I suppose this should get a mention on Slog, considering the great big fuss we made...

Charges dropped in career-toppling sex scandal

Prosecutors have dropped all charges against gay porn model Cody Michael Castagna stemming from a sexual encounter in a Spokane hotel last October with a conservative state lawmaker that ended the Republican’s political career.

Castagna, a 27-year old waiter and part-time porn model, was charged with six felony counts of extortion and theft after the evening with Richard Curtis, a 48-year old Republican legislator from LaCenter, near Vancouver, Wash. Curtis, who opposed gay rights measures as a lawmaker, resigned from the Legislature shortly after the incident last October became public....

Curtis sent a note Monday to Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Larry Steinmetz saying he didn’t want to testify against Castagna. Steinmetz, supervisor of the Major Crimes unit, proposed the dismissal, which was signed by Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen.

“My wife, daughters, and son-in-law have paid a very high price for my actions ….My family and I have found ourselves closer as a result and are settled into a new chapter in our lives and are moving past this incident,” Curtis said in his letter.

Prosecutors say that they don't know where Curtis is and have no way of contacting him.

Fair's fair:

On the same day that prosecutors charged a mother and her live-in girlfriend with torturing and starving a 5-year-old boy and then trying to cover up the abuse, Los Angeles County supervisors today demanded a full accounting of the case from child welfare officials....

Meanwhile, Starkeisha Brown, 24, and Krystal Denise Matthews, 21, both of South Los Angeles, were each charged with one count each of torture, child abuse, corporal injury to a child, dissuading a witness, and two counts each of conspiracy. Brown and Matthews are scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Compton and are expected to plead not guilty. They each face up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

Los Angeles police said the 5-year-old was hung by his hands and wrists from a doorjamb and beaten with some sort of leash or chain, police said. He was routinely denied food and water, burned with cigarettes on his body and genitals, and left to sit in his own urine and feces.

The website People You'll See In Hell has more horrifying details—and some of the love notes Starkeisha Brown and Krystal Denise Matthews sent each other via their MySpace pages. Ugh.

From flickr user Rob Gruhl

Want to see your Gay Pride event listed in The Stranger's comprehensive guide? Anything can get in, as long as it's celebrating homosexuality and open to the public, so yes, your costumed bowling night counts.

Send an email with all the details (time, date, place, gay-osity) to music@thestranger.com as soon as possible to be included!

Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen shortly after they were legally married in Los Angeles yesterday. Who couldn't be happy for these women?

Well, this douchebag.

...is legal in California as of now.

Our congrats to Phyllis and Del.

Readers who wonder why I post those distressing "Every Child Deserves a Mother and Father" items might want to check out this ad, which the Family Research Council ran in newspapers in California this weekend:

Yes, yes—every child deserves a mom and a dad. Someone run down to the morgue and tell this kid how very lucky he was to have a mom and a dad.

Ad via JoeMyGod.

MRI and PET scan studies are showing remarkable similarities between the brains of gay men and straight women, and between those of lesbians and straight men.

For example, the brains of straight men and of gay women share certain common features: both are slightly asymmetric, with the right hemisphere larger than the left, say the Swedish researchers. On the other hand, the brains of gay men and straight women are both symmetrical.

Similar trends emerged when scientists tracked connectivity in the amygdala, the region of the brain involved in emotional learning and in activating the fight-or-flight response. They noted strong similarities between gay men and straight women, and lesbians and straight men.

The findings are published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Heartwarming story of the day:

Katherine recalls coming out to her parents as they prepared for a picnic by the pool at their home in the Berkshires. It was July 3, 2007 at around 2:30 p.m., she says. [...]

Katherine had already come out to her friends, her sister Sarah and a maternal aunt with whom she is close, Lynn Prime. She says she waited for an opportunity to come out to both parents at the same time - a difficult task given their busy lives - so as not to make either of them feel that she was more comfortable with one parent over the other. So when the moment came, she just decided to go for it. Walking into the kitchen, she asked her parents to stop what they were doing and she asked her aunt Lynn to leave the room because she wanted to talk with her mother and father alone. Her parents turned to her and she said, "I’m a lesbian."

"And I’ll always remember the first thing my dad did was, [he] wrapped me in a bear hug and said, ’Well, we love you no matter what,’" Katherine recalls. Diane Patrick moved in for a group hug. After a moment, Katherine, in what she describes as typical teen behavior, asked her hovering parents to step off. "I said, ’Okay, okay,’" she laughs. "I was like ... ’Okay, thanks.’"

Diane Patrick received the news with a mixture of happiness and relief. She says that after Katherine had asked her aunt to leave the room because she needed to talk with her parents, she had no idea what her daughter was going to say. "I often think the worst when I get that kind of build-up. And so I was thinking, ’Oh my goodness, she failed something or she did something really bad’ - not that she has a habit of doing those things - but I worried." When her daughter made the big reveal, Diane almost burst out laughing out of sheer relief.

What makes this more than just a sweet coming-out story? The dad and mom are the governor and First Lady of Massachusetts.

Did you know the word "bad" was originally homophobic?

So surmises the Oxford English Dictionary (you need only a Seattle Public Library card to log in here):

[ME. badde appears in end of 13th c., rare till end of 14th: see below. Regularly compared badder, baddest, from 14th to 18th c. (in De Foe 1721), though Shakespeare has only the modern substitutes worse, worst, taken over from evil, ill, after bad came to be = evil.

