Arizona sheriff and republican congressional candidate Paul Babeau has resigned from his post in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign after allegations that he threatened his gay lover. The thing I find the most disturbing about this is that Babeau is a gay man and a republican. I'm just not open-minded enough to grasp that. I think that most, if not all, gay republicans are self-loathers with internalized homophobia. How can you be apart of a political party that treats people with your sexual orientation like second class citizens? 

So here's the story: Babeau, a respected police chief (and major campaigner against illegal immigrants), has been accused by his ex-lover, who goes by Jose, of threatening to have him deported if he revealed their relationship to the press. 

"What I do in my personal and private life is my personal and private life with those individuals," Babeau said in a press conference Saturday, adding that he never thought Jose was illegal. "Everything that I understand is that he's absolutely in legal status."

The Phoenix New Times was the first to report that Babeau's lawyer tried to get Jose to sign a confidentiality agreement so that he would stay silent about their affair. Jose refused, and then claims the lawyer tried to intimidate him by threatening to have him deported (because, but of course, the conservative sheriff who hates illegal immigrants, was butt-fucking one). 

As a result of all the drama, Babeau has stepped down from Romney's campaign, which appears to be the first sane thing he has ever done.

“Sheriff Babeu has stepped down from his volunteer position with the campaign so he can focus on the allegations against him. We support his decision,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said.

I'm sure they do! And I love how they made sure to say "volunteer position" because God forbid they were paying the sleazy faggot. Oh, the wonders of PR.

"I do know that for me, I performed in gay clubs at 16 to get my first single off the ground. I know musically and energetically as a performer, there was always a connection there. I just feel the gay community embraced the music and didn't have preconceived notions about the fact that I was 16. People were always hung up on that." 

Debbie Deborah Gibson is appearing on the new season of Celebrity Apprentice. 

Read this Coming Out Journal entry by Amelia, talking about her 7-year-old son. I'm still smiling. 

Considering that my son has a longstanding crush on Glee’s Blaine and regularly refers to him as “my boyfriend,” I thought there was a fair chance that he would someday say, “I’m gay.” But my kid is only 7 years old. I figured I had a few years before we crossed that threshold (if we ever did), probably when he was 14 or 15. I never thought it would happen this soon.
Six months ago “gay” wasn’t even a word in my son’s vocabulary. He has always known that some of our male friends are married to men and some of our female friends to women, and it is such a normal part of his life that he never needed a special word to describe them. When he did notice the word and asked what it meant, I told him that when boys want to marry boys and girls want to marry girls, we call that “gay.” He didn’t seem very interested and quickly went off to do something else more exciting than a vocabulary lesson with his mom.
Fast-forward a few months. I was on the phone with a relative who had just discovered that I was blogging on The Huffington Post and openly discussing my son’s crush on Blaine. I was in another room alone (I thought), explaining, “We’re not saying he’s straight, and we’re not saying he’s gay. We’re saying we love who he is,” when my son’s voice piped up behind me.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“Am what, baby?” I asked.
“Gay. I’m gay.”
My world paused for a moment, and I saw the “geez, Mom, didn’t you know that already?” look on my son’s face.
I got off the phone and leaned down to eye level with him and rubbed my nose against his. “I love you so much.”
“I know,” he said, and ran off to play with his brothers.
Since that day, any time the word “gay” has come into conversation, he has happily announced to those around him, “I’m gay!” He says this very naturally and happily, the same way he announces other things that he likes about himself. Mention that a person is tall and he’ll quickly add, “I’m tall!” If he hears the word “Legos,” barely a second passes before he says, “Legos. I love Legos.” Saying “I’m gay” is his way of telling people: this is something I like about myself.
It’s amazing, but it’s also shocking. How many people have a 7-year-old come out to them? A lot of people don’t know how to react, and I don’t blame them. Before my son, I’d never met a child who came out this young — and we don’t know anyone else who has. The mere idea of children having a sexual orientation makes people uncomfortable. It’s something we don’t think about (or just don’t like to).
But here’s the thing: straight children have nothing to announce. Straight is the assumption. No one bats an eye at a little girl with a Justin Bieber poster in her bedroom, or when little girls love playing wedding with little boys every chance they get. If our sexual orientation is simply part of who we are, why wouldn’t it be there in our elementary years?
I’ve heard from countless adults who say they knew that they were gay as young as kindergarten but lacked the language to talk about it. And in most cases, they knew it was something wrong that they should hide. Because gay people are part of my son’s everyday life, he has the vocabulary, and it has never occurred to him there is anything wrong with it.
On one occasion after an “I’m gay” announcement, I watched my husband reach out to ruffle our son’s hair. “I know, buddy,” my husband said to him. “And you’re awesome, too.” That’s how we’re handling it. We want him to know we hear him, and that he’s wonderful. It feels like the right thing to do, and that’s all we have to go by. We don’t have any other examples.
We did take a few extra steps. Within a few days we had a quick talk with him about how some people don’t like it when people are gay, explaining that those people are wrong. If he hears anyone says anything about being gay like it is something bad, he is to run and get us immediately. We had a brief conversation with his teachers: Our son is identifying as gay. We don’t think there’s anything wrong with that or with him. And this is the only acceptable opinion on the subject.All his teachers, while surprised, were on board. We learned that he hasn’t used that word at school yet, so we’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.
I don’t think it will always be easy. We don’t know what to expect. At this point we aren’t looking for trouble, but at the same time we’re preparing for it. We know we have a journey ahead of us, just like everyone does. And this is one part of the story of our son and our family.
Do I think this is the last word on his orientation? I don’t know. He’s 7. Maybe as he gets older he’ll tell me something else, but it’s just as likely that he won’t. But really, that doesn’t even matter. What matters is right now. And right now I have a young son who happily announces “I’m gay.” And I’m so proud to be his mom.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Don Quixote as performed by the Cuban National Ballet, so I thought I'd share this video of the show. It looks magnificent! It's an iconic story by an iconic company (the ballet's development was supported by Fidel Castro). The Daily Telegraph raved, "Technical fireworks with brilliant charm and ease."

Don Quixote runs at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre until Feb 18. 

Human rights activist Peter Tatchell has spoken out on his Facebook page about Whitney Houston's passing and her alleged same-sex love affair:

“Whitney Houston RIP. She was happiest and at her peak in the 1980s, when she was with her female partner [Robyn Crawford]. They were so loved up and joyful together,” Tatchell wrote. “It’s important to tell the truth about this aspect of her life. Colluding with the cover-up of her same-sex relationship is not right. I met Whitney and her partner at the Reach Out & Touch HIV rally in London in 1991, organised by Vernal Scott. Whitney spoke very movingly in support of people with HIV, at a time when many other stars kept their distance. She was pressured into the Bobby Brown marriage. It was a disaster. Her life started going downhill soon afterwards. Perhaps her inability to accept and express her same-sex love contributed to her substance abuse and decline? Whitney’s death is a tragic loss of a great vocal talent."

Celebrity deaths in the 21st century are so powerful. Imagine how many people looked up Whitney's songs or videos on YouTube as soon as they found out she had passed. Millions! Millions of people, around the same time, were listening to the same artist, celebrating the same life. It's incredible. She may be gone from this world, but Whitney lives on every time we hear that voice hit a note that's usually reserved for angels.