The sexy pictures are part of a newly-launched campaign designed to appeal to both potential FSU basketball players and fans. The new website for the FSU team features many pictures like the one above. In the "meet the team" section, each player has her own profile page, which is overwhelmingly dominated by a shot of the athlete dressed in a satin dress, exiting a limo. Although some clutch basketballs - the only nod to the fact that these are basketball players, not debutantes - others are straight up glamor shots (the most obvious example is the image of Kayli Keough, guard/forward). The main page shows the entire team in a limo, perfectly coiffed and smiling at the camera. Yes, they look great. They fully live up to their claim of "Confidence. Strength. Beauty. We've got it all." But it is hard not to wonder, what does beauty have to do with anything?

This is the question posed by Jayda Evans. In her column for the Seattle Times, Evans examines the re-designed site for the No. 15 team, ultimately coming to the conclusion that the emphasis on femininity and beauty indicates an underlying fear of being viewed as anything other than straight. She mentions the documentary Training Rules, about former Penn State coach Rene Portland, who allegedly had just three rules for her players: No drinking, no drugs, and absolutely no lesbians. Portland may have been more explicit about her homophobia, but the FSU website reveals a certain desire to move away from the actual game - where players are sweaty, strong and accomplished, perhaps frighteningly so - towards a much more polished image of female athletes as celebrities first, players second. Evans points out that attempt to make female athletes appear "powerful, beautiful, strong and accomplished" is just another way to gloss over the fact that they are being overtly feminized. For Evans, "beautiful" is translated as "attractive to men," and implicitly, heterosexual.

In a press release for the newly launched website, FSU coach Sue Semrau explains their decision to depict their players en route to some fancy shindig: "We feel it is important to set ourselves apart as much as we can... We wanted to have a product that would stand out to the people we are trying to reach." The "product" being not only the game, but the individual players. At Carnal San Francisco, editor Tim McElreavy suggests that Semrau's attempt to "sell" the game reveals a disheartening focus on the bottom line: "While it would be naïve to believe that college sports isn't or shouldn't be concerned with the bottom line, such words, especially from a coach, really seem to instrumentalize the players' achievements. Add to this business rhetoric the stereotype of the pretty woman, and women's sports marketing moves further and further away from the actual sport," he writes.

And to drive home this point, take a look at the website for the FSU men's team, where the players are portrayed in a rather different light. There is no doubt that this is about the "actual sport." Their website features pictures of the players in action. Their faces are contorted into grimaces of concentration while sweat pours off their bodies. Okay, it's not unattractive, but it's also not purposefully sexy. The emphasis is on the game, not the dolled-up players. While FSU women have to be "sold" and "appeal" to the public, the men's team can safely coast on the knowledge that people watch them play for reasons other than their sex appeal.

Women's Hoops Media Guides And Web Sites Getting Sexier [Seattle Times]
Glam Photos Show The Ugly Side Of Women's Basketball [Carnal San Francisco]
Glammed Up B'Ball Stars Spark Uproar [Newser]
Florida State University Women's Basketball [Official Site]

According to a recent poll, 52% of Americans see Sarah Palin unfavorably, and 53% wouldn't consider voting for her for President. ABC's Gary Langer says Palin "stumbles outside her base" — she's perceived favorably by only 21% of Democrats, and just 37% of people under 30. Revelations about her ghostwriter Lynn Vincent and "favored blogger" Robert Stacy McCain are unlikely to help matters. Palin called on McCain to help her counter rumors of an impending divorce from Todd Palin,and he was the one who initially recommended Vincent. McCain (apparently no relation to John) co-wrote Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party with Vincent in 2005, and his own politics are pretty embarrassing, even for Palin. A member of a neo-Confederate group that calls for a "second secession," he once wrote the following on a website called Reclaiming the South:

[T]he media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

The views of Vincent, his onetime co-author, are no more palatable. In her columns for the evangelical magazine World, Vincent wrote,

As gay activists incrementally shatter their final barrier between deviance and "normal," government bodies are institutionalizing viewpoint discrimination against employees who still object to homosexuality on moral grounds.

And,

The American Psychiatric Association, under political pressure from a vitriolic internal gay caucus, ignored that science and removed homosexuality from its list of disorders in 1973. But science just wouldn't go away: Researchers have since found causal links between homosexuality and a lack of male role models (Journal of Genetics and Psychology, 1983); parental emotional abandonment (Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1989); and child sexual abuse (Child Abuse and Neglect, 1992).

