It seems everyone's had a shot at Perez Hilton this past day, following his scuffle with The Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, his Twittering for help and his subsequent hissy fit on his website.  If a straight man punches a gay man for calling him a "faggot," is it a hate crime?

None of this should matter much to anyone else -- much less make national news -- but Hilton is one of the most famous gay men in North America.  He's very visible -- even more so when, well, black-eyed.  Like it or not, when he speaks, people pay attention -- even the ones with cum dribbling out of their mouths.

And visibility is what's it about. I'll take insufferable Perez any day over the people who wish he'd be silent, people like US politician John Eichelberger, who says gay people don't need equal rights because those in charge "allow them to exist."  Here's the gory details:

Oooh, oooh, a summer election!  Are you as excited as....nobody?

In the US, Barack Obama will be quite showy today in introducing a new bill that grants -- wait for it -- equal benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees (big deal -- we did that in Canada a decade ago!).

Activists are hardly impressed, since they're still holding a grudge over the Obama administration's comparison of gay marriage to incest (they're so sensitive!) and the lack of action on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." What's especially sad about Obama's cowardice on these issues is that the rest of the country seems to be way ahead of him.

Obama could use a distraction right about now and hooray, hope and change have arrived in the ever-reliable form of the Republican Sex Scandal!  Oh, how we've missed you!  Yes, Nevada's Republican Senator and "defender of traditional marriage" John Ensign seems to have had trouble defending his own.  Watch the delightful Rachel Maddow tear into him:

Most days here at the Roundup, I point out surprises either delightful or exasperating.  But looking at today's news, I didn't even bat an eyelash:

-- Sam Wurzelbacher, the pseudonymous Republican icon "Joe the Plumber," is a homophobe! Who could've seen that coming?  Joe says he has gay friends (where do the bigots get these people?) but "I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children." Well, of course "Joe" wouldn't -- gay men would only teach the kids that there's more to life than snaking septic pipes and who'd run the family plumbing business then?

-- in a new poll, 67% of "feistier" Canadians say, "Canada should follow its own interests even if it leads to conflict with other nations." So it's a majority but not an overwhelming majority that might seem impolite.

-- evil gossipmongers TMZ tried to trick the Lynn-Crosbie-approved Adam Lambert into coming out. Oh, those 'American Idol' contestants are so wily:

As discussed yesterday, we mourned the death of Bea Arthur because she was one of the great comedians and a classy dame!  But what is this "classy?"  Like pornography, do we only know it when we see it?  Well, here's a handy guide:

CLASSY!
Journalist Rex Wockner, who sat down (in a church!) with Miss USA pageant contestant Carrie Prejean to discuss her opposition to gay marriage.  Watch Wockner display the patience of, well, a saint as Prejean blames her blissfully unthinking bigotry on judge Perez Hilton's "hidden agenda."  Umm...have you seen that guy?  There's nothing hidden about him!

NOT CLASSY!
Francis Begbie, the violent thug in "Trainspotting," who actor Robert Carlyle now says he played as a repressed homosexual.  Great -- a movie that features Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller and the gay character is Begbie?  There really is no justice!

CLASSY! 
Neil Patrick Harris, the hilarious and hot host (literally!) of last Sunday's TV Land Awards.  Let him host the Oscars already!

NOT CLASSY! 
The vaguely creepy but hilarious website Heavypetting, which features amateur porn photos (made colourfully PG-13) that accidentally include the family pet.  Inappropriate!

CLASSY! 
The students and teachers at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, who staged a counter-protest against the odious Fred Phelps clan (or is it 'klan?').  Phelps was protesting the school being named after a homosexual. Wow -- Whitman died in 1892. We knew Phelps' people hated the 21st century but we had no idea they still think it's the 19th!

CLASSY/NOT CLASSY/I'M NOT SURE 
Larry Kramer, gay visionary and self-described "famous big deal loudmouth activist" uses an award acceptance speech to deliver a long-deserved "fuck you" to Yale University.

NOT CLASSY! 
Fans of the online 'Star Wars' roleplaying game discovered that the words "homosexual," "lesbian" and "gay" are blocked from any kind of use.  Players argued about this in the game's forum until "community manager" Sean Dahlberg bluntly wrote:

"As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars. Thread closed." 

Ouch! But no gays in 'Star Wars?'  I've got three letters, one number saying otherwise (figure it out, nerds!) and the lads at 'Robot Chicken' revealed what bounty hunter Boba Fett gets up to when he's alone:

CLASSY! 
The people of Iceland, who elected Johanna Sigurdardottir as the country's first female prime minister and the world first openly gay leader!  Of course, since the country's bankrupt, they may not have been doing her a service but it's still a great thing to see.

But a final NOT CLASSY! for the hideous Tiffany Wellsley, who -- despite her born-to-drag name -- penned the disgusting editorial:

SWINE FLU: GOD’S LATEST PUNISHMENT OF IDOL-WORSHIP

I deliberately left the font big from the 'Republican Faith Chat' website because of its awe-inspiring evil!  You see, when natural disasters strike, gay people don't blame conservative Christians.  We don't say tornados are God's punishment for the priests who raped all those children.  We don't say that people get sick because God disagrees with their pious, cruel and judgmental lifestyle.  We don't say any of that.  It wouldn't be classy!

Need a vacation?  Of course you do, but where?  Let's see our options...

I'd suggest London but oh no, they're going to film the "Sex and the City" sequel there and the movie sounds dreadful!

How about Paris?  Olympic athlete Romain Mesnil has been running around nude all week:

But avoid Rome, or at least the Vatican -- while the new revelation that they knew about child abuse scandals dating back to the 1950s is no surprise, what is weird is that a church investigator wanted to buy an island where they could send the pedophile priests!  Sounds like the creepiest "Lost" episode yet!

Forget Europe -- maybe a cruise ship would be fun!  You could join John Mayer's voyage and watch him admit to making out with Perez Hilton:

Ugh.  Maybe not.  And while we debate which destination would suck more -- Jamaica or Iran -- note that Afghanistan's new Shia Family Law allows men to legally rape their wives.  Yes tourists, welcome to sunny Kabul, where they'll treat you like family!

But before you cancel your passport application, remember it's not the country, it's the religion -- rarely a friend to gay people or straight women, it seems. 

Here's a game you can play at home or travelling -- see how many minutes you can endure of these wiseguy college kids reading actual transcripts from Christian fundamentalist website forums!  I only made to 1:12, myself...