Free Republic

After making its way through the state Senate's Judiciary and Education Committees over the last month, a bill that would require schools to incorporate information on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Americans into their curricula passed by 23-14 on the Senate floor Thursday. The measure, which goes to the Assembly next, addresses high bullying rates of LGBT youth and the absence of LGBT Americans from official accounts of history in school curricula. It would expand on existing laws that require instructional materials to include accurate portrayals of the role and contribution of culturally and racially diverse groups. That list,...

'Brokeback' named Hollywood word of the year Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:33 AM ET LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - And the winner for Hollywood's word of the year is "Brokeback," thanks to all the talk around the water cooler and Internet jokes that have turned a film about two gay cowboys into a cultural phenomenon. The nonprofit group Global Language Monitor placed "Brokeback" -- as in the film title "Brokeback Mountain" -- at the top of its list of Hollywood words and phrases that captured attention this year. Paul JJ Payack, the head of Global Language Monitor, said the movie became...

CHRISTIAN groups led a furious campaign against Hollywood yesterday, accusing the Golden Globe Awards of promoting films with gay or “leftist” themes to serve a political agenda. The criticism was made after Brokeback Mountain, a film about the forbidden love between gay Wyoming cowboys, won four awards. Other winners included Philip Seymour Hoffman, named Best Actor for his portrayal of the homosexual writer Truman Capote; and Felicity Huffman, the Desperate Housewives actress who played a transsexual with a gay prostitute son in Transamerica. “Once again, the media elites are proving that their pet projects are more important than profit,” Janice...

HOT Oscar tip Heath Ledger yesterday compared US bans on his gay cowboy film to racism. Critics' Choice Awards Picture Gallery Ledger said he was not surprised a Utah cinema had banned Brokeback Mountain, which depicts a lifelong love affair between two Montana cowboys. "I heard a while ago that West Virginia was going to ban it. But that's a state that was lynching people only 25 years ago, so that's to be expected," Ledger said. "Personally, I don't think the movie is (controversial) but I think maybe the Mormons in Utah do. I think it's hilarious and very immature...

Nothing is standing in the way of "Brokeback Mountain." Expanding to 214 new playdates and more than 60 new markets, including numerous small cities in mountain, Midwestern, and southern states, Focus' cowboy love story averaged a still-strong $11,905 per theater. Playing at 483 locations, weekend gross was $5.8 million, bringing the pic's cume to $22.5 million. "Brokeback" came out ahead of several new pics on twice or four times as many playdates, including "Casanova," "Bloodrayne" and "Grandma's Boy." Among the new markets where the critically acclaimed pic opened strong were Tulsa, El Paso, Des Moines and Lubbock, Tex. Pic, which...