But should we be criticizing Palin's friends, her ghostwriter, or even Palin herself? Even before her book's November 17 release date (that's tomorrow, folks!), some liberal writers have started up an anti-anti-Palin backlash, arguing that the left should let up on her already. Linda Hirschman argues pretty persuasively that Palin's expensive campaign clothes aren't the big deal they were made out to be, although her claim that complaints in this area stemmed from the expectation that women's husbands buy their clothes for them seems a bit far-fetched. A little harder to swallow is Lee Siegel's allegation that Palin's liberal critics are like masturbating dogs. He opens his piece with a description of his uncle's dachshunds:

As soon as each one had secured his position, they proceeded to rub against the object of desire until they ejaculated, after which they dragged themselves into a corner and fell into a deep sleep.

Sarah Palin is surrounded by frisky liberal dachsunds, who are so excited by the prospect of rubbing their critical faculties against her every move and utterance that on the eve of the publication of her autobiography, the sound of scrambling paws and frenetic squeals is everywhere.

Of course, it's no fun being compared to a horny dachshund, but the really upsetting thing about Siegel's piece is how he positions himself as a contrarian while simply echoing all the baseless praise Palin's supporters have always heaped on her. He writes that "I don't share any of Palin's politics," but what he does share with her base is the idea that Palin "embodies an American story" and that liberals "seize[d] on her outsiderness." He writes,

True outsiders often discombobulate the liberal mind. The source of liberal values is the idea that life's quick changes make us all fundamentally outsiders, and that any social and political arrangement has to take the outsider, not the cozy insider, as its moral starting point. [...] But powerful liberals are rarely outsiders, and so true outsiders shake their sense of self. Plenty of liberals must have felt a few minutes of alarm when Sarah Palin first appeared on the scene and challenged their authenticity. Then she imploded, and they tore her apart, perhaps in savage relief at finding their virtuous identities still intact.

Siegel is far from the first to argue that there must be some weird psychological reason why liberals hate Sarah Palin. But it's a truly strange and unnecessary argument given the many real ways in which Palin's beliefs and activities go against everything liberals stand for. Siegel mentions "death panels" in an aside, but the impact of Palin's Facebook misinformation on the healthcare debate has been large, and has nothing to do with who's an "outsider." Nor does the statement that being pro-choice also means wanting to deny old people insurance coverage. Nor, for that matter, does the fact that she would choose a writer for her book who thinks of homosexuality as "deviance." All these objections to Sarah Palin are quite concrete, while Siegel's defenses — and those offered by many Palin supporters — are frustratingly abstract. She's "fascinating," she's "refreshing," her "experience" of American civilization is "raw and uncontrolled." Siegel seems to be doing Palin just as much of a disservice as the "dachshunds" he mocks, by fetishizing her outsider status rather than judging her on her merits.

A more compelling argument than Siegel's is that, now that Palin no longer holds public office, liberals should simply ignore her. It's tempting, and I for one am hoping that, after her book tour, Palin begins a slow fade into obscurity. But she obviously has bigger plans, and whether or not they include a presidential run in 2012, Palin retains a certain influence, especially over the healthcare debate. As long as she holds this influence, she's worthy of critique — and she shouldn't be exempt just because some people find her "refreshing."

Palin Co-Author Lynn Vincent's Inflammatory Record [MediaMatters]
Palin's Fringe Literary Partners [Daily Beast]
Leave Palin Alone [Daily Beast]
Time To End Pantsuit-Gate [Daily Beast]
Sarah Palin: Rogue For President? [ABC]

After a gruesome lead that covers the story of Hisham, an Iraqi refugee now living in Beirut, the article goes on to explain:

In Baghdad a new series of murders began early this year, perpetrated against men suspected of being gay. Often they are raped, their genitals cut off, and their anuses sealed with glue. Their bodies are left at landfills or dumped in the streets. The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch, which has documented many of these crimes, has spoken of a systematic campaign of violence involving hundreds of murders.

Weaving the key aspects of the persecution with humanizing narratives, writers Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Daniel Steinvorth (originally writing for Der Speigel) produce a rich discussion of the current climate for homosexuals in increasingly theocratic areas. While their analysis revolves around same gender loving men, they do paint a detailed picture of the issues at play.