Prof. Zupitza, with great probability, sees in bad-de (2 syll.) the ME. repr. of OE. bæddel ‘homo utriusque generis, hermaphrodita,’ doubtless like Gr. [pronounced something like androgynos, but I can't figure out how to copy the Greek here--AKW], and the derivative bædling ‘effeminate fellow, womanish man, [Greek word, pronounced malakos--AKW],’ applied contemptuously; assuming a later adjectival use, as in yrming, wrecca, and loss of final l as in mycel, muche, lytel, lyte, wencel, wench(e. This perfectly suits the ME. form and sense, and accounts satisfactorily for the want of early written examples. And it is free from the many historical and phonetic difficulties of the derivation proposed by Sarrazin (Engl. Studien VI. 91, VIII. 66), who, comparing the etymology of madde, mad, earlier amad [...], would refer badde to OE. [untranscribable Old English--AKW], ‘forced, oppressed,’ with a sense-development parallel to that of L. captvus, ‘taken by force, enslaved, captive,’ It. cattivo, F. chetif, ‘miserable, wretched, despicable, worthless.’ No other suggestion yet offered is of any importance; the Celtic words sometimes compared are out of the question.]

I guess we shouldn't expect the pejorative "gay" to go out of style any time soon.

Via the Volokh Conspiracy.

Will someone please ask Rev. Hagee if God sent the storm that killed those four boy scouts—and flooded huge parts of the state of Iowa—to stop gay pride events that had been scheduled to take place this weekend in Iowa's capitol?

After Katrina, of course, Hagee pointed out that a scheduled gay event...

...never happened. The rally never happened.

And he believes that God sent Katrina specifically stop that gay rally from happening. So what if God wound up drowning all those little old ladies in New Orleans' 9th Ward—no biggie. Hagee's God is, as ever, an angry, jealous God... and a lousy shot. The same God that drowned all those little old ladies—and left New Orleans gay bar district untouched—wouldn't think twice about whipping up some storms to stop Des Moines' gay pride parade, even it meant offing a few innocent Boy Scouts on the other side of the state.

Hey, bub, beat a 21 year-old gay man to death in South Carolina and you'll go to jail—for three long years.

Well, actually, you'll be eligible for parole in just two and a half years—but, hey, you will have to take an anger management class, and those things are freakin' tedious.

Hanging out with priests, of course.

Gays and lesbians in deeply Catholic Poland are being nudged towards church-steered programmes designed to help them fight their homosexuality. In the southeastern city of Lublin, a hub of Roman Catholic teaching, a nondescript white building houses Odwaga, or Courage, an organisation which offers "therapy" for homosexuals—to the consternation of gay rights groups who find it an aberration.

Behind its walls, men are taught to kick a football around, women take cookery lessons and, above all, participants spend time praying with priests.

Curing homosexuality by hanging out with Catholic priests—it's a form of aversion therapy, right?

Also what I said, three years ago:

We gay people can lobby politicians and dialogue with homophobes all we want, and we should, but perhaps the most important thing gay Americans can do right now is hold our ground and wait for the considerable number of anti-gay older Americans to die off. When they do, public opinion on gay rights issues is likely to flip.

And, to be fair, it's something a lot of people have been saying for a long time.

This is indeed, as Morford concludes, one of the strangest aspects of this homo moment—the realization, for anyone who's paying attention, that the gay rights movement will get a big boost when a certain demographic leaves this earth.

Mark Morford at the San Francisco Chronicle....

It's because younger people today—those under, say, 45 or so—have been far more exposed to the gay "lifestyle" and to more fluid notions of gender and sexuality, to the idea of homosexuality as a common, nonthreatening, everyday, what's-the-big-deal shrug, and therefore, as a demographic, they/we understand that allowing gay people to wed doesn't actually mean our shaky notions of God and family and society will collapse like a priest's willpower at a Boy Scout jamboree.

This, I think, was perhaps the most fascinating tidbit of insight to emerge from the most recent poll of Californians where, for the first time in state history, a majority of those polled said they support the idea of gay marriage and/or oppose a new and vile push for a state constitutional amendment to ban it outright. And that majority consists, by and large, of the young.

It's an intriguing—if slightly morbid—thing to note, because on the flip side, the poll also found that most people over age 65 don't like the idea of gay marriage one little bit because, well, they usually can't exactly explain why, though it's not difficult to guess: It's what they were taught, what was implied, it's what their own parents passed on to them, as did their church, their culture, society as it was during their upbringing, and it was largely a narrow and repressed and sexually unaware period that finally, mercifully seems to be gasping its last.

And hence the obvious conclusion: It's only because the "Greatest Generation" is finally dying off that something like gay marriage can be realized as less of a silly threat. Or, more bluntly: As die the old, so dies the ugly intolerance so many of them carried like a sad, hereditary disease.

First off, it doesn't have to be that way—"it" being argument style, division of household labor, etc.

A growing body of evidence shows that same-sex couples have a great deal to teach everyone else about marriage and relationships. Most studies show surprisingly few differences between committed gay couples and committed straight couples, but the differences that do emerge have shed light on the kinds of conflicts that can endanger heterosexual relationships.

The findings offer hope that some of the most vexing problems are not necessarily entrenched in deep-rooted biological differences between men and women. And that, in turn, offers hope that the problems can be solved....

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

And from an earlier write-up of the same studies...

The findings also showed that same-sex couples, regardless of civil union status, were more satisfied with their relationships compared to married heterosexual couples. Same-sex couples reported more positive feelings toward their partners and less conflict than heterosexual married couples, said the authors.

Now the fundies don't like these reports—basically any "research" study that doesn't prove that gay men and lesbians aren't busily eating each other's feces when we're not recruiting children is, to their minds, fatally biased. And fundies are deeply invested in the notion that there are "deep-rooted biological differences between men and women." So studies that show that same-sex relationships function well, and that people in them are relatively content, and that folks in opposite-sex relationships can learn a thing or two from us, well, those studies are sure to be unwelcome over at Focus on the Family.

But there's something I'd like to see these researchers address, and it's an issue that's sure to drive both fundies and some in the gay rights movements up the wall: monogamy.

