{CNN Homophobe} Roland Martin Apologizes for Tweets, says Comments Weren't ‘Anti-gay'

By David EcksteinZap2it

Journalist and syndicated columnist Roland S. Martin. (Handout/Baltimore Sun)

Less than 48 hours after making what many saw as homophobic remarks regarding H&M's commercial with David Beckham, CNN personality Roland Martin has offered an apology.

In a statement, Martin says, "To those who construed my comment as being anti-gay or homophobic or advancing violence, I'm truly sorry. I can certainly understand how someone could come to a different conclusion than the one I meant. I'm disheartened that my words would embolden prejudice. While public debate over social issues is healthy, no matter which side someone takes, there is no room for debate as to whether we need to be respectful of others."  

It was in response to a Super Bowl ad that showed soccer star David Beckham in his underwear that Martin took to Twitter to say, "Ain't no real bruhs going to H&M to buy some damn David Beckham underwear!...If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!...I bet soccer fan Piers Morgan will be in line at H&M in the morning to get his hands on David Bechman's (sic) underwear line!"

While Martin suggested the comments were in jest, they drew a swift response not only from the Twittersphere but from GLAAD. The organization urged CNN to fire Martin and even started a petition that secured thousands of signatures.The organization responded to Martin's apology by saying, "The time has come for Roland Martin to put actions behind his words. GLAAD calls on him to meet with us and our partners to discuss how we can work together to address the staggering rates of anti-LGBT violence that continues to face our community today.” 

Dirty Harry has turned against the GOP

Dirty Harry has turned against the GOP.   (By Stephen C. Webster)

That’s basically the message in last night’s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, during which guest host Chris Hayes examined the popular Chrysler Super Bowl ad featuring Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood.

His conclusion: Eastwood’s sideways endorsement of the auto bailouts punches conservatives where it hurts — right in the Reagan.

President Ronald Reagan loved Eastwood and his Dirty Harry image, and even occasionally dropped Eastwood’s most famous movie lines in public. That’s because Eastwood’s popular tough-guy image played right into the Republican narrative that they were coming to reassert American strength after President Jimmy Carter had so “emasculated” the presidency.

Eastwood was even in an anti-drug commercial featuring Nancy Reagan, and did a number of other anti-drug spots on the Reagan administration’s behalf.

But now that Eastwood is singing a different tune, and praising one of President Barack Obama’s policies on an issue where his likely Republican challenger goes in the exact opposite direction,conservatives have been sent reeling.

“If you doubt the potential effectiveness of this message, if you doubt its political potency, all you have to do is look at the conservative backlash against the Clint Eastwood ad today,” Hayes said.
rawstory.com/ 

Talking point … Clint Eastwood denies his two-minute ad has a political message. ''It's about American spirit, pride and job growth.''

THE most talked-about advertisement of the Super Bowl did not have a supermodel, a cute puppy or a smart-aleck baby. It was a cinematic, two-minute spot featuring Clint Eastwood, an icon of American brawn, likening Chrysler's comeback to the country's economic revival.

And within 12 hours of airing, it became one of the loudest flashpoints yet in the early re-election campaign of the President, Barack Obama.

Conservative critics saw the ad as political payback and accused the car maker of handing Mr Obama a prime-time megaphone in front of one of the largest television audiences of the year. 

Ex Porn Star {Sean Cody} Convicted of Murder

 

We could have titled this one "Natural Porn Killers" but since a real murder was involved, it seemed in poor taste.

Gay-for-pay porn star Jason Andrews, who went by the name Addison on porn site SeanCody.com, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to the adult news site AVN, the 28-year-old Andrews had allegedy teamed up to commit the crime with fellow adult performer Amanda Logue, who went by the names Sunny Dae and Mandy Kaye. The site says the two "were both charged with the bludgeoning and stabbing death of Dennis 'Scooter' Abrahamsen, a 41-year-old tattoo shop owner who was killed in his Hudson, Florida home following a sex party with Logue and another couple."

About $6,000, a laptop computer, a video camera, a digital camera and a Home Depot credit card had been stolen from the home. The couple were arrested after using the card and Logue eventually explained her side of the story. Abrahamson had allegedly hired her to have sex with him on camera during the party. She claimed that Andrews entered Abrahamsen’s home after the other couple at the party had left, and while she was still there he murdered Abrahamsen.

