Lt. Dan Choi, an Iraq war veteran who has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military ban on openly gay service members, has been discharged from the Army National Guard.

In a telephone call from his battalion commander on Thursday morning, Choi was notified of his honorable discharge, coming almost a year and a half after he came out on national television.

Choi

Choi issued this statement:

“This morning I received notification of my honorable discharge from the army under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” After 11 years since beginning my journey at West Point and after 17 months of serving openly as an infantry officer this is both an infuriating and painful announcement.

“But my service continues. To all those veterans who have endured similar trials and injustices or prematurely ended their military service because of the unjust policy: our fight has only begun.

“The true honor and dignity of service does not come from a piece of paper, a pension or paycheck, a rank or status; only an unflinching commitment to improve the lives of others can determine the nature of one’s service. From the first moment we put on our nation’s uniform and swore our solemn oath, we committed ourselves to fight for freedom and justice; to defend our constitution and put the needs of others before our own. This is not an oath that I intend to abandon. Doing so at such a time, or remaining silent when our family and community members are fired or punished for who they truly are would be an unequivocal moral dereliction that tarnishes the honor of the uniform and insults the meaning of America.”

Choi’s discharge order here (PDF).

Since outing himself, Choi has become a vocal opponent of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” In March, he criticized Defense Secretary Robert Gates for only relaxing enforcement of the policy rather than unilaterally ceasing enforcement.

On two occasions earlier this year, Choi was arrested for handcuffing himself to the White House fence in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” protests. He was charged with two counts of failure to obey a lawful order, but last week prosecutors dropped all charges.

Earlier this week, Choi was arrested in Las Vegas during a demonstration calling on Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic senate majority leader, to do more to pass the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Meanwhile, efforts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” continue to move through Congress and the military. The Pentagon is currently conducting a study into a possible repeal’s effects. A report on that study is expected to be presented to President Obama and military officials by December 1.

Since 1993, when “don’t ask, don’t tell” was introduced, more than 14,000 servicemen and women have been discharged because of their sexual orientation, and tens of thousands of others have voluntarily ended their military careers.

Choi announced he is gay on The Rachel Maddow Show on March 19, 2009, prompting the U.S. Army to initiate discharge proceedings. His discharge became effective on June 29, 2010.

Ted Olson said he fully intends to take the Prop 8 trial to the US Supreme Court

Ted Olson, a staunch conservative and one of the attorneys challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 (and the state’s ballot initiative process) in federal court wrote a lengthy but brilliant op-ed piece for Newsweek titled The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage:  Why same-sex marriage is an American value.

As we patiently await Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling, let’s take a few moments to remember the highlights:

• The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional.
• Conservatives should celebrate gay marriage.  Same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation.  The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance
• The 14th Amendment says “no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person the equal protection of the laws”.  What better way to make this national aspiration complete than to apply the same protection to men and women who differ from others only on the basis of their sexual orientation?
• The Supreme Court has has set precedents establishing marriage as part of the Constitution’s protections of liberty, privacy, freedom of association, and spiritual identification.  Without it, there can be no true equality under the law.In Romer v. Evans (1996) the Supreme Court struck down a popularly adopted Colorado constitutional amendment that withdrew the rights of gays and lesbians in that state to the protection of anti-discrimination laws. And seven years ago, in Lawrence v. Texas, (2002) the Supreme Court struck down, as lacking any rational basis, Texas laws prohibiting private, intimate sexual practices between persons of the same sex, overruling a contrary decision called Bowers v. Hardwick (1986).
• The Supreme Court has always considered marriage in the context of the underlying rights and liberties that marriage embodies, which are in no way confined to heterosexuals.
• Simply because something has always been done in a “traditional” way does not mean that it must always remain that way. Otherwise we would still have segregated schools and debtors’ prisons.  The fact that some states now honor same-gender unions further weakens the “tradition” argument.
• The procreation argument cannot be taken seriously.  We do not inquire whether heterosexual couples intend to bear children, or have the capacity to have children, before we allow them to marry.  Allowing gays and lesbians to marry someone of the same sex will not discourage heterosexuals from marrying a person of the opposite sex. How, then, would allowing same-sex marriages reduce the number of children that heterosexual couples conceive?
• Gay marriage does no harm to heterosexual marriage.  When [Judge Walker] asked our opponent to identify the ways in which same-sex marriage would harm heterosexual marriage, to his credit he answered honestly: he could not think of any.
• Refusal to accord marriage to gays and lesbians tells them, those who love them, and society as a whole that their relationships are less worthy, less legitimate, less permanent, and less valued. This serves no benefit to society.
• I reject religious teachings that denounce homosexuality as morally wrong, illegitimate, or unnatural.  Science has shown us that gays and lesbians do not choose to be homosexual any more than the rest of us choose to be heterosexual. To a very large extent, these characteristics are immutable, like being left-handed.
• Society has changed since Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Loving v. Virginia (1967).   I am convinced that Americans will be equally proud when we no longer discriminate against gays and lesbians and welcome them into our society.
• We disagree with the notion that we have brought this case too soon, and that neither the country nor the courts are “ready” to tackle this issue and remove this stigma.  We do not tell persons who have a legitimate claim to wait until the time is “right” and the populace is “ready” to recognize their equality and equal dignity under the law.
• Americans who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity before the law cannot sit by while this wrong continues. This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one, and it is time that we, as Americans, embraced it.