Male same-sex couples in long-term relationships report higher levels of satisfaction, are better at resolving conflict, have less destructive argument styles, share house work more equitably, etc. We're also a hell of lot less likely to be strictly monogamous. Many gay male couples have negotiated "agreements" about outside sexual contact (scope, frequency, safety, etc). Reading these reports I can't help but wonder what impact, if any, the lesser emphasis gay men place on monogamy has on relationships. Does talking about and defusing one of the chief sources of marital strife—attraction to others; the desire, acknowledged or not, for a sexual variety over the life of a multi-decade partnership—contribute to higher rates of relationship satisfaction? Do gay male couples report less conflict than straight couples because fewer gay couples are conflict—or denial—about outside sexual contacts?

If voters in California approve an anti-gay-marriage amendment to that state's constitution this November, they may wind up banning straight marriage in California. From Sunday's Washington Post:

Should voters approve the measure, Cruz said, offering another potential outcome, it could inadvertently affect traditional marriages. That's because the amendment would undo only part of the court's decision—allowing gay couples to marry—but not the rest, which says that same-sex couples cannot be recognized differently than opposite-sex couples, he said.

"If you've got those two rules—that you can't let them marry, but you can't give different options to gay and straight couples—then one possible outcome, if the amendment were to pass, is that no one could get married in California," Cruz said.

This is hilarious—and it's an issue that supporters of gay marriage in California should campaign on. Don't call it the "ban on gay marriage," just call it the "marriage ban," since it could wind up banning all marriages in California. Here's some copy for a pro-gay-marriage campaign's yard signs: "Protect Traditional Marriage—Vote 'NO' on the Marriage Ban!"

You saved Latvia from the wicked forces of International Sodomy once before, Rev. Hutcherson, and it looks like Latvia needs your help again! This time its not the U.S. Embassy that's advancing the Homosexual Agenda but the British Embassy. Via Slog tipper Tiffany comes this shocking story...

British Embassy Flies the Rainbow Flag

The British embassy in Riga, Latvia made history over the weekend when it flew the rainbow flag to mark the city’s Pride and Friendship days.

It’s thought that ambassador Richard Moon’s decision makes it the first time a rainbow flag has been officially flown at a British embassy anywhere in the world.

Moon professed the government’s devotion to LGBT rights as he raised the flag, saying: “The British Government totally supports LGBT rights in Europe and throughout the world. And this support is 24/7, 365 days a year—and not just for Pride."

To the Batshitcrazymobile, Rev. Hutcherson! Latvia needs you! There's not a moment to lose!

Your votes require political pandering. Governor Christine Gregoire has agreed to be the honorary Grand Marshal of this year’s gay pride parade on June 29. According to parade sponsor Seattle Out and Proud, she’ll be marching behind the Dykes on Bikes.

Although this is her first time marching as governor, this isn't her first time in the parade. According to campaign spokesman Aaron Toso, last time she marched was in 2004--as attorney general--when she was running for governor. Now she's back at it, apparently hoping to drum up support from her Democratic base in time for this November's election.

“I think the common wisdom is that it is a political risk,” says Ed Murray, 43rd District state senator and co-sponsor of successful domestic partnership bills. However, he says, “The governor marching in the parade is not dangerous because history goes against common political wisdom.”

Former governors Gary Locke and Mike Lowry marched in pride parades during their terms, according to Murray and others. However, a lot has changed on the gay marriage front since then. “We can celebrate how far we’ve gone in very short time—how close we are to where we want to be,” says Murray, noting the recent California decision to allow same-sex marriage. “Nationally, we’re moving faster than any of us had ever imagined.”

“For all the balloons and the boas, this is a march, and having our political support is really important,” says SOaP spokesman Troy Campbell.

Other Grand Marshals this year include Anne Levinson, co-owner of Seattle’s dyketastic Seattle Storm, and the Safe Schools Coalition, which tells those bullies to fuck off.

Michael Coleman lived in Atlanta and San Francisco before moving to Seattle two years ago. Coleman is a 42 year-old "sports nut and baseball fan," and in both of the previous cities in which he lived—at Braves and Giants games—Coleman attended official gay nights at their teams respective ballparks.

"In Atlanta, first time we had gone to one, they had three or four thousand people show up for their gay night and sit in one section," says Coleman. "It was a great time."

Coleman and his partner were shocked when they discovered that the Seattle Mariners didn't have a gay night.

"Seattle is such a liberal city," says Coleman. "I thought when I got here that the Mariners were really missing the boat here."

Coleman didn't wait for the Ms to launch an official gay night. He and his partner have hosted two DIY gay nights at Safeco. This year's "Unofficial Gay Night at Safeco Field" took place in mid-May, on J.J. Putz Bobble Head Night, when the Ms played—and lost to—the San Diego Padres. (The Padres do an official gay night every year in July.) Coleman didn't put up a website or work too hard to spread the word; he says he just emailed friends, who emailed friends. This years he attracted roughly 40 folks to his Unofficial Gay Night at Safeco Field, qualifying for a group-sales discount.

"We didn’t have a name when I placed our order with the ticket agent," Coleman told me. "When she asked, 'What’s the name of your group?' I just decided to call us the Seattle Gay Adventure Club.”

When the lesbian-kiss-at-Safeco scandal broke last week, Rebecca Hale, public information director for the Seattle Mariners, told me that she wasn't aware that all other MLB teams on the West Coast—and numerous others across the country, including the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs—host gay nights at their ballparks. She promised to discuss the idea with her marketing and promotions department and get back to me today. (I've got a call in to Hale.)

Okay, back to Coleman's unofficial gay night at Safeco...

During home games the Mariners flash the names of groups at the park that night and "Seattle Gay Adventure Club" appeared on the screen—along with Little League clubs and corporate workplaces—on Coleman's Unofficial Gay Night at Safeco Field.

"We cheered, and nobody booed or raised an eyebrow. I honestly don’t think anyone really thought anything about it," says Coleman. "Which makes it that much odder that the Ms don't just do this themselves.

