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Cities across the nation were gearing up Sunday for what were expected to be especially well-attended and exuberant gay pride parades following the U.S. Supreme Court decisions restoring same-sex marriages to California and granting gay couples the federal benefits of marriage they were previously denied. The gay pride celebrations scheduled in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle and St. Louis are annual, and in most cases decades-old events whose tones and themes have mirrored the gay rights movement's greatest victories and defeats. This year's parades, coming on the heels of the high court's historic decisions, should be no...

She has dated two actors, Zoe Saldana is quite frankly over it. The Avatar star appears to be making a vow to have less high profile romances in the future. Zoe quite literally bares all as she strips off for a photo shoot while speaking candidly in a new interview. The actress also suggests that when it comes to her future relationships, the person she ends up with may not be a man. ‘[I might] end up with a woman raising my children,’ Zoe tells the new issue of Allure magazine. ‘That’s how androgynous I am.’ Zoe had a famous...

A group of gay activists are beginning a national campaign against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays. In the next few months, gay men and women in their late teens and early 20s will attempt to enlist at recruiting offices in 30 cities, including Bloomington, Indiana. They will also disclose their sexual orientation. If they are rebuffed, the activists plan to stage sit-ins at the offices, hoping to attract media coverage and support from a public they believe increasingly opposes the ban. Organizers have dubbed the campaign Right to Serve. The military is prohibited from asking recruits...

<p>If you see rainbow-colored tassels dangling from mortarboards this college commencement season, think lavender. Echoing a tradition already established on many campuses for minority students and other groups, a small but growing number of schools are holding "lavender graduations" to honor gay and lesbian students.</p>

They tore up the terrazzo dancing salsa at South Beach's Pearl. They jammed to electronica and played make-believe news anchors and firefighters at the Miami Children's Museum. They did the Dirty-South grind, chains of them in bikinis and surfer shorts, around the pool at the Surfcomber on Collins Avenue. More than 7,000 lesbians, from South Florida, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, even Canada, France and South America, came together over the weekend for the blowout fundraiser Aqua Girl. They didn't stop dancing until well into Sunday evening. They also didn't stop surprising themselves with their ease in blending together. In...

FOR OVER A HUNDRED YEARS children have gathered on the South Lawn of the White House on the Monday after Easter to roll Easter eggs across the yard and meet the Easter Bunny. Seemingly few (if any) Washingtonians have ever tried to exploit the annual White House Easter Egg Roll for political purposes. Until now. A church-based homosexual rights group is planning to crash the event with a "family visibility action" to spotlight their non-traditional families. "On April 17, 2006, when the White House lawn is opened to families for the Annual Easter Egg Roll, imagine if the first 1,000...

West Hollywood -- I am a gift. A prize. After years of difficult repression, men with a secret seek me out as a reward for their good behavior. I make a living having sex with these closeted married men. I'm an "escort," to use the euphemism, which gives me a unique perspective on a potential, and particular, cultural fallout as "Brokeback Mountain" widens out not just to Britain but to every remaining crumb in America's breadbasket. Much has been made about the "turning point" effect Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee's Oscar-jockeying film could force upon Hollywood. The movie is based...

A TIME magazine cover story and a recent pro-homosexual school event should leave no doubt that homosexual activists are recruiting kids into homosexual sex and a “gay” identity, using “tolerance” as a ruse. The TIME October 10 piece, “The Battle Over Gay Teens,” which includes not a single reference to the extremely dangerous medical consequences of homosexual behavior, especially for boys, includes these details: • A cocktail party in Manhattan with billionaire liquor magnate Edgar Bronfman, Sr. and Clinton political strategist David Mixner was held in May to raise money for the Point Foundation, a scholarship program to turn “gay”...

About 30,000 gays and lesbians flock to Disney venues to celebrate the eighth annual Gay Days event. ANAHEIM – La Habra resident Kevyn McCall feels a tad uncomfortable holding hands or linking arms with a man during monthly trips to Disneyland.

A groundbreaking movie about forbidden love between two cowboys in the American West, "Brokeback Mountain" by Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, has conquered critics at the 62nd Venice international film festival even before its world premiere. Featuring strong performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading roles, the film is a sensitive study of the homosexual relationship between two cowboys who meet while working on a ranch in 1963. "There's never been a homosexual cowboy movie," producer James Schamus told a press conference in Venice Friday. But Lee was quick to explain that the theme of his film was...

risky behaviour causes it???) ATLANTA - Black Americans represent only 12 percent of the population, but we account for more than half of all new cases of HIV/AIDS. That frightening fact was one of the headline statistics to emerge from a conference in Atlanta last week held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The highest rate of infection in the country occurs among bisexual black men. And that has implications for black women, who are 19 times more likely to be infected than white women. That's because so many black men have unprotected sex with other men but...

I sort of came out in sixth grade, but like a lot of kids who get harassed for "being gay," it wasn't anything about my sexuality that prompted the harassment. It was because I was a boy who did his homework and paid attention in class and did all the things boys weren't supposed to do. I was harassed relentlessly through my junior high and high school years. I made a little promise to myself right there, and said, "I will do whatever I can so that the next generation has it better than we had it." So, I started...

"Equal rights, no more--no less." That was the theme of this year's Austin Pride Parade. The slogan had an even more important meaning for those in the gay, lesbian, and transgender community who are upset over the legislature passing a gay marriage ban amendment in November. "I think it's extremely important just to see the view of everybody's lifestyle and not being different from anybody else's. We're just average, normal people just like everybody else. We want to carry on our life just like everyone else does," parade participant Danny Gomez said. As participants cobbled together their floats before the...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Almost 2 million gay men, lesbians, transvestites and their supporters - many in lavish Carnival costumes and waving rainbow-colored flags - paraded in Brazil's biggest city on Sunday to celebrate gay pride and call for the legalization of civil unions between homosexuals. More than 20 sound trucks blasting music, and carrying go-go boys and drag queens, rolled down the skyscraper-lined Avenida Paulista for the Ninth Annual Sao Paulo Gay Parade - a parade that organizers said was one of the world's largest gay pride events ever. Police and organizers said almost 2 million people, including...