Andrews' confession and sentence meant he would not have to face the death penalty. Logue, meanwhile, will be tried for first-degree murder in May.

BY: JOE THOMPSON    gay.net

Chrome Comes To Android

he Google Chrome logo is displayed at a store in London on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011.

 

(CNN) -- Android is finally getting Chromed out.

Google launched a beta version of Chrome for Android smartphones and tablets Tuesday, delivering a mobile version of the popular desktop web browser after a very long wait. Indeed, both Android and Chrome launched more than three years ago, and users have demanded unification ever since.

Why bemoan the long wait? Much like the company's other products and services, the new Chrome app hooks wonderfully into the Google universe, giving those immersed in desktop Google apps even more incentive to choose Android as their mobile OS. So, naturally, we would hope — nay, expect — that Chrome would be the default browser for the Android OS.

But this hasn't been the case. Android users have been forced to use a generic, stock browser (unceremoniously named "Browser") that's inferior to not only Chrome, but also other browsers available in the Android Market. Dolphin, anyone?

Google had a reason to take its time: It wanted to do Chrome for Android right.

"We didn't want to just push out Chrome light," said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Google Chrome, in an interview. "Our goal was to get all of Chrome onto Android."

Which is exactly what Pichai and his team did. It's a full version of the Chrome browser for Android, still performing as adroitly as ever without losing the features that come in the desktop version.

There are clear perks in using Chrome instead of other Android browsers. If you're already a desktop Chrome user, your bookmarks will be synced across all your browser versions after signing into your Google account. Even cooler, if you've left pages open on your laptop at home, you can access those same open tabs from your mobile Chrome browser. Search terms you've entered on your desktop browser also carry over to Chrome for Android, saving precious time and screen tapping.

But most important of all, Chrome is fast. Really freaking fast. When typing in an address into the search bar, for instance, Chrome predicts what page you're going to visit and starts loading it in the browser background. So by the time you've clicked "go," most of the site has already loaded.

To be sure, the Chrome browser itself is nothing new. It's been around since 2008, when Google first decided to take on Microsoft, Mozilla and others by casting its lot in the browser wars. The move proved to be a smart one: For nearly the past year and a half, Chrome has slowly increased market share, according to various browser analytics firms' estimates.

In fact, Chrome actually surpassed Firefox, once the most popular alternative to the dominant Internet Explorer (which still holds about 50 percent of desktop browser share). After Tuesday's debut for Android devices — of which there are more than 700,000 activations daily — Chrome's adoption numbers will only escalate.

But the Chrome release raises a number of questions about the new browser app, and the relationship that the Android and Chrome teams have with one another. When the Chrome team first announced it was creating a Chrome-based operating system — later to be known as Chrome OS — it was difficult to resolve how the software wouldn't come into conflict with Android. After all, Android is the premier operating system for all things mobile (smartphones, tablets). Except, that is, for Google's version of the netbook: the Chromebook. So the question is, Which OS owns what? Is it Chrome for netbooks, and Android for everything else?

Pichai thinks there's room enough for both operating systems. The Chrome OS, he says, can be seen "as a different computing paradigm." It's one that, "end-to-end, is fully based on the web."

"Native mobile applications are thriving, but web apps are going to thrive as well," Pichai said.

While it's nice to see the two camps playing nicely in Tuesday's release, it's not without a caveat. As of Tuesday's launch, Chrome for Android is only available for smartphones and tablets running Android version 4.0 (a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich). At this point, this includes just a handful of phones and tablets. And of course, it's Chrome "beta" for Android, so don't expect everything to work perfectly.

Still, Pichai is confident the Chrome team will drop the "beta" title sooner rather than later. "After announcing Chrome the first time, we took it out of beta in three months," Pichai said. "I'd expect this to happen here in the near future." And as it stands, after Chrome moves out of beta, the plan is for Chrome to take the place of Android's default browser permanently.

If you've got Ice Cream Sandwich, head to the Android Market todownload the app right now.

Nest Stop For Prop *8 { The Supremes }

 Both sides confident of victory before highest court in U.S.