"Basically, there's a large group of gay folks out there that enjoy sports," says Coleman, "and the Ms are missing an opportunity to fill the stands. The Ms aren’t doing well this year, I’m sure they could use more people at the games."

The PI got the email, but I'm apparently not on the Mariners' email list. I'm hurt, Rebecca Hale, I'm hurt.

According to Seattlepride.org, the always delightful Peggy Platt, Sylvia O'Stayformore and some straw-haired milquetoast-ish looking news anchor from NWCN called Erik will be sharing the announcer's seat at Seattle's Pride Parade this year, and one Miss Mark Finley, Seattle's dizzy gay Aunt Clara and the long-time embarrassment of all things gay and pride-ish, is conspicuously out, out, OUT! And not in the proud way.

There was no comment from Seattle Pride on this year's notable exclusion of Finley because I didn't ask for one, but one thing is for damn sure: There is doubtless to be a conspicuous absence of incomprehensible slurring, dizzy confusion, or vulgar reaches at humor that end in tragedy (like rummaging through one's purse for one's cocktail---protease inhibiting or otherwise---on live television for instance, or claiming that all gay people refer to members of our naval forces as "mattresses") at this year's event---at least as far as the official announcers go.

Quake with relief, ye lucky 'mos. This year, pride may actually be achieved!

(Thanks AKH for the tip!)

It's on: The proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in California—which would overturn the recent court ruling there legalizing same sex marriage—has qualified for the ballot. The signatures checked out. So get out your checkbooks, kids.

Speaking of checkbooks: A researcher at the UCLA estimates that gay marriage could inject $370 million into the state's economy over the next three years—provided, of course, that California voters don't decide to ban gay marriage in November of this year.

And... uh... can I just say that I'm pretty much in love with Ellen Degeneres right now?

I think it's great that Ellen is going to marry her girlfriend, Portia de Rossi, and that Ellen shared the happy news with her audience in a non-hectoring, non-victimy way, and, of course, that Ellen is putting people like John McCain and Laura Bush—who come on her show with their own agendas—on the spot about their bigotry. Still... I can't help but recall Ellen's track record with love and romance. There was the whole Anne Heche mess, of course, but Ellen had a girlfriend between Anne and Portia for four years, a girlfriend she claimed to crazy in love with right until the bitter end...

Four years after Ellen DeGeneres began dating photographer Alexandra Hedison, sources confirmed on Friday that the couple has decided to separate. According to The New York Post’s Page Six column, the split was prompted by DeGeneres’s new romance with Portia de Rossi, the 31-year-old Australian-born actress of Fox’s Arrested Development, who has been dating singer Francesca Gregorini since 2001.

According to People.com, DeGeneres and Hedison have been living apart since last month, which would place their separation shortly after Ellen’s interview with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC. When Phillips asked if Hedison was the love of her life, DeGeneres responded, “Yes. Yeah. I’ve never felt this way before. Ever.” The Advocate reports that DeGeneres echoed these statements in her most recent interview, which will hit newsstands December 21st, accompanied by exclusive photos of DeGeneres taken by Hedison at the end of November.

If I remember correctly—I don't have time to dig through the Ellen archives—Hedison returned one day to the home she shared with Degeneres to find that Degeneres had moved out. Pretty cold.

I hate Clay Aiken because he makes me hate myself. That’s it in a nutshell. I look at that damn fool, all doughy and ginger and rather revolting, prancing around like a pixie on a hot plate, looking more and more like the maggot larvae love baby of Kojo and Roseanne and not having the faintest clue just how very irredeemably, grotesquely gay he’s being. Oh lord. Kill me now.

Indeed, when I scream at night, it’s because I dream that’s me. That I am Clay Aiken. A big clueless gay redheaded maggot creature. And often of a Saturday night, I just might be occasionally, dammit. I just might be. It's my own secret hell.

So of course, I loathe Miss Aiken’s every action, his every gesture, his every breath. The, forgive me, “Clay-Mates” or what-the-hell-ever? His housewivish lesion of fans? (Yes, I said LESION.) Hell hath not enough hot razor blades to give those misguided freaks what they deserve for their crimes against humanity. Enough said.

Anyway. So of course it goes without saying that I can barely even form into words exactly what I think about the following happy Clay Aiken-flavored horseshit. Hold on to yourself. It gets real ugly, real fast.

Clay Aiken is going to be a father. You heard me.

Now, now, calm down! He didn’t have to go near a vagina or anything repulsive like that! (Eeeewww, gurl! Ga-ROSssssss!) To clarify, Clay Aiken is going to be a Turkey Baster Dad. As in, he, um, “inseminated” someone. Hang in there, we’re almost done.

According to an unfathomable report from something called “Dlisted.com” (never heard of them), Clay Aiken has, after tremendous effort and much gay porn, somehow managed to squeeze enough wan and tepid man-juice out of those sad little Aiken nuts of his to actually knock up a real live…well, um, a woman. A woman called Jaymze. (I am not making this up.) And “Jaymze” is, holy Jesus, fifty years old. Which is kind of old. And Clay Aiken’s sad little sperm somehow wrestled down one of her 10,000 year old eggs, and life happened, and now the entire mess is ---even as we speak! ---dividing and squirming and forming the creature that will someday grow to be The Turkey Baster Heir of Aiken.

And Jesus wept.

It's history you're witnessing here. That's what it is. And I may never sleep again.

(Thanks to Slog tipper Dan Savage.)

Okay, I floated the idea in the comments thread on an earlier post about the M's hosting a gay night at Safeco—like so many other baseball teams. A gay night would make a statement: The team recognizes its gay fans, welcomes their support, and is willing to make its appreciation for gay fans visible. And isn't visibility what it's all about?

