Angry Carl Paladino Attacks Andrew Cuomo For Doing Too Little On Gay Rights, Appeals Court Upholds Verdict For San Diego Firefighters Who Alleged Sexual Harassment After Being Order To Participate In Pride Parade, Rally For Wisconsin University Student Attacked For Wearing “Legalize Gay” Tee Shirt, Facebook And GLADD Work To Eliminate Online Hate But In The Most Perfunctory Manner, Christina Aguilera And Samantha Ronson Couple Up

Angry, odd Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino Friday attacked Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo saying – surprisingly, given the source – that Cuomo has not done enough to advance full equality for gays, saying he was “all but invisible” when the issue of gay marriage was before the state Legislature last year, according to a report from the Daily News. In an attack ad that promises to be the first of many, mimicking the children’s game Candy Land, called Cuomo Land, Paladino says of Cuomo “he was asked by those pushing for the measure (gay marriage) to call three wavering senators.” A bill legalizing same sex marriage failed to pass the Senate last December. Mr. Paladino spent most of last week either engaged a series of hostile anti-gay attacks or apologizing for said attacks.

An appellate court panel of three justices unanimously upheld a 2009 jury verdict awarding damages to four San Diego firefighters who sued the city because they were required to participate in the San Diego 2007 gay pride parade, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. A 2009 jury found the firefighters were sexually harassed by some parade participants and spectators, and awarded the four a total of $34,300 plus more than one half million dollars in legal fees. The four firefighters – Alexander Kane, Chad Allison, Jason Hewitt, and John Ghiotto – always argued that money was not the issue, and that they sued because they felt it was wrong to have been forced by the superiors to take part in the parade. In 2008, the fire department changed its policy, and say parades should be staffed by volunteers only. John Ghiotto said “I’m happy with the ruling. The amount of money the city has spent on this amazing – I’ll be it’s in the millions by now. This whole thing could have been solved in a day. They knew two or three days before that we didn’t want to be in that parade.” Joseph Infranco, co-counsel for the firefighters, said he hopes that Thursday’s ruling “will end the city’s attempts to defend its act of compelling people to participate in sexually-charged events against their moral and personal convictions,” and added that if San Diego decides to appeal the ruling, the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund is prepared to defend it “all the way to the California Supreme Court.”

An estimated one hundred students from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater rallied Friday afternoon after a female student was punched in the face late last month while wearing a tee shirt that said “Legalize Gay,” according to a report from the Janesville Gazette. Campus police say the student was walking alone when approached by two men she did not know. She says that one called her an anti-gay slur and punched her in the face, bruising the area. Police released profiles of the two suspects shortly after the alleged attack, but to no arrests have yet been made.

Facebook and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation have partnered in an effort to reduce the amount of bullying and hate speech online, according to the Associated Press. A page, set up by a Facebook used, is asking supporters to wear purple Wednesday, October 20th in memory of teenagers who have committed suicide after being bullied or harassed, purple the colour commonly associated with spirit in the rainbow flag that is the symbol of the gay community. Facebook, however, carefully pointed out, that while its policies prohibit hateful content and has systems in place to remove such posts as quickly as possible, the social media conglomerate wants its users to be able to express “unpopular opinions” and works to create a careful balance between freedom of expression and hate.

Did Christian Aguilera end her relationship with husband Jordan Bratman because she and Samantha Ronson are, um, quite close? X17.com reports that Christina and Samantha spent a vacation this summer in Cabo and that “the two have been inseparable.”