If you've never heard of Tomodachi Collection: New Life . . . well, don't worry, you're not alone.

The Sims-inspired game for the Nintendo 3DS has been earning a low-key reputation here in North America because it allows players to marry someone of the same-sex. Granted, this feature was actually a bug -- gay marriages were strictly man-on-man and could even progress to the point where one of the men could get pregnant -- but in a newly released patch, developers are putting a kibosh on gay marriage.

Sadly, it appears that the fun is over. Nintendo released a patch today which it said would correct a handful of technical issues including, according to Kotaku's translation, "human relations that become strange." That is perhaps not the most precise description of same-sex marriage ever and there's been no confirmation yet that it has actually been eliminated, but it seems clear enough that this isn't a torch Nintendo is interested in carrying. [SOURCE]

There is, however, some good news and bad news here: the good news is that since this is only a patch, players don't actually have to download it. The bad news is that refusing to download the patch could leave the game with glitches that make it unplayable. In the meantime, if you really want a game that features gay relationships, maybe consider Mass Effect 3.

[Image source: nintendolife.com] 

Because she already has a TV show, a couple of books, numerous albums, a comic book and some movies under her belt, it's about time RuPaul got her own video game. Or at the very least, an iPhone flash game, which is . . . sort of like a game? Kinda? Well, they're close enough to actual video games that Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw will review a handful of them every year, so fuck it, it's a video game.

Anyway, here's the trailer for Dragopolis, the video game based on RuPaul's Drag Race, featuring Pandora Boxx, Manila Luzon and Yara Sofia. Until the day someone makes a Kickstarter so that we can create a full Super Smash Bros-style fighter, this will have to do.

At this point, if kids are reading anything at all that isn't on a Facebook wall or a Twitter feed, that's a blessing. Seriously, getting children to read and to get interested in books is a Sisyphean task, and if you can find a way to get kids invested in literature, more power to you.

So when the California Department of Education released a new reading list, designed to get kids reading and to prepare them for college, most people probably just said, "Oh good, kids reading!" But when conservatives found out that the list included queer-inclusive books . . . Well, guess how well that went?

"Your children are not being taught rigorous academics or critical thinking. They're being taught social engineering that will hurt them physically and emotionally," said Randy Thomasson the executive director of SaveCalifornia.com.

The new book titles are recommended, not mandatory, and the state insists they were not chosen because of their LGBT themes.

"It's not based on content at all. It's mostly based on the quality of the literature," explained Lupita Alcala with the California Department of Education. "It could be non-fiction, fiction, biographies and poetry." [SOURCE]

First off, no one is making anyone read anything they don't want to. It's recommended reading, and with 7,800 books to choose from, it's a very special kind of ridiculous to get bent out of shape over a few books.

Second, there are queer people out there, whether you want to acknowledge us or not. Refusing to teach your kids about differences doesn't mean they'll magically grow up never having to interact with them; it just leaves them woefully unprepared for the real world so that you could indulge your own bigotry. 

Let me start off by saying that DC Comics has been pretty good about including LGBT characters in its canon. It has one of the most prominent gay characters, in the form of Green Lantern Alan Scott, and its roster includes one of the first intersex superheroes. 

That being said, you can kinda understand why DC Comics is getting torn up in the press over its decision to hire on Orson Scott Card to write an original Superman comic. Sure, he's an acclaimed science-fiction writer, but the guy's also a screaming homophobe who hasn't written anything good in years, and DC is getting beat on pretty hard in the press over it.

Thankfully, openly gay sci-fi writer David Gerrold is trying to even the scale by volunteering to draft original material for DC Comics, pro bono.

"I see that you have hired a writer for Superman who has written strongly of his opposition to equal rights for LGBT people. And I see that there is an online petition protesting that move," wrote Gerrold on Facebook.

"Perhaps you could balance that decision by hiring an openly gay writer to draft a Superman story for a future issue. I hereby volunteer.

"I have been a fan of Superman since Bud Collyer played him on the radio. (Before TV was invented.) I can remember Brainiac's first appearance, and Bizarro too. And I cried when George Reeves died."

Gerrold's credits include work on the original Star Trek series, Babylon 5, Land of the Lost, The Twilight Zone and The Adventures of Superboy. He also wrote two issues of DC's Babylon 5 comic. [SOURCE] 

Seriously, what happened to that guy? He wrote Ender's Game, and then he just sort of tanked it by becoming a huge asshole. I don't think I've ever seen that much talent be overshadowed by that much douchiness since . . . well, ever.

Remember Judge Dredd? The burly, overly muscled superhero that was essentially everything about the 1980s crammed into one impossibly square-jawed violence machine? And then they tried to do a reboot movie last year and no one went to see it, because nothing could live up to The Avengers?

Well, he's going gay.

But not really.

In a new story called "The Closet," Judge Dredd will go undercover in a gay bar that fetishizes him as a gay sex icon. Turns out, some people get off on muscular, leather-clad daddies who liberally dole out punishment. And by some people, I mean me. *Sploosh*

In an interview with Comic Book Resources, writer Rob Williams -- recently spotlighted here at CA as one of the writers of 2000 AD's "Trifecta" crossover -- described the story as focusing on Taylor, a teenager in Mega City One whose father doesn't take well to his son's homosexuality:

A brutal act takes place, Taylor's father disappears and suddenly this kid is all alone in a world that seems to be firmly telling him to keep who he is hidden so no one gets hurt. Then he finds himself in a Dredd-themed underground gay club, where everyone dresses either as Dredd or as a perp, Dredd being the ultimate symbol of macho, leather-clad repression in this city. It's kind of a Village People deal turned up to 100 in a Mega-City One style. And then the real Dredd arrives. [SOURCE]

Oh, and in case you're wondering what something like this might look like:

If anyone needs me, I'll be in my bunk. Doing things. To my penis. Masturbating things. That is all.