• There's something a wee bit familiar about these justifications for homophobia:

  Islamists are now a dominant cultural force in many of these countries. They include figures such as popular Egyptian television preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who demonizes gays as perverse. Four years ago the Shiite grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gays are to be murdered in the most brutal way possible. These religious opinion leaders base their hatred for gays on the story of Lot in the Koran: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation [ever] committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." Lot's people suffered the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. The prophet Mohammed has a number of dicta in which he condemns these acts by Lot's people, and in one of them he even goes as far as to call for punishment by death.

• As is the case in many cultures, homosexuality was not always universally condemned:
  

  It looks as if a wave of homophobia has swept over the Islamic world, a place that was once widely known for its open-mindedness, where homoerotic literature was written and widely read, where gender roles were not so narrowly defined, and, as in the days of ancient Greece, where men often sought the companionship of youths[...]

  The story of Lot and related verses in the Koran were not interpreted as unambiguous references to homosexual sex until the 20th century, says Everett Rowson, professor of Islamic studies at New York University. This reinterpretation was the result of Western influences — its source was the prudery of European colonialists who introduced their conception of sexual morality to the newly conquered countries.

  The fact of the matter is that half of the laws across the world that prohibit homosexuality today are derived from a single law that the British enacted in India in 1860. "Many attitudes with regard to sexual morality that are thought to be identical to Islam owe a lot more to Queen Victoria than to the Koran," Rowson says.

• Often, intrusions of the state into the realm of the personal aren't as founded in religion as they appear:
  

  "The most repressive are secular regimes such as those in Egypt or Morocco, which are under pressure from Islamists and so try to outdo them with regard to morals," says Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. "In addition, the persecution of homosexuals shows that a regime has control over the private lives of its citizens — a sign of power and authority." For several years now, a sense of "moral panic" has been systematically fomented in many Muslim countries.

• What is moral and what is immoral? The lines, when examined, begin to blur:
  

  The persecution of gays has led to a boom in the demand for sex-change operations in Iran. More operations of this kind are carried out in the Islamic Republic than anywhere else in the world apart from Thailand. These procedures were approved by Ayatollah Khomeini himself in 1983. Khomeini defined transsexuality as a disease that can be healed by means of an operation. Since then thousands of people have requested this kind of treatment, and the Iranian government even covers part of the costs.

  "Family members and physicians urge homosexuals to have operations to normalize their sexual orientation," Parsi says. This way it was possible for a high-ranking Shiite religious scholar to finance his secretary's physical transformation into a woman and then to marry him.

• The reality on paper isn't always the reality on the ground:
  

  The archconservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country where sharia law is the sole legal code, under which homosexuals are flogged and executed. "Homosexuals are freer here than they are in Iran," says Afdhere Jama, who traveled through the Islamic world for seven years doing research for his book "Illegal Citizens."

  Gay men and women have a surprising amount of space in Saudi society. Newspapers print stories about lesbian sex in school lavatories, while it is an open secret that certain shopping centers, restaurants and bars in Jeddah and Riyadh are gay meeting points.

• And, as always, bigotry wilts in the face of common sense:
  

  [Openly gay imam Daayiee Abdullah] regularly receives death threats but now laughs them off, saying: "How can two loving men pose a threat to the foundations God has laid?

  "

  Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world [Salon]

As Laura Shapiro explained in a biography, excerpted in Boston Magazine, Julia was a woman who defined her life by her close marriage to her husband, Paul, and considered their married state the height of happiness.

For this reason, she found homosexuality outlandish-not immoral, and certainly not to be criminalized, but a rude disruption in the natural order of things. Homophobia was a socially acceptable form of bigotry in midcentury America, and Julia and Paul participated without shame for many years. She often used the term pedal or pedalo-French slang for a homosexual-draping it with condescension, pity, and disapproval. "I had my hair permanented at E. Arden's, using the same pedalo I had before (I wish all the men in OUR profession in the USA were not pedals!),"that little bunch of Pansies," a cooking school was "a nest of homovipers."

