Quite awhile ago I told you about India's first film about drag queens - The Pink Mirror (Gulabi Aaina). Sridhar Rangayan�s debut film even won the best feature award at the Fire Island film festival. Well, the Bollywood comedy is finally available for purchase on DVD. While I don't ordinarily plug such sales, I've had particular interest in this film and supporting it supports queer cinema in India while providing funds for more future endeavors. Watch the trailer here.

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Our favorite drag queen porn director Chi Chi LaRue has stopped directing straight productions for Vivid because they've changed their condom-only policy. "As a person who has been very vocal about condom usage in every aspect of the gay business as well as the straight, and as a person who went to work for Vivid because of their mandatory condom policy, I had to stop directing for them once it became condom-optional." Larue said, adding, "It's my policy to use condoms and it would be very hypocritical of me after how vocal I've been in this industry in the gay and straight sides to continue to do movies and not use condoms. Vivid's Howard Levine said, "My hat is off to Chi Chi for his commitment to his beliefs and I wish him the best, but I do wish he would return the dress he borrowed from me for the AVN Awards." (Thanks Dan-x)

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· Russia: Talgat Tadjuddin, pictured, Russia's senior Muslim cleric, called on Muslims and Orthodox Christians to "thrash" homosexuals yesterday if the gay pride parade that is scheduled to take place in Moscow this May takes place. "This should in no case be allowed, but if they still take it to the streets, then one will have nothing to do but thrash them," he said.

· Botswana: The Voice newspaper earlier this month published an advertorial on gay life, breaking a long standing journalistic taboo against positive representations of gays and lesbians in the country. The advertorial was sponsored by LEGABIBO (Lesbians,Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana).

· United Arab Emirates: An United Arab Emirates court sentenced each of 26 men to five years in prison for participating in a gay wedding. They were "busted in a hotel 'dressed in women's clothes and make-up in preparation," the Emirates Today newspaper reported." The November arrests took place when police raided the hotel. You may recall that a cop who took photos was arrested.

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Fresh from his big stint in the Big Brother Celebrity UK house, Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns has announced that he's tying the knot with his partner Michael Simpson. For those who watched Big Brother, Burns always had a photo of Simpson attached to his person throughout the series. The couple showed off their identical diamante skull rings - designed by Vivienne Westwood - live on Richard and Judy's show (pictured). Regarding the rings Burns explained, "It symbolises that underneath all this there is bone and underneath that is soul." On the show Burns also told the world, "I lost him a lifetime ago and I've been looking for him ever since. He's a physical part of me." It's enough to make a person misty.

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· Massachusetts: The state's highest court announced that their decision regarding out-of-state same-sex couples being allowed to marry there has been delayed and it would be weeks, possibly months before a decision. The court will not be meeting its 130-day self-imposed deadline for ruling on a challenge to the 1913 law that prevents clerks from issuing marriage licenses to people from states where that marriage would be illegal. You probably recall, but in case you don't, the nearly hundred-year-old law, previously ignored for decades, was written when most states did not recognize interracial marriage. After the US Supreme Court ruled that laws barring interracial couples from marrying was illegal the Massachusetts statute fell into disuse.

· Iowa: Governor Tom Vilsack says he supports allowing civil unions in the state, noting that the Legislature would never pass civil unions.

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Willie Nelson has released a new song about the kind of love that happens between two men on the wide open range. The Texas country music icon says of "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other" that "the song's been in the closet for 20 years. The timing's right for it to come out. I'm just opening the door." Nelson recorded a song for the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack, a melancholy ballad entitled "He Was a Friend of Mine."

Two years ago, David Anderson, Nelson's friend and tour manager of three decades, told his boss that he's gay. Last year when Nelson recorded a batch of previously unreleased songs for iTunes, he discovered the song in a stack of demos he had tossed into a drawer. It was written in 1981 by Lubbock-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette and Anderson says it's Willie's way of letting him know everything is ok. Lyrics such as "I believe to my soul that inside every man there's the feminine" and "What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?" are delivered deadpan, giving the song an air of seriousness. If you have iTunes, download the song here for only 99 cents. I have to say it's truly a classic. Nelson's song, according to the Dallas News (Thanks Dan-x), is the first gay-themed release by a major country music artist, but haven't there been others by women?