The trial has taken much longer than expected, and will be appealed in the 9th Circuit.  It will almost certainly heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Two openly gay U.S. Army National Guard soldiers who were arrested for handcuffing themselves to a White House fence have subpoenaed President Obama to defend them in court, citing they were following orders of their Commander-in-Chief’s to lobby him for gay rights.

Choi and Pietrangelo at a March 18 White House protest.
Photo credit: John Aravosis of AmericaBlog.com

Lt. Dan Choi and Cpt. James Pietrangelo II have been charged with two counts of failure to obey a lawful order after they were arrested on two separate occasions back on March 18 and April 20, 2010.

According to their attorneys:

The Defendants seek to use their trials to highlight the ongoing effects of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law and policy of the U.S. Armed Forces toward gay and lesbian service members.

They seek to compel the testimony of President Barack Obama who has, on several occasions as President and Commander in Chief (and previously as a Senator and Presidential Candidate) called on the LGBT community to “pressure” him to change the DADT law and policy, thus allowing gay service members to serve their country openly and honorably.

[Full memorandum .pdf]

The defendants claim they were following the President’s orders regarding his support for public pressure to abolish the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military ban on openly gay service members.

In an October 2009 speech at a Human Rights Campaign event, Obama called upon gay rights to put pressure on him for the advancement of LGBT rights, including the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

From the President’s speech:

If we are honest with ourselves we’ll admit that there are too many who do not yet know in their lives or feel in their hearts the urgency of this struggle….

And that’s why it’s so important that you continue to speak out, that you continue to set an example, that you continue to pressure leaders — including me — and to make the case all across America.

The two servicemen are expected to appear in D.C. Superior Court on July 14 to face charges in the non-jury trial.

While it is unlikely the President will testify at the trial, attorney Ann Wilcox plans to use the President’s remarks as part of the defense.

In a rather extensive New Yorker magazine profile, assessing his chances in the 2012 Presidential race, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee expounded upon his opposition to gay marriage with this well considered prose:

“We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.”

Earlier this year, in an interview with The Perspective, a student publication at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ, Huckabee compared gay marriage to incest and polygamy:

“You don’t go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal,” Huckabee said of same-sex marriage.

“That would be like saying, well, there are a lot of people who like to use drugs, so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, so we should accommodate them.”

Haggard

Ted Haggard, the disgraced pastor who resigned from his ministry in 2006 amid an embarrassing gay sex scandal, was back in his home town Wednesday to announce he was starting a new church in Colorado Springs.

According to the AP:

Haggard said his new venture would not be a megachurch like New Life Church, the congregation he founded in 1985 and then left in 2006 after a male prostitute said Haggard paid him for sex.

Haggard said he doesn’t know how many people will attend his new church, but he said the ordeal he and his wife, Gayle, went through has prepared them to help others.

“I have an incredible heart for broken people,” he said. “I think we’re qualified to hold people’s hands” in times of trouble.

Haggard, once an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, resigned as the head of his 14,000-member megachurch and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals in 2006 when male prostitute Mike Jones said that the pastor had been paying him for sex for the last three years and had bought methamphetamines from him.

The 53-year-old married father of five, also confessed to having had an inappropriate sexual relationship with Grant Haas, a 20-year-old male volunteer, in 2006.