She was also known to toss the term "fag" around in private, and later, notoriously, blocked the appointment of a gay chef at the the American Institute for Wine and Food. Julia Child adored men, but "masculine" men, whose company she adored and who she felt, French-fashion, were natural masters of the kitchen whose involvement should be encouraged in order to further distance cuisine from drudgery. ( Of lesbians, she apparently said,"Can't be much fun.") While, as we know, this form of casual prejudice was hardly unusual in the era - and not even always as malicious as it might seem - in Julia Child's case the situation's complicated by the fact that, unlike many of her era, she'd actually had a lot of experience and contact with uncloseted gay men. Even in the 60s, there were a number of chefs whom everyone knew to be gay, and Julia enjoyed a close and enduring friendship with James Beard.

With the exception of the Wine and Food case, though, Child seems to have been able to put her personal feelings aside: her main concern, apparently, was talent, and she'd generously support young talent wherever she found it, helping people of all orientations. By the end, she'd apparently changed her tune.

By the 1980s, when the AIDS crisis began to unfold, the horror of what was happening to people she knew, and people she loved, dealt a significant blow to her longtime prejudice. "Last year my husband and I stood by helplessly while a dear and beloved friend went through months of slow and frightening agony," she told a crowd at the Boston Garden in 1988 during an AIDS benefit sponsored by the American Institute of Wine and Food. "But what of those lonely ones? The ones with no friends or family to ease the slow pain of dying? Those are the people we're concerned about this evening. And food is of very special importance here. Good food is also love."

That is the Julia we want to remember. To those of us who love Julia's forthrightness and idiosyncrasy, hearing about the ugliness of prejudice is difficult. Yes, her views were not unusual for the times, but we love her for her independence and departure from convention. And as stated, this was not the vague general prejudice of total ignorance, but a distaste directed at specific individuals. No one is perfect, of course: Flannery O'Connor, in many ways progressive, had many of the attitudes of a typical 1950s white southerner. Similarly, had Julia Child lived later, who knows what her views and attitudes might have been? But had she lived later, she couldn't have been the force for change that she was. It's unrealistic to expect modern sensitivity in retro idols, and I know that. But part of an idol's job is to reflect what we want to see and live idealized, and in some ways it would be an insult to their memory not to be disappointed. Does this tarnish Julia's legacy? Perhaps. But the ability to change isn't a bad one, either.

Julia Child: Just a Pinch of Prejudice [Boston]
Can Meryl Streep Make Homophobic Julia Child Into a Gay Icon? [MovieLine]

See, even after Proposition 8, all the outstanding defenders of marriage were so sad because the gays were still winning. Then they were rescued! Behold:

The sea change just may have happened when a pretty, empathetic face came onto the national scene. A young competitor in a beauty contest was asked about her position on gay marriage, and she answered honestly (and, as it turns out, bravely): "I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman." She added: "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Lopez writes,

unlike those strident advocates of gay marriage who spent the time during and after the Proposition 8 campaign in California intimidating and punishing those who supported the measure, most of us who oppose gay marriage are not looking to exclude anyone from any kind of happiness.

Carrie Prejean is now a face of that kind of tolerance.

But "that kind of tolerance" also has another, oranger face. Lopez quotes designer Valentino, who says,

For myself, all these years, I never thought about it in terms of changing the laws. [My partner] Giammetti and I found our own way - nothing conventional - and it was always friendship first, always the most important thing: the friendship. I am neither for it legally, nor against it, so I have no personal agenda here.

When a fashion designer with no political involvement says something non-committal about gay marriage, to Lopez this means,

There is something transparently different between two men who decide to spend their lives together, and a marriage.

I could make fun of Kathryn Lopez and her questionable source material — she also quotes her friend Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) — all day, but her editorial does bring up a disturbing issue. While there are still plenty of unrepentant gay-bashers out there, it's becoming less accepted to say you oppose gay marriage because gays are gross and evil. It's now more popular — and maybe more insidious — to talk about "difference," about "protecting marriage" while "not excluding anyone from any kind of happiness." Of course, keeping gay people who want to get married from doing so is excluding them from a kind of happiness, but the new kinder, gentler anti-gay marriage rhetoric aims to conceal this fact. Kathryn Lopez, Carrie Prejean, and others of their ilk swear they aren't bigoted, and that being against gay marriage is different from being a racist, a sexist, or an anti-Semite. But their arguments for the necessity of maintaining a special legal status for heterosexual unions are so uncompelling that it's hard to see them as anything but a smokescreen for prejudice.

