As Xtra.ca gears up for some exciting changes in the new year, I'm temporarily sharing space in the Toronto Diary with the mighty Rob Salerno, from whom I inherited the Daily Roundup a year and a half ago.  The timing's perfect, since it's the Toronto Sun who got snippy about my wisecracking over Truro, Nova Scotia pledging to stop gay cruising in a local park:

"This latest news has predictably been met with accusations of homophobia."

Seeing my (misspelled) name in the paper was a shock -- the Toronto Sun reads Xtra? (I'm sure it's for the articles!) -- but it's the "predictably" that annoys.  Yep, those tedious gay activists -- you can set your watch to them!  But why exactly are these accusations of homophobia so predictable? Because there is indeed a double standard:

Way out west, Xtra's Gareth Kirkby once extolled the virtues of park sex while warning about police arrests. Meanwhile, Women's Health magazine urged readers to "Get It on Outside:"

"To inspire you, we've come up with prime outdoor spots for getting busy, plus advice on the best positions in each."

Sassy!  And certainly more fun than just watching it in a movie yet again.  But see, when gay men go alfresco, they're being radical perverts. Oh sure, there was that infamous straight couple who got arrested for having sex on a beach but that was in Dubai, where lesbians are arrested for kissing. Is that what you want, Truro?

The point is not to say that everyone should be having sex outside, merely that a whole lot of people -- straight, gay, what-have-you -- really seem to enjoy it and it's galling to hear that tired old "protect the family" rhetoric employed against an activity typically done after dark, off the beaten path.  If your kids are in the woods at midnight, they've got bigger problems than some some friskiness in the bushes.

But that's just me being predictable, rather like a University of Minnesota study's "startling" findings that casual sex is not emotionally damaging or San Francisco columnist Mark Morford's assertion that teenagers are as "hormonally supercharged as they've ever been."  When, if ever, will the Sun crowd stop being shocked by this stuff?

Well, maybe the same time I stop being shocked by their shock.  As we approach the holiday season, I thought it time to thank you, my ever-loyal tens of readers, for following along with me these past two years on the Roundup.  I've loved your comments and criticisms and hope you enjoyed my tenure as much as I have but I've decided to step aside from daily blogging later this month -- following, of course, a seemingly endless series of farewell appearances like Cher or Celine Dion.  Have a fantastic weekend (go see A Single Man!) and we'll be back here Monday.

It's already a bit stale news that former Winnipeg mayor and gay man Glen Murray has officially dropped out of the race for Toronto mayor so he can run to replace the other gay mayoral candidate, George Smitherman, in the provincial parliament. Smitherman officially resigns his Toronto Centre—Rosedale seat in December, and the premier has up to six months after that to call a by-election.

Murray will first be running to grab the Liberal nomination for the riding, and rumour has it that there’s already a couple of out gays in the running. Among them are: Sachin Aggarwal, who is a board member of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation, a member of the 519 Community Centre and former deputy chief of staff to federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff; and former Smitherman staffer Todd Ross, who is currently the Director of Community Development and Partnerships at Casey House (Facebook campaign page here).

[UPDATE: Ross has announced that he is dropping out of the race and will be supporting Murray's bid.]

Well, it'll certainly be an interesting nomination battle! And Xtra’s own Kaj Hasselris has the real scoop on Mr. Murray from a Winnipeger’s perspective.

Longtime Murray watchers may remember that he was courted to run for the provincial Liberals in the 2007 provincial election, but had to bow out of the race when the Toronto Star – for whom he was a regular columnist at the time – broke the story. One wonders if he’s again being offered a cushion to get him out of Smitherman's hair (so to speak) for the mayoral race, or if he's just done the simple arithmetic and realized that a carpetbagger would have a better shot winning a safe seat under a party banner than as a fly-in mayoral candidate.

City Council finally wrapped up debate on the sign bylaw and tax yesterday, putting the new law on the books. Unfortunately, one of the contentious parts of the tax -- that revenues would be directed to city beautification/arts projects -- was left out of the law. Instead, the tax will go to general revenues and be divied up during the regular budgeting process. Some councillors and activists are stating that the money will most likely end up in the arts anyway, but given council's looming $500-million shortfall, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

Meanwhile, my colleague Scott Dagostino has already reported that next year's founding G20 summit will take place in Toronto, and not in Huntsville, June 26-27, 2010. Just to clarify, while the Pride festival will be ongoing, Pride already moved the major events like the Parade and Dyke March to the following weekend specifically to avoid G20 conflicts. Quite a prescient move on their part, actually. Still up in the air is whether or not Toronto will get the millions in bribery infrastructure money that was poured into Huntsville and surrounding municipalities as part of efforts to shore up industry minister Tony Clement's vote haul prepare the region the host the most powerful leaders in the world. Still, this is the perfect opportunity to make Pride political again by using the first weekend of the festival to lobby the governments of some less-than-queer-friendly G20 members who'll be in town at the time. I'm looking at you, Saudi Arabia. Mexico. India. Indonesia. Turkey. USA... 

In December, most theatres are starting to wrap up their shows for the Christmas holidays, so there aren't many openings to talk about this week. Instead, I'm going to use today's space to talk a bit more about the proposed billboad tax, which the city will continue to debate about tomorrow. As I mentioned before, part of the money raised from the tax would go toward city beautification and arts and cultural festivals and programs. This, no doubt, includes the performing arts. Revenue from the tax could support free public concerts, dance and circus acts, and yes, even public theatre. Many of these events could be right in our community, and could include things like the Writing Outside the Margins queer literary festival, which was cancelled this year due to lack of funding.

It comes at no cost to the taxpayer and is shouldered by an industry that has routinely flouted our by-laws and defaced our neighbourhoods. It's an overall big win.

A good run-down on the history of the debate, and the billboard industry's shady tactics, can be found over at spacing.ca's Toronto blog.

Friends over at Beautifulcity.ca, which has been spearheading the billboard tax proposal have informed me that our own local councillor, Kyle Rae, opposes the tax. If you think the fee for the support of beautifying the city and promoting the arts is a good idea, let him know that we need him to vote in favour of it. Please send him an e-mail or call his office (416-392-7903) to speak your mind.

Meanwhile in theatre, Buddies in Bad Times opened Salon Automaton this week. I have no idea what it's about other than that it involves actual robots on stage. That's enough to get me excited. Planning to catch it this weekend. It's another short-run show, so if the idea of robots thrills you -- and it should -- make plans to see it soon.

Debate on the proposed billboard tax spilled over from yesterday's city council session into today's meeting, and the city is warning that it may continue into tomorrow as well.

The sign by-law proposes to harmonize the rules for billboards across the city (something that was never accomplished post-amalgamation), banning rooftop billboards and the largest billboards, and imposes a fee on all billboards in the city (fee ranges depending on the size and technology of the sign), which would be used in part to enforce the law. Because at present, it doesn't appear that anyone does.

The remainder of the fee would be used to beautify the city and support arts and culture events. Seems like a fair trade-off to me. After all, everywhere else in life, advertisements are meant to sponsor entertainment. They don't and shouldn't just appear out of nowhere as an expected part of the landscape. Much of the art/beautification money is to be targetted to the city's 13 priority (poor) neighbourhoods, which is good, but money will also be set aside for each ward. Perhaps with the additional money, the Church Street BIA could get on with plans to improve the Village streetscape and build proper gateways to the hood? Particularly with Maple Leaf Gardens reopening at Carlton St, the time seems ripe for a grand southern entrance welcoming visitors to the gaybourhood.