Earlier this year, Haggard said he had discovered in therapy that he had been abused by a man when he was a child and that therapy has cured him of his gay “compulsions.”

Haggard said his new Saint James Church will be open to everyone, Republicans and Democrats, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike.

Jo-vanni Roman (aka Lucian)

In his first interview since the Miami New Times broke the story Tuesday, the escort, who prefers to go by the name Lucien, contradicts Rekers’s contentions that he hired the escort to help carry his luggage and that he was trying to save the soul of a lost sinner.

According to the New Times, Lucien was paid to provide Rekers body rubs once a day in the nude, during their ten-day vacation.

Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the “long stroke” — a complicated caress “across his penis, thigh… and his anus over the butt cheeks,” as the escort puts it. “Rekers liked to be rubbed down there,” he says.

In an interview with Randi Kaye on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Friday night, Lucien said Rekers paid him $75 a day plus airfare and expenses to travel with him for two weeks in April to London and Madrid.

“Lucien showed me the contract he signed with Rekers,” reported Kaye. “For $75 a day, it says he must carry the bags, provide a massage for at least 1 hour every day of the trip, in their shared room, plus spend at least 8 hours a day with him, including 2 meals.”

And here’s Rachel Maddow’s report on Rekers tonight… even more revealing (and entertaining)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Lucien (whose real name, according to various media outlets, is Jo-vanni Roman) told the New Times he decided to speak out after learning of his client’s anti-gay activities.

Rekers, a Baptist minister and a retired University of South Carolina professor, is considered one of the most prominent anti-gay activists in the U.S., and a board member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that attempts to turn gay people straight.

In his writings, Rekers has called gays a “deviant segment of society” who has weighed in on almost every piece of anti-gay legislation around the country, according to the CNN report.

And in a new development, the website Gawker.com reported Friday that a second man, a former male prostitute, has come forward with details of his sexual encounter with Rekers.

Shepherd (c. 1992)

Reports Gawker:

We haven’t been able to independently confirm the events that a former stripper, escort and adult actor named Carl Shepherd says took place in the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in 1992.

Here’s what Shepherd told us when reached by phone earlier today. Now 41, Shepherd claims that during the summer of 1992, he was living in Chicago where he’d placed an advertisement Gay Chicago Magazine’s models and escorts section boasting of his porn experience and offering his services. The ad listed a pager number for prospective clients. One evening the pager went off. It was George Rekers:

“I’m looking to spend an hour with a smooth young man for an… intimate massage. Nude. I’m kinda vanilla—I just want light touching, not sex.” He knew the lingo. It seemed like he’d done this before.”

Rekers has ignored Gawker’s requests for comment, and denied he found Lucin on the website Rentboy.com.

You can read Shepherd’s full confessional here (under his pseudonym “Chaz”).

In a statement on his website, Rekers said he “found his recent travel assistant by interviewing different people who might be able to help, and did not even find out about his travel assistant’s Internet advertisements offering prostitution activity until after the trip was in progress.”

And apparently, this is all a simple misunderstanding… in a Facebook interview ealier this week with the blog Joe.My.God, Rekers revealed the true nature of his relationships with young, gay male escorts:

Rekers

Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way “hate” homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called “Lucien” in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called “Lucien,” you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.

All while he’s being “rubbed down there.”

Rekers

A Christian leader and prominent neuro-psychiatrist who co-founded the notoriously anti-gay Family Research Council with evangelist James Dobson, took a ten-day European vacation with a callboy he met through RentBoy.com, reports Miami’s New Times.

The escort said he met George Rekers, professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina, on RentBoy.com.

According to the article, the escort (identified only as “Lucien”) arrived at Miami International Airport after a 10-day trip to Europe on April 13. Moments later, Rekers followed him off the plane.

Rekers later told the paper he only learned his companion was an escort midway through the trip. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.”

"Lucien" aka BOYNEXTDOOR (Rentboy.com image via unzipped.net)

In his interview with New Times, Lucien didn’t want to impugn his client, but he made it clear they met through Rentboy.com, which is the only website on which he advertises his services.

Rekers, a Baptist minister, is considered one of the most prominent anti-gay activists in the U.S., and a board member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that systematically attempts to turn gay people straight.

He frequently testifies for the Christian right in court cases involving gay rights. Rekers was an “expert” witness for the Christian right in a 2008 case defending Florida’s ban on gay adoption and in a 2004 case in Arkansas, also on the same issue.