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· California: And the debate over whether San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's actions helped or hurt the cause, a debate I personally find to be a ridiculous in that it's expertly designed to distract from the real issue. While busy defending whether he did the right thing, one is typically not debating the real issue at all. Making the Valentine's Day activism in Napa, rural Nevada County, Humboldt and Placer Counties, San Diego and all over the state all the more vital (all five links have photos). I particularly applaud Terry McClaren who stood for hours silently on the steps of San Mateo County's Government Center yesterday wearing her wedding dress.

· UK: A new Journal of Epidemiology and Community Heath report in the UK has revealed that same-sex marriage and civil partnerships are good for our health. The report says they reduce the prejudice and social exclusion that same-sex couples feel and should help to cut the high rates of depression and drug-taking, promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases - a suspect list in my book, yet very similar ones are used by the wingnuts as cause to deny such partnerships. Interesting, eh?

· New Jersey: New Jersey could become the second state in the US to legalize gay marriage in a case presented to the State Supreme Court today. "New Jersey is a unique state nationally when it comes to this issue," said Lambda Legal lawyer David Buckel. "That became very clear with a governor's race in which candidates on both sides opposed an amendment to the state constitution that would limit marriage to a man and a woman." I have to say I'm eagerly anticipating the verdict.

Continue reading "Freedom To Marry: Same-sex couples stand for marriage rights" »

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I know you're excited to find out Milla Jovovich has spent time thinking about who her secret lesbian dream love is, and luckily for all of us it turns out that it's someone who ranks pretty high in the girl-most-likely-to department. That's right, the bisexual Courtney Love. I'm not sure, but I think Love has stalked people for less so stay tuned! Jovovich is currently in Berlin where she and Richard Gere hosted the Cinema for Peace Gala black tie bash - held in conjunction with the Berlin International Film Festival - a major fundraiser there in the fight against AIDS. And for those who are Resident Evil fans, Milla just signed on to kick even more ass in the third film in the series retitled "Resident Evil: Extinction".

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· Ontario The University of Western Ontario's new Pride Library computers have a unique search engine that accommodates "queer lingo" - just one of the features of Canada's first library devoted to the academic study of "diversexuality." It opens today.

· Connecticut/Massachusetts: While we're still wondering if 25 percent of Yale students are gay (seems unlikely?), Harvard's Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) kicks off its second-annual “Bisexuality Weeks” program addressing the marginalization of bisexuals within the larger queer community.

· California: While California State University, East Bay, kicks off its first weeklong Queerfest today, University of California Riverside's Graduate Student Research Conference is digging deeper into sexuality. Conference highlights include Whitman’s obsession with masturbation, Queer Asian perspectives in contemporary literature, masculinity in film noire and sexual deviance in society. Sounds like my kind of crowd.

· Hawaii: And sadly the high school years are still a nightmare/endurance test for teens like "Shane", a transgendered sophomore who says, "Being queer in high school here is really hard. It makes you scared, like you can't even walk down the hall without being thrown against a locker."

· Vermont: Photos from Lyndon State's Gay Straight Alliance.

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Andrew Morton is writing a biography on Tom Cruise and everything was going rather well until Cruise found out that Morton gay porn actor Paul Baressi to shine some light on his private life. Apparently Baressi is mostly a private investigator and Morton wanted him to do some digging on all the gay rumors. It's being reported that Baressi has "already given Morton letters from Cruise's attorney insinuating the star enjoyed a homosexual liaison while shooting Eyes Wide Shut in the UK." All of this prompted Cruise's lawsuit happy lawyer, Bert Fields, to write Morton saying, "he obviously was entitled to write the book but make sure you check your facts. If he tries to use my letter to create the impression that Mr. Cruise did have a gay affair, we will certainly sue... because the story is false. Mr. Cruise is not gay." Right. And Katie Holmes isn't his beard, alright?

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