  BY GREG HERNANDEZ

The legal battle over California's Proposition 8 will likely not end with the ruling Tuesday (7 February) by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

The ruling will now most certainly be appealed by Prop. 8 proponents to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court can either decide not to hear the case and allow the ruling to stand, or set the stage for the ultimate legal battle over same-sex marriage.

'Every pro-marriage American should be pleased that this case can finally go to the U.S. Supreme Court,' Brian Raum, an attorney for proponents and senior counsel at the legal group Alliance Defense Fund, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News.

Raum added that his is confident Proposition 8 would be upheld by the highest court in the U.S.

Theodore B. Olson, lead co-counsel in the case to overturn Proposition 8, believes the Ninth Circuit ruling has given his side very solid legal footing. Olson has argued as dozen cases before the Supreme Court and was on the winning side of Bush v. Gore in 2000.

'We are very confident that this is the kind of challenge that is, right now, at the core, of what the Supreme Court said is impermissible under the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States,' he said at a Tuesday morning press conference in downtown Los Angeles.

But Olson declined to speculate about what might happen.

'We don't predict what the Supreme Court is going to do or whether it takes a case or doesn't take a case, we don't predict the outcome of Supreme Court decisions because the court decides these cases,' he said.

But Ted Boutrous, an attorney who worked with Olson and others on the case, believes the opinion written by the appeals court makes their decision very unlikely to be overturned. He remarked that it is 'extraordinarily well-done and supported by multiple cases.'

'We anticipate that the proponents of Proposition 8 will seek Supreme Court review,' he said. 'The way the Ninth Circuit crafted the opinion, it's unassailable.'

Fed Appeals Court Strikes Down Prop 8

  

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Proposition 8, finding that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional because it deprives gay and lesbian couples of the equal right to wed.

With a decision that pushes the gay marriage issue a step closer to the U.S. Supreme Court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld former San Francisco Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who invalidated Proposition 8 in 2010 after conducting an unprecedented trial.

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote, joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins.

Judge N. Randy Smith dissented, saying there were "legitimate governmental interests" in restricting the definition of marriage to a union between a man and woman.

Proposition 8 backers can now ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case with an 11-judge panel, or proceed directly to the Supreme Court. Smith's dissent could be a strong indicator there will be some support within the court to take a second look at the case.

The appeals court also rejected the argument that Walker's ruling should be scrapped because he did not disclose he was in a long-term same-sex relationship while he was handling the case. Smith joined in that part of the ruling.

As a result of the continued legal wrangling, same-sex marriages are not expected to resume in California any time soon, with further appeals likely to stretch at least into next year.

In the ruling, Reinhardt, considered one of the nation's most liberal judges, relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 1996 decision striking down a Colorado law that stripped gays and lesbians of protections against discrimination there.

The ruling, however, was focused on California's circumstances, notably the fact Proposition 8 took away the right of same-sex couples to marry that had been established in a 2008 California Supreme Court decision.

The 9th Circuit did not declare a fundamental right for same-sex couples to marry, a broader definition that could have undercut bans on gay marriage in four other western states.

Gay marriage advocates cheered the ruling. Attorney General Kamala Harris, who refused to defend the law in the 9th Circuit, called the decision a "victory for fairness."

And Gov. Jerry Brown, who also has refused to defend Proposition 8, issued a statement saying the ruling is "a powerful affirmation of the right of same-sex couples to marry."

The appeals court's ruling marks another setback or gay marriage opponents, who passed Proposition 8 in 2008 by a 52 to 48 percent margin.

"No court should presume to redefine marriage," said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. "We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage -- tried in San Francisco -- turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld in the Supreme Court."

Proposition 8 restored California's gay marriage ban, trumping a state Supreme Court ruling earlier in 2008 that had invalidated California's prior laws forbidding same-sex nuptials.

Backed by gay rights advocates and the city of San Francisco, two gay couples sued to overturn Proposition 8 in 2009, openly describing the case as an opportunity to force the U.S. Supreme Court to take on the gay marriage issue.