And maybe that's a statement the team needs to make for its own sake. I'm thinking that maybe a curse settled over Safeco field after Rev. Ken Hutcherson staged his "Mayday for Marriage" rally there on May 1, 2004. It's possible that allowing Ken Hutcherson to stage his hate rally at Safeco did to the Ms what tossing that billy goat out of Wrigley Field did to the Cubs...

Could Mariners, like the Cubs, be cursed? This season would seem to point to "yes," as would last year's heartbreaking collapse... hm...

Does anyone out there have the time to do a chart that tracks the M's fortunes starting, say, five years before Ken Hutcherson's rally at Safeco and up to now? It would be interesting to see if Hutch's rally cursed the Mariner's.

"Mayday for Marriage" took place on May 1, 2004—and the Stranger rented a plane pulling a "Bigots Out of Our Ballpark!" banner that flew the field during Ken's rally, which he didn't appreciate. And how have the M's done since then?

Any stats-mad baseball nuts out there care to create a chart for us?

UPDATE: The numbers have been crunched and the results are in—take it away, Mac...

Hey, I'm a stat geek.

Before May 1st, 2004, the Seattle Mariners were 229-147 (.609) at Safeco Field since it opened on July 15th, 1999. Since May 1st, 2004, the M's are 179-164 (.522) at home.

Overall, the Mariners were 401-271 (.597) in all games between July 15th, 1999 and May 1st, 2004. Since then, they are 310-368 (.457).

Now, I would say this has more to do with Bill Bavasi, Howard Lincoln and the gradual departures of Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson and Lou Piniella than Rev. Hutcherson, but the numbers don't lie. The M's were better before 5/1/04 than they've been since.

That proves it! Preachers lie but the numbers don't! The M's were cursed on May 1, 2004—Ken Hutcherson cursed the M's with his "Mayday for Marriage" rally! Only a "Gayday for Mariners" can lift the curse! Alert the M's!

The Mariners code of conduct for fans famously bans "displays of affection not appropriate in a public, family setting." Well, fans at the ballpark are banned from engaging in skeezy PDA anyway—at home I can watch the game in a sling, if I like. But since "family" is often right-wing code for "anti-gay" (see: "family values," "Family Research Council," "the traditional family"), while I had her on the phone I took the opportunity to ask Rebecca Hale, Director of Public Information for the Seattle Mariners, just how the Mariners organization defines the word "family."

"I don’t know," Hale replied after a short pause.

My boyfriend and I have season tickets and we take our 10 year-old son to the ballpark all the time. Do we qualify as a "family" at Safeco Field?

"We need all the fans we can get right now," said Hale. "So we’re not going to discriminate against anybody based on any classification at all—age, race, religion, sexual orientation. We are welcoming to all individuals and we want to create an atmosphere at the ballpark where everyone feels welcome and everyone can come and have a good time."

In the interests of making sure queer fans feel welcome, the Giants, Padres, Oakland As, Dodgers—basically every other MLB team on the West Coast—all have officially sponsored and recognized gay nights or pride nights at their ballparks. So do the Colorado Rockies ("Pride Night at Coors Field"), the Chicago Cubs ("Out at the Ballgame"), the Chicago White Sox ("Gay Games Night"), the Boston Red Sox ("Out at Fenway Park"), and lots of other teams. Since the Mariners want everyone to feel welcome, and seeing as Seattle has the largest gay community per-capita next to San Francisco, how come the Seattle Mariners don't have a gay night?

"I don’t know," said Hale. "I don’t think it’s a situation where we have made a decision that we are not going to do that. I honestly can’t tell you why it hasn’t happened."

Considering the uproar over this contested lesbian kiss, the murkiness surrounding just what the Ms mean by "family setting," and the Ms' stated desire to make sure everyone feels welcome at Safeco Field, maybe now would be a good time for the Ms to follow the lead of the Giants ("LGBT Night Out"), Dodgers ("Gay & Lesbian Night at Dodger Stadium"), Padres ("Pride Night at Petco Park"), et al, and launch a gay night at Safeco Field.

"I've got no issue with that," said Hale. "It works for me. I'd be happy to talk it over with marketing and promotions and the folks that usually work to create the events in the ballpark. I’m happy to do that."

Hale promised to talk with her marketing and promotions people next week, and get back to me by Friday.

Apparently I got the attention of the Mariners organization when I floated the idea of a kiss-in at Safeco Field. A kiss-in, I suggested, might be an appropriate way to protest the treatment a lesbian couple received at a game on Wednesday night. Early in the evening yesterday an email arrived from Rebecca Hale, Director of Public Information for the Seattle Mariners, with this subject line: "Kiss In." The text of Hale's email: "Call me."

"We’re trying to find out what happened," Hale told me when we spoke. Earlier in the day Hale told the PI, according to Monica Guzman, that staff had received a complaint about two women not just kissing, but "groping." Hale also told me that the complaint wasn't just about lesbians kissing, but about "kissing and groping."

The addition of a groping to the kissing charges already leveled against her came as shock to Sirbrina Guerrero, the 23 year-old accused. “Oh, my God," said Guerrero when I got her on the phone, "that is so far from the truth, it’s ridiculous.”

Guerrero points out that when KOMO first talked to the Mariners about the incident, the organization didn’t say anything about groping.

"When did their story change?" asks Guerrero. "When they came up to us during the game we were were told to stop kissing, that a woman had complained about her kids seeing two women kissing. We were told to stop 'making out,' and now all of the sudden we’re making out and groping? Where did that come from?”

Jordin Silver, a friend who was at the game with Guerrero, also rejects the "groping" charge. "She was there with a girl she is dating," said Silver, "and they hadn’t seen each other in a while. So they were holding hands, a peck here and there. Nothing inappropriate for a setting with children."

Silver also points out that "there were tons of straight people kissing all over," and no one was bothering these opposite-sex couples. She took this picture of a straight couple a few rows in front of their group—a straight couple "making out" right in front of a child, no less.

