year will get the ball rolling on gay rights in that country must have been thrilled by the winner, Russian hottie Dima Bilan. But by far the gayest entry was Azerbaijan’s Elnur and Samir’s “Day After Day” — Latvia’s “Pirates of the Sea” came close, but obviously lost points for its female pirate.
May 26, 2008
Russia ends its ban on gay blood donations, meaning Canada is now playing catch-up to Russia on the right to gay vampirism.
Man claims to have had sex with more than 1,000 cars, but is totally not gay because all the cars were female. Also, totally not a car-rapist because while their engines said “no,” their exhaust pipes said “yes, yes.”
The story that just won’t go away because we won’t let it: Minneapolis baseball team gives away Larry Craig “Bobblefoots.”
May 23, 2008
The man who gets rich selling you subversive, anti-establishment crap like this is also a big supporter of the likes of Bush (scroll down) and Santorum.
Our prime minister lowers everyone’s collective IQ with a bafflingly racist attack ad against Michael Ignatieff, featuring a quite obviously out-of-context quote.
The beginning of the end of the US Army’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy? Court orders military to demonstrate that troop morale would suffer if gays served openly before they can fire gay personnel.
May 22, 2008
XBox Live bans players from using the word “gay” in their screen names, even when it is the player’s actual name, which is bad news for my childhood best friend, Gaylord Cockchafer.
Perhaps the most adorable advancement of gay rights in “New Europe:” Maltese court rules that calling a gay person “gay” is not defamatory. Wow. It’s quite a step when a country learns that acknowledgement isn’t necessarily insulting.
Jamaica’s prime minister rebuffs international pressure to protect gay rights in his country, stressing that he would never appoint a gay to his cabinet. So, um, yeah, I guess acknowledgement is a step up for some governments.
May 21, 2008
Russia’s opposition party attacked by flying penis! No word yet on whether or not the penis was radioactive.
The McGreevey divorce just keeps getting uglier. Dina Matos-McGreevey is now arguing that her ex should have tried harder to cash in on his fame in the wake of the scandal that led to their divorce, so she could claim more money from him.
Sad news from India: an alleged lesbian couple commits suicide after facing social pressures to split up.
May 20, 2008
Human Rights Watch names three governments/leaders to their homophobia Hall of Shame: Poland, Uganda, and UK’s Home Office. Undeterred, Italy, Uganda, and The Gambia have pledged to make the list next year and have already taken steps to let the world know that hatred lives in those countries too.
On the plus side, Cuba gets more progressive by the day, as president Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela hosts a huge gay rights rally, while the national television station broadcasts Brokeback Mountain.
And gay Serbs hope that their country’s hosting of the annual Eurovision Song Contest this year, with its expected droves of gay tourists, will get the ball rolling on gay rights in that country.
May 16, 2008
Playboy plans to launch gay softcore video on demand. For the discriminating gay, who doesn’t want their pornography tainted with images of “actual anal penetration, licking or anal sexual play of any kind,” or any cumshots. Presumably, all the semen that doesn’t appear in Playboy’s gay vids is recycled into residue for CSI.
But if the idea of cum-free gay porn doesn’t turn your crank, maybe it’ll work for the hordes of women, straight and gay, who love, love, love gay porn.
A California teacher accidentally shares his gay porn with his high school class. Well, at least half the class might’ve appreciated it.
May 15, 2008
The Vatican says believing in aliens is not inconsistent with being a good Catholic. Does that mean that this is okay?
Speaking of naughty Catholics, what the hell happened to Colin Farrell? They do say beauty fades…
A gay student at Ohio University is preemptively booted by his prospective roommates because he’s gay. Perhaps this can serve as an example to a certain former administrator of another Ohio university, of the consequences of spreading homophobia.
May 14, 2008
Posh Spice says only gay men like her. Don’t get your hopes up. The love clearly died in that marriage years ago.
A new book chronicles one man’s attempt to become America’s most openly gay man, while another new book chronicles some of America’s most closeted.
Some members of the Cayman Islands government are not happy about the apology that the Islands’ tourism minister issued to a gay tourist who was detained for kissing his male partner in public. Meanwhile, other tourism officials are recommending gays be discrete while on vacation in the Caymans. Clearly there’s some mixed messaging here…
May 13, 2008
SeanCody.com (NSFW) appears to be only recruiting white models for its latest round of production. Shouldn’t we hold porn to a higher standard than that?