Kristin Perry and Sandy Stier, a Berkeley couple, signed on to the lawsuit, which was crafted by two of the nation's top lawyers, David Boies and former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

The legal challenge has not affected the roughly 18,000 couples who married in the window of time before voters restored the gay marriage ban, creating a two-tiered system of relationships for gay and lesbian couples in California. Gay rights advocates argued that the circumstances underscored the legal weakness in outlawing same-sex marriage, but Proposition 8 supporters disagreed, saying the state's strong domestic partner protections are sufficient.

Lawyers for same-sex couples relied primarily on the argument that Proposition 8 violates federal equal protection rights, saying the law has no social or legal basis other than a discriminatory intent against gays and lesbians. Proposition 8's supporters argued that voters had an interest in preserving the traditional definition of marriage and its importance in procreation.

The 9th Circuit heard arguments in the case in December 2010, but put off a decision to let the California Supreme Court decide whether Proposition 8 supporters have a legal right to defend the law when the state's top elected officials refuse to do so.

The state Supreme Court ruled last year that Proposition 8 backers do have that right, returning the case to the 9th Circuit. In Tuesday's ruling, the 9th Circuit said it would abide by the state court's decision.

mercurynews.com

 

See Channing Tatum like You Have Never Seen him Before SNL

Here's Channing Tatum making sure he didn't do a Lana Del Rey on SNL this weekend.

© NBC Universal

© NBC Universal

© NBC Universal

© NBC Universal

© Rex Features / NBCUPHOTOBANK/Rex Features

Im Getting so Tired of Reporting These Tragedies: Another Teen Hangs Himself

This story was all over the written media today,  but there was a blog that I would like to highlight for the short but straight to the facts and heart summation of what occurred .
The site is  ( http://ishouldbelaughing.blogspot.com ) and the story is featured below:

Rafael Morelos hanged himself. Friends say he did so because he was being bullied for being gay. Not a lot of people knew that, perhaps because he was afraid to talk about it. His own mother didn't know what was happening to him until after he had died.

“He told me he got shoved and punched in the face in PE in the locker room at Cashmere.”

Lexi Mullin, a friend of Rafael Morelos.

“He was tired of people saying that his little brothers would follow in his footsteps and be gay too.”

Maranda Blankenship, another friend.

Rob Cline, principal at Cashmere Middle School, admitted that Rafael had complained, one time, of being bullied at school, but said that there was no ongoing investigation. Cline said, "[W]e took care of that. We investigated and took appropriate action.” 
However, he declined to say what action the district took, or when during the school year Rafael complained to the school about being bullied, saying “Student discipline is not something I am at liberty to share.”
It should be. The bullies should not be protected and harbored. They need to be disciplined and/or removed from the school. Before another one dies.
Malinda Morelos, Rafael's mother, who did not hear that her son was bullied until a candlelight vigil Tuesday night, said, Rafael “sometimes acted strong but, inside, he was dying little by little.”
Apparently just for being gay.

The Spyder Man { What’s Different, What’s New?}

 

 

• By Kyle Buchanan

•  Email

Sony's revamped Spider-Man cast his widest web yet today, as the studio set up simultaneous sneak peeks in theaters all over the world to tease footage from its upcoming series reboot The Amazing Spider-Man. With director Marc Webb touting the film in Los Angeles, and stars Andrew Garfield in New York, Emma Stone in Rio de Janeiro, and Rhys Ifans in London, the new Spider-Man crew showed off a second trailer and plenty of scenes, but still, the shadow cast by Sam Raimi's three recent Spider-Man blockbusters loomed large. With those movies still freshly in mind, then, what did Amazing Spider-Man have that was new?

The new love interestFans were initially surprised when the redheaded Emma Stone was cast in the film as someone other than Peter Parker's longtime love, the similarly auburn-haired Mary Jane. Instead, she's playing blonde Gwen Stacy, who preceded M.J. in the comic-book continuity ... and met an untimely end (we'll see if the big-screen version follows suit). "Gwen is pretty much the yin to Mary Jane's yang," explained Stone. Unlike M.J., Gwen's got a happy home life — though her policeman father, played by Denis Leary, will make things tough for Spider-Man — and Stone hastened to remind us, "Gwen falls in love with Peter Parker, and I think Mary Jane fell in love with Spider-Man." Meow!