By Tuesday evening, Family Research Council had removed Rekers’ name from its website.

Kagan

Leading gay rights group are accusing Republicans of trying to rile up their conservative base by launching a whisper campaign against potential Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan — suggesting the current Solicitor General is a closeted lesbian, reports the Huffington Post.

In its first entree into the upcoming Supreme Court nomination process, the Human Rights Campaign blasted the increasingly public discussion of Kagan’s sexuality, calling it a play “straight out the right-wing playbook.”

“Even though the majority of Americans couldn’t care less about a nominee’s sexual orientation, the far right will continue to be shameless with their whisper campaigns to drum up their base and raise money off of prejudice,” Michael Cole, an HRC spokesperson, said in an email statement to the Huffington Post.

On Thursday, the Obama administration charged CBS News with being out of line for publishing a blog post that suggested Kagan is a lesbian.

In a post on CBS News’ website, Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, wrote that President Obama would “please” much of his base by picking (Kagen) the “first openly gay justice.”

CBS eventually pulled the article, and posted an apology, dismissing the original reporting as being sourced in “a Harvard rumor.”

Look who showed up on the website “Guys with iPhones” on Friday, a website that caters to mostly gay (and naked) men with nothing more than an iPhone and a mirror.

Thankfully, McCain’s pic was G-rated.

Choi and Pietrangelo handcuffed to White House fence March 18, 2010.
Photo: AMERICAblog

Choi, a gay rights activist and an outspoken opponent of the military’s ban on gays, led a group of about 100 protesters in Washington D.C. Among them was former Army infantryman James Pietrangelo, who was also arrested.

According to the Advocate, Choi was speaking at the HRC rally at Freedom Plaza when he asked the group’s executive director, Joe Solmonese, if he would march to the White House.

Both Choi and Pietrangelo were discharged from the military under DADT. Choi is the founder of Knights Out, a West Point alumni organization supporting LGBT soldiers.

Watch today’s events here:

Photo credit: AMERICAblog.com

Phillips appeared in the award winning segment “Why Will Won’t Pledge Allegiance” from CNN’s American Morning.

Back in November, the 10-year-old Arkansas boy decided that he could not, in good conscience, pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its LGBT citizens.

“A message to President Obama: I know there are certain political restraints that make action difficult, however, lack of equality for some is lack of equality for all, and I think it’s time for us all to get equal.” – Will Phillips

Watch the future activist’s speech here:

Hayworth

Former Arizona congressman and U.S. Senate hopeful J.D. Hayworth is afraid allowing same-sex marriages could lead to bestiality.

In a radio interview in Florida, Hayworth, who is challenging Senator John McCain in the Arizona Republican Senate primary, said the gay marriage law in Massachusetts is so vague, it could open the door to people marrying horses.

“Now how dangerous is that?” Hayworth said. “I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse.”

Hayworth said marriage in that state is now defined simply as, quote, “the establishment of intimacy.” He recognizes he’s being absurd but says he’s trying to make the point that under the Massachusetts definition, if you really had affection for your horse, you could marry the horse.

Actually — dumbshit — the law in Massachusetts defines marriage as “the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others,” thereby excluding horses (but including a horse’s ass such as yourself).

Hayworth supports a federal ban on gay marriage.

Massa

Former U.S. congressman, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) Tuesday night refused to answer a blunt question by CNN’s Larry King: “are you gay?”

Massa is accused of groping male staffers and the House ethics committee is currently investigating the claims.

He has denied touching any member of his staff sexually but did admit to “tickling” several staffers at his 50th birthday party.

After King asked the question, Massa responded:

“Here’s my answer, I’m not going to answer that. In the year 2010? Why don’t you ask my wife, ask my friends. Ask the 10,000 sailors I served with in the Navy.”

Watch here:

The 50-year-old Democrat has been slapped with multiple allegations of inappropriately groping his male staffers.

From an interview with Glen Beck earlier this week, responding to the groping charges:

“Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday. It was kill the old guy…. This was at a townhouse. We all lived together. All the bachelors and me, because nobody could afford, in Washington, DC, to pay the outrageous rents,” said Massa.

On March 5, Massa announced that he would resign his seat on March 8, 2010, citing as reasons a recurrence of cancer, the pending investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, and pressure from the Democratic leadership to step down after opposing the health care reform bill.