Hale insists that the Mariners don't necessarily believe the women were kissing and groping, only that the complaint, as they understand it now, included both the "K" and "G" words.

"What we’re trying to do now is figure out exactly what happened," said Hale. "We need to talk to as many of the folks who were there as possible."

To that end The Ms are following up with the women who were told they would have to stop kissing or face ejection from the park and the "seating hosts" who were involved. If the seating hosts were in the wrong—if they applied a different standard to same-sex kissing than they were applying to opposite-sex kissing—then "appropriate actions will be taken," said Hale. "If we have an employee who is not interpreting our policy correctly, we’ll deal with that."

It's hard not to see how this dispute ends at anything besides a seat-host-says/lesbian-couple-says impasse. Guerrero and her friends say that she wasn't "making out" with her date, there were only a quick few kisses, and they're adamant that there was no groping going on. The woman that complained about them (who no one has talked to), and the seat host that told they would have to knock it off or risk being ejected (who only the Ms are talking to), may see things—the same things—very differently. Many heterosexuals regard any signs of same-sex affection as shove-it-down-our-throats assaults on all things good and decent. A straight kiss is cute, a lesbian kiss is lewd; a boy with arm around the shoulder of a girl is endearing, a boy with his arm around another boy is groping. So we may have too wildly different takes on the exact same dyke PDA here, and it's hard to see what action the Ms will be able to take after this investigation is over—besides, perhaps, a "we'll never know what really happened" shrug. Which is probably just what the Ms want.

Finally, while I had Guerrero on the phone I asked her about something that's been raised in comments, a fact about Guerrero, who works at Cowgirls Inc., that some of her friends think is the reason the Ms are suddenly floating the groping charge: Guerrero was a contestant on the latest installment of the VH1 dating show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.

"There's a difference between the way you act on a show like that and the way you act when you're in place like a ballpark," said Guerrero. "It's offensive to me to suggest that I don't know the difference, that I don't know the difference between a VH1 reality dating show and a Mariners' game."

The people of Utah have spoken.

Last night's exciting election coverage is here.

A TV station in Utah put a poll up on its website today: "Should gay marriages be legalized in Utah?" KUTV News asked its viewers/readers. When the first returns came in this afternoon voters in Utah seemed to be rejecting gay marriage by a wide margin: 65% to 35%. But as we've seen again and again this campaign season, Wolf, early returns are unreliable. And while results are are still pouring in the Stranger Situation Room is now projecting that—what do you know?—Utah is for gay marriage. Yes, Utah appears to be safely in the pro-gay-marriage camp.

UPDATE: Well, Wolf, late returns continue to break for gay marriage on this historic night in the great state—or perhaps I should say, "gay state"—of Utah. As of 8:56 PM Pacific Standard Time, it's 58.7% for legalizing gay marriage here in the Beehive State and 41.3% opposed. We may see the "no" vote drop below 40% by the end the night, which would be a real humiliation for the anti-gay marriage side, which felt, going into tonight's vote, that it had Utah locked up. Again, Wolf, a historic night here in Utah. Back to you.

UPDATE 2: Well, Wolf, it's 9:10 PM and in under an hour we've seen the pro-gay-marriage vote pick up 1.2 points. Let's go to the board...

It seems that it's all over but the shouting now, Wolf, although political junkies will stay glued to their screens, anxious to see if Utah will back gay marriage by a 60-40 margin.

UPDATE 3: Well, Wolf, there's no mistaking the will of the people of Utah tonight. At roughly 9:30 PM, PST, the pro-gay-marriage vote broke 60%.

Clearly the people of Utah want gay marriage, Wolf, and they want it in the worst possible way. They ache for it. The real question now, Wolf, is this: In the wake of FLDS scandal and the release of incriminating photos of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs making out with underage girls, do the people of Utah believe that straight marriage should be legal? Perhaps we'll have a poll on that tomorrow. Back to you, Wolf.

UPDATE 4: I'm sorry, Wolf, but I have to break in one last time. The vote down here in Utah is now officially a landslide for gay marriage. Opponents of marriage equality have suffered a rout, crushed. We're talking Reagan '84 numbers down here, or LBJ '64, or. As of 11:27 PM PST, 65% of voters in Utah are backing same-sex marriage, with just 35% opposed.

This is truly one for the history books, Wolf. Good night—and, uh, Tagg Romney? Will you marry me?

Tonight on the O'Reilly factor... Bill tries to segue from a discussion about Warren Jeffs making out with 12-year-old girls to the gays getting married in California and what these things, taken together, mean for the country. And Dennis Miller isn't having it.

MILLER: Listen, I have to bring a big curtain down here visually between discussing, to me, a monster like Warren Jeffs and going over to talk about the issue of gay marriage. I just have to bring down a massive curtain first.

O'REILLY: No, there's absolutely no link there.

MILLER: These couldn't be more different to me. Now listen, I have to be very delicate here to protect people's privacy, but I know of a young child who over the course of her life, as I've seen her, has been raised by homosexual parents. And as I've watched her blossom, I am enamored, and I can see in her face that she's loved.

Now listen, I am going to give the heterosexual community the procreative vigorish, as they say in the betting game, because without any procreation, the planet dies. So obviously, I think that is the way to go. The hetero thing is what works, just the physics of it. But love is never a bad fallback position.

And I'm sorry, I just can't get—I just happen to know a couple gay men who are married, and they're very happy.... It is nothing. It is—on my list of things I worry about on a day-to-day basis, humans with similar genitalia wanting to get married is like 10 billionth on my list.

I'm down with the procreative thang myself, Dennis. I mean—hey, thanks for the DNA, Mom & Dad. But with more than six billion people on the planet right now, the "procreative vigorish" is causing our planet to die.

But thanks for getting our backs regardless, Dennis.

