The old joke amongst Jewish people was asking after any event, "Is this good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?"  So it is with us:

WIN

A park near Amsterdam is now labelling the gay cruising area so everyone knows where to go/avoid -- how fair!

LOSE

"Gay left-wing" journalist Johann Hari hands red meat to the right-wing by saying that gays make natural fascists. Oh, thanks a lot, Johann. 

What he left out, of course, is that gay men aren't attracted to fascism, per se, but power.  "Straight-acting" vs. nelly boys; black leather vs. khaki pants; Madonna vs. Jewel -- gay men who traditionally have had little power in society will generally prefer the strong, the vital, the tough but that doesn't make us automatically goosestep.

WIN

"Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane joined Bill Maher's TV panel this past weekend to talk atheism, cheer on gay rights and deliver a killer joke:

LOSE

The town of Liverpool, home of the Beatles, is finally displaying a rainbow flag over city hall.  How is that a "lose"?  It took a gay man being beaten to death to do it.

LOSE

A major publisher of gay porn magazines is calling it quits after over 30 years of glossy page wonderment.  Oh 'Mandate,' I think I'll miss you most of all!

DRAW

"Video storyteller" Matthew Brown created this ugly/beautiful collage of gay boys, homophobes and the America they're fighting over.  Still not sure what to make of it -- how about you?

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!

Line of the week so far?  Jon Stewart on right-wing homophobes:  "This isn’t a cultural divide: They’re wrong."

And in a perfect segue, the "Traditional Values Coalition" is screaming mad over attempts to end the US ban on gay people serving in the military (Really?  I thought bigger armies was a traditional American value).  In typical wingnut style, they go completely foaming at the mouth:

In addition to the coming persecution of straight soldiers, what about the unrestrained drug and sex antics committed by young male homosexuals? Homosexual sex is consistently related to drug use, including crystal meth and other sexually-stimulating drugs. What sort of chaos will be caused in the military by bare-backing parties and other forms of homosexual orgies?

Sigh -- if only! But before you start thinking that TVC head Lou Sheldon and his merry band of mouth-breathers are completely insane, it's only fair to point out that they were watching what they thought was a documentary: 

Years ago, the US ratings board created an 'NC-17' rating to help protect saucy art films from being labelled as porn. Sadly, it didn't work -- NC-17 movies are shunned in many states anyway.  Such is the fate that awaits "Bruno," Sacha Baron Cohen's first film since "Borat" -- apparently, there's too much anal sex in it. We'll see for ourselves in July!

Next month's "Wolverine" film starring Hugh Jackman is sadly not rated NC-17 -- dashing any hopes I might have had after seeing this new shot of Ryan Reynolds as the insane mercenary Deadpool:

And hey, while we're passing out the eye-candy, haaaaaaave you met model Stefan Podany?



And finally, Toronto's own James Collins and "Shortbus" singer Jay Brannan both asked very nicely that we all post their new videos on our blogs and who could say no to such lovelies?

Most peculiar, mama:

-- streaking is back!  Who knew?

-- I think I'll subscribe to the Saginaw News:  all the info you need on vacuum-cleaner-fucking, then you scroll down to the high-school wrestling photos!

-- the "Human Candles" of Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz.  Pretty.  Creepy.

-- if you happen to be visiting Maine, stop by the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, where Elvis Thompson wears nothing but black shorts and black boots while pouring your black coffee.

-- speaking of Elvis, Welsh superstar Tom Jones thinks Elvis Presley was checking him out in the shower.  Now I'll have basso profondo nightmares for days!

-- another uncomfortable musical couple, Rihanna and Chris "Fists of Fury" Brown are getting back together.  Wow, that's depressing -- apparently, a diamond says "I love you" but a contusion is forever.

-- the mighty Max Blumenthal went to the big US right-winger convention and met a Republican rapper:

Everyone was talking about Barack Obama's first trip to Ottawa yesterday but his trip was a total failure, says New York City porn czar Michael Lucas. After Canadian border guards banned his film "Piss!" (you read it here first), Lucas penned a latter to Obama demanding he take it up with Stephen Harper. Lucas wrote:

As our economy teeters on the brink of total collapse, it would be foolish to deny access of such a high quality, proven money maker onto shelves of the Great White North’s porn stores.

Who wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall for that conversation?

But I doubt it (ahem) came up -- they probably thought like Minnesota state senator Paul Koering who, despite being gay, voted against a gay marriage bill because, he says, "the state faces bigger problems."  Uh-huh.  The incredibly manly conservative Jesus' General explores just what those are.

Gay or straight, it's indeed the failing economy that's our biggest issue but watch how the amazingly insane Georgia State Rep. Charlice Byrd wants to use the crisis to fire all the university queer theory professors! For sheer unadulterated homophobia, this is total "Heart of Darkness" stuff right here:

But not all our enemies are without -- Tyra Banks had three truly irritating homophobes on her show, except the kooky daytime TV twist here is that they're all self-loathing homosexuals.  How cheery!

There are four more segments -- follow the YouTube link if you can stomach it -- but I'd rather direct you to a more provocative take on the same subject: the sexy "Shortbus" actor/singer Jay Brannan would be far less quick to judge these guys -- he says he's "sick of talking about it":

I don't want my album or the films I'm in to be in the "gay section" of a music or video store. I think having a gay section at the video store is the same as asking black people to drink from a different water fountain, or to sit at the back of the bus..."gay" shouldn't BE a genre.

Careful, Jay -- you're going to put me out of work!  I disagree with him insofar that comments like his tend to mutate into a different kind of closet or worse, attitudes like those Tyra guys, but he is correct in reading how the lines between straight and gay culture are getting ever blurrier.

For instance, take the British "twee-pop" duo The Boy Least Likely To -- their adorable whimsy makes them fabulously fey. Are they gay?  Are they straight?  Who cares, as long as they keep subverting macho indie-rock clichés?  In a homophobic world, they're letting us know that "Every Goliath Has Its David":