Carrie In Valentino Red [National Review Online]

Savage is famous for telling a caller to MSNBC to "get AIDS and die, you pig," and, more recently, for making it onto an "undesirables" list compiled by the (now ousted) Home Secretary of the UK. How did Savage get himself on a list with a former KKK Grand Wizard, a neo-Nazi leader, and the Rev. Fred Phelps, whose church's slogan is "God Hates Fags?" Well, by saying things like this:

There is certainly a possibility that our dear friends in the Middle East cooked [swine flu] up in a laboratory, in a cave, and brought it into Mexico, knowing that our incompetent government would not protect us from this epidemic because of open-border policies.

And this:

The homosexuals have taken over every aspect of the culture. That's how we have the President that we have, because we've twisted everything into what it isn't [...] Diversity is a cover for perversity.

And this:

Obama hates America and the history of this country [...] Obama is raping America. Obama is raping our values. Obama is raping our democracy. And he's saying to you, who are you gonna believe, me, with this sonorous Kenyan voice, the con man in front of your eyes? Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

Savage is also a professional paranoiac, who claims to record his show from several "hidden locations" (he is aided in this by an executive producer named Beowulf Rochlen). This ad from his website pretty much sums up his attitude:

Given all these — and many more — wacked-out expressions of bigotry, it's odd that Sanneh finds Savage kind of charming. Savage says Sanneh looks like Obama (not true, but maybe he thinks all black men look alike?), but he also serves him tasty beer and waxes philosophical about the futility of it all. He tells Sanneh,

I watch shows where they're digging up the mummy from four thousand years ago, bothering his tomb. That person shaved, brushed his teeth with a stick, took a shit, got laid, whatever. And now what? Who the fuck knows what his politics were?

Savage talks a lot about his own death, and he seems to think he will die without truly making a difference. While Sarah Palin sees herself as a rebel leader at the head of "real America," Savage seems to cast himself in the role of Cassandra. In his rant about diversity and perversity (part of a larger ran about Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton, "a man who hates women so much that he won't have sex with them"), he says "15 years I've tried to warn you [...] and I've failed." Tried to warn you about what? Well, gays, liberals, immigrants, anti-Americanism, all of which he links in one big web of evil that he doesn't really believe he has the power to untangle.

Demagogues (people like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and now Sarah Palin) often speak simply. They toss red meat to their base (i.e., calling George Tiller's assassination a "termination"), they try to inflame the opposition, they create slogans. Savage, by contrast, frequently rambles bizarrely. Here he is on his dog, Teddy:

My dog is only eleven pounds. What's shocking to me is that my dog's, like, hindquarter — I looked at it the other day, when he got wet... I looked at his leg. It looked like a large chicken leg. I got frightened. So I said, how could you eat a chicken, and savor it, and the dog's — I can't do it.

Savage's dog's leg has nothing to do with any conservative cause (and, for the record, he hates both animal cruelty and animal rights activists), but Savage doesn't necessarily let conservative causes, or any causes, dictate what he talks about. As Sanneh points out, despite his previous Times bestsellers, he chose to sell his 2008 book, Psychological Nudity: Savage Radio Stories, solely through his website. Sanneh asks, "What other political firebrand would self-publish a book of autobiographical anecdotes at the peak of election season?"

Michael Savage doesn't seem to be trying to impress people, or to rally a coalition around him. He may not even be trying to convince anyone. And while this I'm-just-an-independent-stating-my-opinions routine has been used dishonestly by others, in Savage it feels genuine. Conservative pundits frequently claim that they say out loud what everyone really thinks — Savage really thinks what other people say out loud. But given that what he thinks is so frequently hateful and bigoted, is this better or worse?