Lt. Dan Choi (Photo credit: Bilerico.com)

Last year, an Army National Guard committee had recommended that Choi, an Arabic translator, be discharged under the “don’t ask” policy after he said on The Rachel Maddow Show that he is gay.

Choi told the Advocate that after he was called up this weekend, he joined his unit on active duty in Pennsylvania, confirming an earlier report by Jeff Sheng on Bilerico.com.

The move comes one week after the nation’s two top Defense officials, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, called for an end to the 17-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Choi has remained in the Guard while awaiting a final decision on his discharge.

In a comment on his Facebook page, Choi wrote, “Feels great to be back with my National Guard unit, but I’m still facing discharge.”

The Iraq veteran and West Point graduate says his commander has been very supportive and urged him to return to monthly drills.

More from the Advocate and Bilerico.

Lambert, the 27-year-old American Idol runner-up alum was named the Breakout Star, Sykes earned Entertainer of the Year, and Lauper, Ally of the Year.

Highlights from this year’s annual Out 100 edition:

Lambert on his sexulaity: “To some people, me being sexual is really offensive because I’m gay. They’re like, ‘He’s being really gay.’ And I’m like, actually, ‘No, I’m just being sexual.’ Male sexuality is frightening to America [but] female sexuality is all over the place.”

Sykes on coming out: After years of whispers and speculation, she felt she had no choice but to come out after California passed Proposition 8 in November. “It’s great being out. Everything is out on the table and I am what I am.”

Lauper on supporting the gay community: “We had the civil rights movement in the ’60s, women had to fight in the ’70s, and it’s just insane to think in 2009 there’s still a group of Americans recognized as ‘less than’ the rest of us.”

The Out 100 issue hits newsstands Tuesday, November 24. For the complete list of the 100 people recognized, visit Out.com.

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy named Will Phillips has decided that he cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its LGBT citizens.

The West Fork School District fifth grade student clashed with a substitute teacher for his refusal to stand for the pledge, prompting a call to Will’s mother, Laura Phillips. When the principal acknowledged that Will has the right to refuse to say the pledge, Ms. Phillips asked that her son receive an apology — a request that the principal declined to honor.

Laura Phillips told the Arkansas Times that her 10-year-old is “probably more aware of the meaning of the pledge than a lot of adults. He’s not just doing it rote recitation. We raised him to be aware of what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s fair.”

On Monday, Will and his father sat down with CNN. Watch the interview here:

Will’s family has a number of gay friends. In recent years, Laura Phillips said, they’ve been trying to be a straight ally to the gay community, going to the pride parades and standing up for the rights of their gay and lesbian neighbors. They’ve been especially dismayed by the effort to take away the rights of homosexuals – the right to marry, and the right to adopt.

Given that, Will immediately saw a problem with the pledge of allegiance.

“I’ve always tried to analyze things because I want to be lawyer,” Will said. “I really don’t feel that there’s currently liberty and justice for all.”

After asking his parents whether it was against the law not to stand for the pledge, Will decided to do something.

On Monday, Oct. 5, when the other kids in his class stood up to recite the pledge of allegiance, he remained sitting down. The class had a substitute teacher that week, who tried to make him stand up, but Will respectfully refused.

After several days of Will refusing to stand for the pledge, it finally came to a head. The teacher, Will said, told him that she knew his mother and grandmother, and they would want him to stand and say the pledge.

“She got a lot more angry and raised her voice and brought my mom and my grandma up,” Will said. “I was fuming and was too furious to really pay attention to what she was saying. After a few minutes, I said, ‘With all due respect, ma’am, you can go jump off a bridge.’ ”

Will Phillips still refuses to stand during the pledge of allegiance. Though many of his friends at school have told him they support his decision, those who don’t have been unkind, and often attack him personally with anti-gay epithets.

“In the lunchroom and in the hallway, they’ve been making comments and doing pranks, and calling me gay,” Will said. “It’s always the same people, walking up and calling me a gaywad.”

Even so, Will said that he can’t foresee anything in the near future that will make him stand for the pledge.

Full interview at the Arkansas Times.

According to multiple reports, Johnson — in telling reporters to get away from him — used a slur that referred to gays. He used the same slur on his Twitter feed. He has also posted demeaning remarks about Coach Todd Haley.