KUTV News wants to know what you think. Click here, scroll down, vote yes.

Thanks to Slog tipper Meks.

From KOMO:

A local lesbian couple says a peck on the lips nearly got the two of them tossed out of a Mariners game.... Sirbrina Guerrero says she only gave her date a peck, but a mother sitting with her son complained to security and, as a result, they were told to stop or leave.

"And he (the security guard) goes 'there's a lady whose son says he saw you guys making out, and I did, too. And you have to stop.' And I said 'well, we weren't making out, but we were kissing and I'm not going to stop,'" said Guerrero.... "(The security guard said) the mom doesn't want to explain to the kids why two girls are kissing. So I said 'well, I'm not going to stop, so you'll have to kick me out. So he said 'so I suggest you leave then,"' she said.

But Guerrero and her friends don't buy it. After Guerrero was flagged at the game, they took pictures of other couples who kissed but were not reprimanded. Those couples, they said, were heterosexual.

Sorry, mom, but if straight people can kiss on the lips at Safeco, so can we. Gay PDA is not, by definition, "lewd," anymore than straight PDA is lewd. There's a kiss and then there's making out—and there's a difference. And you're going to have to tell your kids about the existence of gays and lesbians sometime—and if you want to avoid that conversation for as long as possible, don't leave the house, turn off the TV, thrown out the radio, and close the blinds.

And, uh, Mariners? WTF? Other baseball teams have gay days (here's a list)—the local Gay Chorus sings the national anthem, gay groups buy blocks of tickets—but not the Mariners. Maybe it's time, Ms.

New York's governor orders state agencies to recognize gay marriage performed elsewhere (Massachusetts, California, sane countries), essentially legalizing gay marriage in that state.

Bill O'Reilly challenges an opponent of same-sex marriage in California to come up with a reason gay marriage would be bad for California that isn't about religion—and the opponent can't do it and O'Reilly comes to predicting that California's anti-gay-marriage amendment won't pass.

And Macy's takes out full page ads in NYT and LA Times celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage in California, and—naturally—urging same-sex couples to register at Macy's.

For the first time ever polls show that a majority of Californians back same-sex marriage. Poor Tony Perkins must be crapping his pants.

Signaling a generational shift in attitudes, a new Field Poll on Tuesday said California voters now support legal marriage between same-sex couples and oppose a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

By 51 to 42 percent, state voters believe gay couples have the right to marry, according to a May 17-26 poll of 1,052 registered voters.

However, the same poll revealed a California electorate that remains sharply divided over gay marriage—split by age, political affiliation, religion and the regions where they live.

The right-wingers are losing the argument about same-sex marriage—a.k.a. marriage equality—and they damn well know it. The longer we engage in a national discussion about same-sex marriage—and the more people are exposed to same-sex couples and gay families—the harder it becomes for religious bigots to claim that we're somehow a threat to the nation, to the family, to the children, to the Gulf Coast, etc. Which is why the right has worked so hard—and, in most states, so successfully—to write current prejudices into state constitutions. They know they have no choice but to lock in anti-gay prejudice now because their most reliable anti-gay voters (and donors) are dying off. That's what the Sacramento Bee means by "generational shift," and "split by age."

Ironically the right's own strategy is backfiring: one of the reasons our national conversation about same-sex marriage continues to roar along is the right's strategy of placing unnecessary and frequently redundant anti-same-sex-marriage amendments before voters even in states where courts and legislatures haven't moved to legalize same-sex marriage. Even in states that we've "lost," even in states that have approved gay marriage bans, polls show movement toward support for marriage equality after the passage of anti-gay-marriage amendments. How's this for irony: One day we'll be able to repeal these amendments thanks, in large part, to the debate instigated by the passage of these amendments. Campaigns to pass anti-gay marriage amendments expose voters to pro-gay marriage arguments. Unfortunately it seems to take a while for those arguments to sink in—usually years after the vote—but the arguments do sink in. And we have the religious right to thank for all this consciousness raising.

But the polls out of California, while heartening, doesn't get us out of the woods. On civil rights issues, people tend to tell pollsters what they think the pollsters want to hear; and younger people enjoy being polled more than they enjoying going to the polls. Still, good news out of California today.

If you're interested in the legal implications of the California marriage decision--like, will other states follow California's lead?--then I highly, highly recommend this series of Volokh Conspiracy posts (by University of Minnesota Law School prof Dale Carpenter). It's dense reading, but not inaccessible to the lay person.

If I loved Ellen DeGeneres any more than I already do, my labia would burst into flames. She's getting so-called "lesbian married" to her so-called "lesbian lover" next summer you know, which is, of course, flagrantly illegal due to the tireless efforts of those delightful Republicans. Yesterday on her show, she shoved that tragic fact right in John McCain's piggy little face. His response? Well. Just watch the vile worm squirm!

God bless Ellen DeGeneres. God bless her good.

So says Save California, an anti-gay group that is calling asking it supporters to call county clerks and demand that they refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. From their website:

Ask your county clerk if they were a Nazi officer during WWII and had been ordered to gas the Jews, would they? At the Nuremberg trials, they would have been convicted of murder for following this immoral order.

Nice.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled against same-sex marriage, voting to uphold Measure 36, a 2004 ballot initiative that amended the Oregon Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Full text of the decision is here.

Oh, and in Portland, Oregon, yesterday an openly gay man was elected mayor.

UPDATE: My header was wrong—this is a decision from an appeals court, not the state's supreme court.

Yesterday the Seattle P-I ran an opinion piece about Supreme Court of California's ruling on gay marriage. The piece was by David Benkof and it argued, amongst other things, that gays and lesbians "shouldn't be celebrating" this historic victory in California. Why? Because the decision harms people of faith. Says Benkof:

Because there certainly are harms—to religious liberty, to give just one example. For the past two weeks, I have been contacting "marriage equality" leaders all over California to ask about the impact of redefining marriage on religious freedom. All, including several prominent lesbian and gay legislators and other leaders, have refused to disclose their opinions, some repeatedly.

