Toronto Threatens To Withdraw Funding For Pride If Militant Anti-Israeli Group Permitted To Participate, University Of Miami At Ohio Junior Says He Is Victim Of Hate Crime But Police Disagree, Outing A Bisexual As Straight, Obama Disappointment Translates To Disappearing Democrat Voters, Archie Comics Introduces Gay Character, Madonna Films For D&G, Chris Evans, Kellan Lutz And The Big Pink Bag

On Monday, there were reports that the City of Toronto threatened to withdraw funding to the city’s gay Pride Parade next year – 2011 - if organizers permitted the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in this summer’s parade. Mike William, the general manager of economic development and culture, contends that the use of the word apartheid and the presence of the group in the 2009 parade likely violated the Pride organization’s anti-discrimination policy. The issue is being framed by all sides as a battle between the right to free expression versus censorship based entirely on financial repercussions.

The University of Miami at Ohio Queer/Straight Alliance hosted a drag show this past Saturday to raise funds for the Operation Smile, and a fight broke out, one that left Ben Collings, a junior, who attended the event with his boyfriend, with a broken cheek bone, a broken nose, and two black eyes, Collings claiming to the victim of a hate crime, while police contend he initiated the fight. According to Collings, he was in restroom when he heard someone say “fags do not belong in society,” and a fight that quickly grew in size ensued. Police continue to investigate and a silent protest is scheduled for this Thursday beginning at 7:00 pm.

An odd story from Pennsylvania that perhaps underlines the sea change in terms of politics and being openly gay, a primary set for May 19th, setting up a battle for the House seat between Representative Babette Josephs, a Democrat from Philadelphia, and her main opponent, Gregg Kravitz that turned nasty last Thursday when Josephs accused Kravitz of pretending to be bisexual in order to court the gay vote. “I outed him as a straight person,” she said during a fundraiser, “and now he goes around telling people, quote, ‘I swing both ways.’ That’s quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy’s a gem.” Kravitz, 29 years old, says he is bisexual, and said of Joseph’s comments that “kind of taunting is going to make it more difficult for the closeted members of the LGBT community to be comfortable with themselves. It’s damaging.” Mark Segal, however, the publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News, sees an upside to the nastiness. We’ve hit a new high point when candidates are accused of pretending to be gay to win a seat,” Segal said.

Will the frustration felt by many in the gay community in the United States towards President Obama over the perception that he and his administration have been apathetic or indifferent to the cause of advancing gay equality translate into a “hibernation” of gay or gay aligned voters this November?

Archie Comics is introducing a new character – Kevin Keller – the fictional town of Riverdale set to welcome its first openly gay character on September 1st, 2010. Kevin, in the issue titled “Isn’t It Bromatic?,” will reportedly out himself to Jughead, after his good looks attracts the attention of Veronica, who does not know he is gay because he is the new kid in town. Dan Parent, an illustrator with Archie Comics for decades, says “in the last year or two, we’ve been introducing a lot of new characters: Diverse characters, characters with different ethnicities. With trying to be diverse, we wanted to have everybody at the table. We knew at some point we wanted to introduce a gay character, and when I came up with the story idea, we felt it worked in context with this story.” Parent added that the storyline is successful because it is organic to the plot, not merely a ploy to randomly introduce a token gay character. “The story is very much in the true context of our Archie stories,” Parent says, “It’s Veronica being Veronica. The fact that there’s a gay character in the story isn’t a big deal to the characters. We didn’t do something with turmoil. The guy just happens to be gay, and the characters accept it, and that’s it.”

Madonna and an impossibly innocent sexy young man film an advertisement for Dolce and Gabanna in Harlem, New York City, Wednesday.

Chris Evans, the soon to be seen as Captain America, spotted at the premiere Tuesday of Losers, in Los Angeles.



Kellan Lutz, too, was spotted Tuesday attending the Los Angeles Lakers’ home playoff game versus the Oklahoma City Thunder, alongside his not girlfriend AnnaLynn McCord.