The new trailer
Webb showed off a new, second trailer for the movie (where the audio was accidentally synched a half-beat too slow ... whoops!) that put more of an emphasis on Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker's new arch-enemy the Lizard. We saw a lot more wise-cracking and web-swinging in this new montage, and thankfully, most of it was more convincing than the breathtaking but video-game-y sequence that ended the previous trailer. Webb then switched to 2-D for an extended sizzle reel that contained much of the same footage he showed off at Comic-Con last summer: Peter and Gwen shyly flirt, while Peter follows the trail left behind by his deceased parents, which leads to Dr. Curt Connors. This time, Webb wisely shied away from showing too much of the eventual Connors transformation into the Lizard, a major CG special effect that still seems at odds with his new, more grounded approach.

The new tone
"We want to treat Peter Parker in a more realistic, naturalistic way," said Webb. Translation: No more corny dance sequences! Instead, Peter and Gwen have a low-key chemistry that could have come from a Sundance indie; Peter's got a new, emotionally grounded backstory (Webb stressed that the mystery of what happened to his parents will be Peter's driving motivation); and even the filmmaking seemed more subdued: You won't find any of Sam Raimi's giddy dutch angles here.

The new Spidey?
What made Garfield, a British up-and-comer turning 30, want to play Spider-Man? "Because I'm not an idiot," Garfield cracked. "It's the thing everyone in this room wants ... and it belongs to everyone in this room." The always self-effacing Garfield repeatedly made his case that the role of Peter Parker was greater than any actor who might play him, whether that's Tobey Maguire, Garfield himself, or even the next guy. And when they do hire a different Spider-Man, Garfield slyly encouraged Marvel to embrace their new, Donald Glover–resembling comic book hero: "Hopefully next time, it'll be a half-Hispanic, half-African-American actor," Garfield said, to applause.

NYmag.com

FaceBook Reinstates {Man of The Day} Site

Let's not beat around the bush: Facebook continues to share a double-sided-standard with conservative groups, as evident in the social network behemoth's latest anti-male/anti-gay suspension. 

L’Homme du Jour, or Man of the Day if you're not an Obamacare-supporting socialist, was briefly suspended on Friday following the posting of the above picture on the popular gay page. Along with its suspension, page moderators received a notice reiterating Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which forbids the use of sexually-explicit images.

But this picture of male model Leo Silva? 

Ray Clark, administrator of the Man of the Day Facebook page, is tired of Facebook's double standard. "I think that the removal of this image is outrageous, we live in a modern society where people (and especially women) are allowed to wear even skimpier and even less than what is shown in this image," he said in a statement to Pink News. "This image contains no nudity nor is it sexually suggestive."

“On numerous occasions we have advised Facebook that we are committed to adhering to their community standards and have asked them to clarify exactly what is and isn’t acceptable, but of course they remain mysteriously silent on the issue," Clark added. 

Following complaints, Facebook reinstated Man of the Day within hours of its suspension, though it issued no clarification for why the page was removed in the first place.

Clark has his suspicions, however. 

 “I think that what is really happening here is a planned and strategic attack on our page by conservative and/or religious groups who are against anything other than an overall.

“But this will only serve to encourage us to post more and more content of this type.”

Well at least Facebook's anti-gay/anti-male page suspensions are being reversed in increasingly shorter time frames, right? Progress?

Written by Jonathan Higbee 
instinctmagazine.com

My Secret History of The Highline

I thought I write about the history about the Highline.  But I was going to concentrate on the history below the Highline, because that’s where my personal stories on my experiences is the most fertile. But that would make me go to my own experiences and persoanal x rated stories.
The experience of walking down West Avenue after a night of dancing and fun, but not having hooked up with anyone or even if I did hooked earlier, the desire was insatiable, to make up of the straight years.  I would walked down West to get the subway on West 4 St.

I would have to start talking about the handsome guy walking his dog or just having a cigarette by the water.  If he was cute he would be coming back home to his bed or to his lover after having done something you only do in a bed with someone you know and now a days trust, but those rules were not on the gay books back then. But this time it was with stranger that you never seen or never will see again.

So, I will leave that subject alone until the time that I am ready to write about me. But since I also had experiences on the Highline above, through the entrance on 21 Street I need to leave it alone all together and just show you the picture above and leave you it to your imagination. Im sure you can imagine fine.
Adam