Absent Republican Support Out Lesbian Allison Lane Confirmed As Federal Judge, Out Army Veteran Brian Carroll Announces Candidacy For Colorado House Seat, Gay Military Students At Military College Come Out And Begin LGBT Allies Club, Underwear Male Model Hotness, NBC Picks Up Ryan Murphy Gay Family Comedy

Absent Republican support, the Senate has narrowly confirmed an openly gay woman to become a judge on a federal court in New York. The Associated Press reports that Alison Nathan, who has served as an adviser to President Barack Obama, is the third openly gay person confirmed to the federal bench. The Senate approved Nathan’s nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by a 48-44 vote Thursday. Republicans said they opposed Nathan’s confirmation because she indicated in a book that judges should consider foreign law in rulings. Sen. Jeff Sessions, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Nathan’s record indicates she has an “activist viewpoint.” In 2009, Nathan worked in the president’s Office of Special Counsel. Last year, she moved to the New York solicitor general’s office.

Thursday, reports Metro Weekly, in the 28th House District in Colorado, Brian Carroll announced his candidacy for the 2012 election for the seat. An Army veteran still serving in the Colorado National Guard, Carroll appears to be is one of the first out gay service members to run for office after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." According to a news release announcing his candidacy, Carroll served two tours in Afghanistan and one Iraq with Army Special Forces Information Management Division, Special Operations Command. After six years of active duty, Carroll returned to Colorado and joined the Colorado Army National Guard, 19th Special Forces Group. In the release, Carroll noted, "As far as I know I am the first out Veteran and active National Guardsman in the country to officially run for office since the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'" Under the process engaged after the enactment of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act, DADT officially ended -- the law that mandated the policy was repealed -- on September 20. After returning to Colorado, Carroll worked in the office of Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) as a veterans affairs specialist, where he assisted military and veteran constituents with cases pertaining to healthcare, housing and the Department of Veterans Affairs and became active in the repeal process of DADT. "I am proud of the work that I did fighting alongside Mark Udall and the thousands of Service Members nationwide to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' I will continue to fight for equality, serving my country and our great state of Colorado in the Army National Guard while exercising my right to run for public office," he said in the statement. "I look forward to a robust and energetic campaign where I will have the opportunity to engage the voters and constituents of House District 28 to hear their concerns and hopes for a better future. Due to redistricting, two current state representatives will be running allowing with Carroll and any other challengers for the seat: state Reps. Ken Summers (R) and Andy Kerr (D). Under the state's term-limit law, however, both Summers and Kerr could only serve one more term. Log Cabin Republicans deputy executive director Christian Berle pointed to two others who fit the bill as out gay service members running for office. The first is Steve Keblish, a county legislator in Herkimer County, New York, running for re-election. According to his Victory Fund-endorsement biography, he has served in the military since 2005, including deployment to Afghanistan, and his current role is Captain of the Military Police Battalion in Auburn, N.Y. Keblish, however, lost the Republican and Conservative primaries on Sept. 13 -- before the end of DADT -- and told the Herkimer Telegram the next day that, even though he would still be appearing on the Independence party line ballot, he had not decided about what would be happening with his campaign. The second is Patrick Forrest is running for state Senate in Virginia. His campaign biography states that he is an attorney, Coast Guard Officer and former senior official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. His biography states that he served until March 2011 as a senior official at DHS, working as lead counsel for the E-Verify program and as associate chief at the Office of Legislative Affairs at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

USA Today reports that at the inaugural meeting of Norwich University's post-"don't ask, don't tell"-era LGBTQ Allies Club, Josh Fontanez raised the blinds in the student union's fishbowl-style room. He was sending a message: we're here, we're visible, we're active and we'd welcome your company. It was a significant moment — not just for the students in the room who, under the policy barring openly gay people from serving in the military, had been forced to keep secret a huge part of their identities while preparing to serve at the nation's only private military college. After witnessing two failed attempts to get a similar group off the ground when DADT was still in place, some faculty members and administrators felt the gravity of the gesture as well. Fontanez, the Norwich senior and Corps of Cadets trainee who will commission in the Army this May, is president of the Norwich University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning and Allies Club. Fontanez laid the groundwork for the club in the spring while he was president of Norwich's student government. (As Fontanez put it, the club "may not have been the most popular thing." He wasn't re-elected as student body president, but he's now secretary of diversity and equality.) "No one wanted to step up and take the leadership role, just because of whatever type of stereotyping would come along with that, or judgment," Fontanez said. "Someone has to be the voice for a population of our student body, faculty and all members of our community who haven't had a voice for a long time." Though Norwich enrols citizens as well as future officers, as the birthplace of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, the institution primarily teaches students who are headed for the military. Consequently, attempts to start an LGBTQA group in the 1990s and 2000s had trouble getting off the ground. Since its first weekly meeting on September 20 (the day of the DADT repeal) the new group has drawn a steady twenty or so gay and straight students, staff and faculty members, and that number is slowly growing. "The repressive policy which demanded that people lie about their own sense of identity precluded honest support for everyone," said M.E. Kabay, faculty adviser of the club and a professor of information assurance and statistics. "It was not possible for them to continue in their military careers under those circumstances, so there was basically no support." At the meetings and in an online discussion board, students are talking about their experiences and working with other local groups to plan events and educate students about LGBT issues. Kabay, a vehement supporter of gay rights, has been at Norwich for 11 years and has never hidden his views: his office door is plastered with Human Rights Campaign stickers and posters. But for students in the age of DADT, things weren't so straightforward. As current and former students at military academies have said, many lead double lives. Openly showing support could lead to suspicion, and eventual discharge. Even objections to homophobic slurs might raise eyebrows. At military colleges, this has forced student LGBT groups - however formal or informal - underground, said Shane L. Windmeyer, co-founder and executive director of Campus Pride, a group that advocates for gay students and helps them and their allies create campus organizations. Students at Norwich and ROTC students at all kinds of institutions may have had to meet up secretly in the past, he said, but with the repeal, there's no reason why military colleges wouldn't create an official group. "It's not a surprise that after 'don't ask, don't tell' you're going to see a lot of military-based institutions creating LGBT organizations, much as they have done on other campuses," Windmeyer said. "These students are seeking support and visibility - possibly resources - on their campus, so one way to do that is to mobilize."

Male model Kody Courdan, who hails from Kody, North Carolina, is the new, um, body of Baskit Underwear, a good choice as Courdan fills out the line’s undergarments very well.

Deadline.com reports in what has been hailed as the biggest comedy sale this season, NBC has nabbed a single-camera project from Glee creator/executive producer Ryan Murphy and the show’s co-executive producer Allison Adler. The project, a comedy about a blended family of a gay couple and the woman who becomes a surrogate to help them start a family, will be co-written by Murphy and Adler and directed by Murphy. 20th Century Fox TV, where Murphy is based with a rich multi-year deal, is producing. The pitch created waves in the marketplace when it was taken out on Friday. It sparked a three-way bidding war among NBC, ABC and Fox, ultimately landing at NBC. The keys to that were NBC’s willingness to step up at the end of a very active buying season when networks’ war chests’ are nearly depleted, its great needs and Murphy’s close relationship with NBC’s new entertainment president Jennifer Salke, who was his day-to-day executive at 20th TV. Murphy and Adler conceived the idea for the comedy drawing on their real-life experiences having a family or looking to have one.