The University of Toledo administrator who I’d previously mentioned was suspended for publishing an editorial in the Toledo Free Press that was derogatory to gays
Sex and the City’s Miranda says she’d like to marry her lesbian partner because it would be “rebellious.” This being a Sex and the City related story, I’m also required to tell you that it’s fabulous, empowering, and not at all a fluffy piece of trash that revels in the vapidity of main characters.
May 12, 2008
Moldova’s first Pride Parade barely gets out of the gate before violent counter-demonstrators put a stop to the celebrations. Moldovan police stand by and watch as it happens. The twink geography game I mentioned last week remains playable.
But as one former communist autocracy clamps down on homosexuality, Cuba lightens up. The president’s daughter, Mariela Castro is organizing the island’s second anti-homophobia week with approval of the government.
Crazy Republican candidate for nomination to the Idaho legislature wants gay students to have their own private bathrooms and showers in Idaho schools.
May 9, 2008
Abercrombie and Fitch returns to the catalogue marketing/softcore gay porn biz, with a racy new catalogue retailing for $200.
Madonna returns to the performance biz, with stops in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The best tickets for the Toronto gig retail for $365.
A California lawyer alleges that his client’s murder of gay kid Lawrence King is partly the fault of the junior high school they both attended. The school was too lenient on Lawrence when he started experimenting with makeup, apparently. Utter lack of morals or shame: priceless.
May 8, 2008
A Christian group that’s almost entirely funded by the Ontario government vows to appeal a human rights tribunal ruling ordering it to compensate an employee fired for being gay. Apparently, it’s very Christian to use taxpayer dollars to discriminate and challenge human rights laws.
Windsor proposes an anti-vomiting bylaw to deal with rowdy late-night partiers. Ridiculous. How can they make an entire city illegal?
Moldova announces its first Pride Parade. Yes, it’s a real country. Here’s a fun game for parties. Pick a country that recently made headlines for expanding or contracting gay rights. Challenge two twinks to find it on a globe. Last one to give up wins.
May 7, 2008
A reader writes in to scold me for not sharing this video (NSFW) of an Austrian rugby team stripping and chanting in a Lithuania public square. And how could I have missed it? It’s the first thing Google comes up with when you search “low-res Teutonic penises,” which I search for twice daily as a rule.
Gay tourist arrested in the Cayman Islands for kissing his boyfriend in a bar gets an official apology from the country’s director of tourism, less than 48 hours after the incident took place. Perhaps our own cabinet ministers could take a lesson in prompt apologies.
Auditor General urges a $10-million $10-million extreme makeover of the prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex Drive, but Harper refuses. Geez, Mr. Harper, we know you aren’t fond of homos, but interior designers don’t bite.
May 6, 2008
A Massachusetts gay couple attract police attention in the Cayman Islands when they kiss in a dance bar. Homosexuality is legal in the UK Caribbean territory, but gays have no entrenched legal rights there.
Speaking of no positive gay rights: Israeli judge rules that gays can harass their ex-boyfriends with impunity. Apparently, restraining orders can only be issued by family courts against opposite-sex partners.
In other news, Canada’s most annoying beer mascot pleads guilty to possessing child porn. The National Post suggests readers take up another sort of porn hobby.
May 5, 2008
Finally, the beginnings of a new Republican gay sex scandal. It’s like Christmas all over again.
Is the first Mr. Gay UK a cannibal? In light of this discovery, perhaps sex ed guides should now include a section on how to clarify to your partner what you mean by “eat my ass.”
Anderson Cooper delivers a hard-hitting investigative report into the bear lifestyle.
May 2, 2008
A Tennessee principal comes under fire for publicizing the names of students who are dating, including gay students. In one case, a gay student was outed to his own mother.
Actor Alan Cumming blasts the media for making it difficult for actors to come out. He says the press hypes coming-out stories, thus making it seem that being gay should be considered controversial.
A queer group at MIT-Sloan receives threatening e-mails, but the school decides not to punish the offending student. Homophobia still exists, even in the most progressive US State.
May 1, 2008
The Globe and Mail helpfully reminds heterosexuals to stop having sex with 14 and 15 year olds, while finally getting around to noting that for gay teens, the ban on intercourse runs to age 18.
Reichen Lehmkuhl, still best known for being the guy Lance Bass was dating when he came out, breaks up with his latest boyfriend, posts angry list of Hollywood Dating Tips on his MySpace page, to help people avoid the social climbers. Surprisingly, “irony” isn’t listen as one of Lehmkuhl’s interests.
Greek women from the island of Lesbos try to reclaim the word “lesbian” from Greek homosexual women. Maybe “gayelle” will finally take off.
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