Hours after Kansas City’s 37-7 loss to San Diego on Sunday, Johnson tweeted several controversial remarks directed toward Haley and the coach’s lack of football experience, followed by later responses directed toward his Twitter followers which contained inflammatory remarks about gays.

In a reference to someones profile picture, Johnson called it a “fag pic” and called the person a “Christopher street boy,” a reference to a predominantly gay section in New York’s Greenwich Village. Johnson’s Twitter profile was later taken private and some posts were deleted.

On Monday in the Chiefs locker room, Johnson used another gay slur after saying he wouldn’t speak to reporters.

Johnson, sitting next to second-year running back Jamaal Charles, told reporters that “I’m not talking till Thursday,” his usual day of speaking with reporters.

“Get your faggot ass out of here,” he said.

Johnson is drawing criticism from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation (GLAAD).

GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios called on the NFL to punish Johnson for using the gay slur to disparage reporters.

Long known for his humanitarian and civil liberties work, the Canadian-born director (“Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby”) resigned from the organization in a letter to church spokesman Tommy Davis.

Blasting the highly secretive organization as “morally reprehensible,” Haggis took Davis to task for not denouncing statements by the church’s San Diego branch supporting Proposition 8, a controversial ban on gay marriage in California.

“The church’s refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word,” Haggis wrote in the August 19 letter that was later published on the blog of former Scientologist Marty Rathbun.

Voters approved Prop. 8 in November 2008, despite strong opposition from many Hollywood figures. Advocates of same-sex marriage are planning to ask voters to reconsider the ban in 2010 or 2011.

The letter, which surfaced on the blog of former Scientologist Marty Rathbun, was dated August 19.

FORT COLLINS, CO — You know you have bad parents when they fool the the entire world into thinking that their six-year-old son is stuck in a balloon floating in the Colorado air. You know you have even worse parents when those same people allow their children to record a homophobic rap video, complete with lines like “I hate gay faggots, I hit ‘em with a bat,” and (possibly) “Faggot tried to pee on me.”

It’s official. The Balloon Boy saga has taken another turn for the absolute weird.

The story revolves around the Heene family in Colorado, and parents, Richard and Mayumi, who have three children — Falcon, Bradford and Ryo. The parents duped the world into believing that Falcon was caught in a balloon last week.

From there they did the world publicity tour, complete with Falcon throwing up on the Today Show after Meredith Vieira asked a question. That was followed by a weekend of police investigations, with a local Sheriff announcing that there’s probable cause for the parents to be arrested for staging the balloon incident.

And to add even more dysfunction to this story, a homophobic rap video has taken the Twitter and YouTube worlds by storm, in which the three boys rap to the tune of bashing gays, while the mother plays guitar and the father plays harmonica.

Nothing quite warms the soul like a group of six-to-ten year olds saying how much they want to throw rocks at faggots. See the video here:

More on this story from Michael Jones at Change.org.

Joseph Rocha says he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder related to the abuse. The hazing allegedly occurred while he served with military dog handlers based in Bahrain to support the Iraq war.

Rocha says he decided to leave the Navy by coming out to his commanding officer in 2007 in violation of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and was discharged.

An internal Navy investigation into his unit found dozens of examples of hazing and sexual harassment against multiple sailors between 2005 and 2006.

The result of the investigation was not clear; a copy of the report released under the Freedom of Information Act has all recommendations blacked out.

The Chief of Naval Operations directed Commander Navy Installations Command on Tuesday to review the actions taken after the earlier investigation and report back on Oct. 6.

More from AP.

Two months after her controversial statement at the Miss USA pageant in April, Prejean was fired by pageant officials who said she missed several scheduled appearances.

Prejean’s attorney Charles LiMandri said pageant officials based their decision to terminate her contract on invitations Prejean received for events she was never required to attend.

Prejean, 22, made headlines worldwide when she said she believed only men and women should be allowed to wed in reply to a question by gay celebrity blogger and pageant judge Perez Hilton. She subsequently was named first runner-up. In the weeks that followed, she claimed the answer cost her the Miss USA crown.

The lawsuit names California pageant executive director Keith Lewis and actress and former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, who served as a co-director before resigning in protest of Prejean, but does not name Donald Trump, who owns Miss California USA’s parent organization and who in May refused to fire Prejean, a decision he reversed a month later.