Here's the court on religious liberty:

Finally, affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs.

That seems pretty clear—religious organizations, officials, and people won't be required to change their practices or bless same-sex marriages. Benkof worries, however, that this ruling denies religious individuals that own businesses the right to express their religious views by refusing their services to same-sex couples. Well, yes. But that was already the case in California, which had laws on the books banning discrimination against gays and lesbians—coupled or not—before this ruling came down last week. There's literally no point to Benkof's piece—besides, of course, stoking the persecution complex that characterizes conservative religious people in the United States.

Getting back to Benkof: There's a reason "prominent" gay leaders and legislators don't return his calls: he's a religious bigot and a bit of a nut. Here's a taste from Wiki:

In 2003, [Benkof] announced that he was going to stop having sex with men for religious reasons, and that he was shedding the label gay, preferring not to label his sexuality. He continued on to say “I believe that within a couple years I’m probably going to be married with a growing family.” He has always been a devout Jew, and says that one reason he changed was because "Gay sex is just inconsistent with traditional religious life." ... He has since become a strong opponent of same-sex marriage. In response to arguments for gay marriages, he wrote “This reasoning is not only flawed, it insults the millions of Americans whose traditional faiths call on us to defend marriage as a central institution in society defined as a union between a man and a woman."

Benkof—who claims he is not gay—runs an anti-marriage-equality website called GaysDefendMarriage.com ("A website for LGBT folks who support marriage as the union of husband and wife.") It's more than a little dishonest for the editors of the PI to allow this self-hating douchebag to present himself to their readers as an openly gay opponent of same-sex marriage who, for uniquely gay reasons, does not support marriage equality. Benkof is not, according to Benkof, gay, openly or otherwise, and there's nothing unique about his opposition to same-sex marriage. Benkof opposes same-sex marriage for the exact same reasons Pat Robertson and Pope Benedict and George W. Bush oppose marriage equality: G-d doesn't like it. "I happen to believe that God has been clear to the Jewish people that we should be pursuing opposite-sex relationships," Benkof told Gay City News, "and particularly not having intercourse between two males."

Benkof wraps up his piece with this statement:

No lesbian ever died a painful death because the government called her relationship a domestic partnership instead of a marriage.

Really?

Four months ago, Lacey resident Janice Langbehn, her partner Lisa Pond and their children Katie, David and Danielle, ages 10 to 13, were set for a relaxing cruise from Miami to the Bahamas.

But Pond, Langbehn’s partner for nearly 18 years, was stricken in Miami with a brain aneurysm and died. The family says the way they were treated by hospital staff compounded their shock and grief.

Langbehn, a social worker, said officials at the University of Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital did not recognize her or their jointly adopted children as part of Pond’s family. They were not allowed to be with her in the emergency room, and Langbehn’s authority to make decisions for Pond was not recognized....

Pond suffered the aneurysm just before the R Family Vacations cruise ship left Miami for the Bahamas in February, Langbehn said. After Pond was taken to the emergency room, Langbehn said she was informed by a social worker that they were in an “anti-gay state” and that they needed legal paperwork before Langbehn could see Pond.

Even after a friend in Olympia faxed the legal documents that showed that Pond had authorized Langbehn to make medical decisions for her, Langbehn said she wasn’t invited to be with her partner or told anything about her condition.

Before our fearless leader grabbed the network by the horns in this excellent appearance, wouldja believe CNN wrongly reported the gay marriage decision in California? How wrong? Well, see for yourself…

In case you can't see the video: A news feed read for a "just in" segment says that the court affirmed that gay marriage is illegal in California. Then a legal analyst calls in to discuss the ruling based on faulty information she gets from the anchor.

Three things:

1) Breaking news can be like that. Inaccurate, hazy, hasty. It was a 172-page decision from the court, and making a quick assessment of two-inches of bound legalese on live TV is hard if not impossible.

2) Fucking whatever about point #1. There's no excuse for CNN to be caught off guard by a potentially groundbreaking ruling that—for the 90 days prior—the court had promised it would release by 10 a.m. that day. If this were a ruling on abortion, gun rights, or OJ Simpson, CNN and every major news network would have had a reporter at the courthouse and a fleet of paralegal stenographers shooting an RSS feed to the news desk.

3) That poor anchor. I feel terrible for him. He was just reading "the feed." That mistaken, pathetic feed. And of course the legal counsel. Poor gal, she was running with the bullshit he was reading. What a mess. I feel bad for them. But I don't feel bad for the news producers; I’m kinda pissed at them.

In Los Angeles, an entertainment executive named Scott Seomin--a friend of mine--had flipped on CNN just before 10 a.m. to hear the decision. Because he was sitting on the lot of studio with a satellite bigger than Jeff Stryker's cock, he could watch every station at once. "We're flipping channels, and all I see is CNN's mistake," say Seomin (who knows how funny his last name is for a big ‘mo). He wasn't upset only about the coverage on CNN, which his partner who read the ruling said was incorrect, but the lack of coverage elsewhere. The networks were showing The Price Is Right, The View, and the fourth hour of The Today Show. So he called local stations and asked them to run a crawl—that little ticker feed at the bottom of the screen. "They run one every time there's a little earthquake in Barstow," he says. At least, he said, "Do a goddamn film at 11."

Seomin missed Dan Savage on CNN later because he had to go to a Hollywood-y meeting, populated, of course, by a bunch of fags and dykes. Having only seen the CNN coverage, they were all dejected--until Seomin told them CNN was wrong. "The news media was totally unprepared," he says. And he's right. CNN should have had Savage on the set at 9:50 a.m., preparing to respond to whatever the news might be. Not calling him on as an afterhought.