The suit claims Prejean has been subject to public ridicule and humiliation and lost out on modeling work because she lost her crown. She has also suffered anxiety, depression and loss of sleep since her firing, the lawsuit states. The complaint does not state specific monetary damages that Prejean is seeking.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver unveiled the list of 2009 inductees earlier this week, saying the 13 men and women “embody California’s innovative spirit and have made their mark on history.”

Last year, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would designate a day each year to honor Milk.

A similar introduced bill by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has passed the Senate and is expected to be taken up in the Assembly in the next few weeks. It would designate Milk’s birthday, May 22, as a “day of special significance,” but not an official holiday.

“It should be kept in mind that he literally gave his life so I and others can serve in public office and that every generation of LGBT Californians can pursue their every hope, dream and aspiration,” said Leno.

Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and was one of the first openly gay Americans elected to public office. He and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated at City Hall on November 27, 1978, by former Supervisor Dan White.

Earlier this month, Milk was among 16 recipients awarded the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. The award is the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Other inductees in the California Hall of Fame are “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, football commentator John Madden, entertainer Carol Burnett, former Intel chief executive Andrew Grove, former Gov. Hiram Johnson, decathlete and philanthropist Rafer Johnson, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, philanthropist and peace activist Joan Kroc, artist Fritz Scholder, author Danielle Steel, bodybuilder and Schwarzenegger mentor Joe Weider and Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager.

The nominees will be inducted in a December 1 ceremony at the California Museum in Sacramento. Shriver started the program to honor artists, sports figures and others who’ve helped shape the state.

The man known as the “liberal lion of the Senate” had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

Kennedy will be remembered as one of the most powerful and influential senators in American history and one of three brothers whose political triumphs and personal tragedies captivated the nation for decades, and as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate. He served through five of the most dramatic decades of the nation’s history, including the assassinations of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Kennedy’s advocacy for LGBT issues stretches back to the height of the HIV epidemic. The Ryan White Care Act, the largest federally funded program for people living with HIV/AIDS, would not exist if Kennedy did not introduce and usher it through Congress in 1990.

He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, and had been a lead sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would protect LGBTs in the workplace, since its first introduction in Congress in 1994.

Kennedy has long favored providing benefits to domestic partners of federal employees, which President Obama extended through an executive order in June. He has spoken out against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and for many years has fought in support of the Matthew Shepard Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of federally recognized hate crimes. Named for the gay student who was tortured and murdered in Wyoming in 1998, the legislation may soon become law; the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill earlier this year, and Kennedy again introduced bill in Senate, and the Judiciary Committee held a hearing in June.

Kennedy was influential at the highest levels of government through his final days. He was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor in May 2008, becoming ill just as Democrats were again coming to power with majorities in Congress and a president who admired and respected him. He served almost 47 years in the Senate, the the third-longest serving senator in the chamber’s history.

In July, President Obama awarded Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

On Tuesday, Frank asked a protester who had compared President Obama to Hitler, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

On his radio show Wednesday, Limbaugh weighed in, calling the Nazi and Hitler references to Obama “fabulous and fantastic and hilarious,” then amuses himself with an obvious anti-gay slam “Isn’t it an established fact that Barney Frank himself spends most of his time living around Uranus?”

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The suit, filed by Stern shortly after the Sept., 2007, publication of journalist and TV personality Rita Cosby’s book “Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death,” alleges that the book contains libelous material about Stern.

Among the claims, Cosby’s book says that Stern hired Smith out for sexual services, and that Stern had engaged in sex with another man, specifically Larry Birkhead, the father of Smith’s daughter Dannielynn

But Judge Denny Chin said that the “gay” allegation in the book did not warrant consideration as being defamatory.

Distinguishing between the claim regarding Stern’s sexual orientation from other claims about his sexual adventures, judge Chin stated, “I respectfully disagree that the existence of this continued prejudice leads to the conclusion that there is a widespread view of gays and lesbians as contemptible and disgraceful.”

Chin noted that New York courts have held there are four categories of statements that constitute defamation, including accusations of serious crime or statements that tend to injure another in his trade or profession. Gay conduct is no longer a crime, he said, and gays and lesbians are no longer viewed as shameful or odious.

However, Chin said a jury could still find the statement is libelous, and allowed claims regarding 11 of 19 allegedly libelous statements made in the book. He further noted that only Cosby could be liable, and not the publisher, Hachette, because it had no reason to doubt claims made in the book.

Smith died at age 39 in 2007, reportedly from an overdose.