Party Of One [The New Yorker]
UK Publishes List Of 'Least Wanted' People [CNN]
Michael Savage Clips [MediaMatters]
MichaelSavage.com [Official Site]

• An anonymous man, who has been convicted of attempted rape twice, first when he was 11 and again at 14, spoke to the BBC about his own history of abuse and why he continued the cycle of violence. "I didn't see it as committing a sexual offence, I seen it as a normal act," he said. "I'd witnessed it all my life, it was just normal to me, didn't think there was anything wrong with it… playing doctors and nurses, that's how I described it when I was younger." • Time magazine investigates the link between homophobia in Africa and the AIDs epidemic. Sadly, since public health announcements focus exclusively on heterosexual sex, many African men are unaware of the risks associated with unprotected anal sex. • A recent study on the power of media influence on teen behavior shows that kids are more likely to do stupid shit like "car surfing" (i.e. riding on the roof of a moving car) after they have seen it depicted on television or in a film. • Click here to watch a video of a beagle and a raccoon playing together. Cute interspecies friendships are the best! • A survey of female surgeons found that most women doctors are happy with their career choice, although many of them would prefer to have a more flexible work schedule. • According to a study from the University of Montreal, women who have had their ovaries removed and thus experience premature menopause are more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer than those who enter menopause without intervention. • "Though violence against women can be found in every country, women in societies with entrenched male dominance, patriarchal kinship patterns, and legalised discrimination - the situation in many Arab countries - are acutely vulnerable," reads a recently released UN-sponsored report on "Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries." It continues: "The fabled oil wealth of the Arab countries presents a misleading picture of their economic situation to live with the insecurities associated with their status. They are at the mercy of conditions in camps or political and economic events in their host countries, which could suddenly turn against them." • Pro-choice advocate group NARAL has announced that it's endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. NARAL previously withheld support because it was uncertain of Sotomayor's views on the issue since she has never ruled on abortion. •

Kirchick, whose studied intolerance of the LGBT rights movement, dislike of liberal gay men and antipathy towards feminism hardly makes him a hard-hitting interviewer, lets that — and, let's face it, quite a bit — pass in his breezy interview of the woman who wants to be the voice of a Republican generation. He apparently rather likes being liked by Meghan McCain for his gayness, as opposed to his actual personality.

What Kirchick doesn't like is how mean everyone is to Meghan McCain.

Not surprisingly, McCain the younger has drawn poisonous quips from the party's moralizers-in-chief, including conservative columnist Laura Ingraham, who dismissed her as a "plus-sized model" ("Kiss my fat ass," McCain retorted on an episode of The View), and Rush Limbaugh, who suggested that she follow Arlen Specter's example and leave the GOP. More surprising has been the scorn of liberal writers such as Judith Warner of The New York Times, who called her Colbert appearance "stupid" and "foolish." Much of this has to do with McCain's slightly girlie, conversational speaking style, which lacks the spit and polish of professional pundits and occasionally strays into gauche phrases and pat formulations.

It also has to do with the fact that she does a lot of fluffy interviews, repeats talking points from her father's campaign ad nauseum and gets on Colbert to tell the world how she likes sex and the GOP should stop being so prudish about it (a position I agree with, but that hardly brands her as the voice of a new Republican generation).

But, hey! She's pro gay marriage! I'm sure that's why so many Republicans dislike her. Kirchick is, naturally, convinced that McCain's pro-gay marriage stance is the source of her power."

But it's her position on gay marriage that has garnered McCain the most attention. In a speech to the Log Cabin Republicans, she said that "old-school Republicans" were "scared shitless" of the future and retreating further and further into an ultraconservative crouch.

No, it might be the fact that she was the official blogger of her father's Presidential campaign (and a damn sight better than Michael Goldfarb, I might add), that she's quite pretty, and a young woman in a political movement that is increasing white, old and male (see also: Michael Steele). That she's opposed to the party's position on gay marriage is hardly the only reason she gets attention, or else her dad's former campaign manager Steve Schmidt would have a Daily Beast column, too.

Kirchick has also decided the conservative pundit class hates her, too, because she's so good at connecting with young people.

It turns out those old-school Republicans are not only scared shitless of the future; they're scared shitless of her. Or, as media writer Michael Wolff put it, Meghan McCain "was a mild diversion during the presidential campaign....But empowered, she's turned into someone who actually wants a seat at the table, apparently unaware of the incongruity and awkwardness of a 24-year-old girl among the guys with their pants pulled up high."

Well, how about the possibility that they don't like having a 24-year-old at the table who doesn't want to run for office, has no campaign or political experience outside of blogging for her father and little in the way of a coherent political philosophy other than "everything my dad thinks, plus gay marriage" and who seemingly is as interested in her own celebrity as policy formation and base-building exercises trying to brand herself as a Republican thought leader? I mean, plenty of people aren't exactly pleased that everyone's kowtowing to Limbaugh like he's Republican royalty either, for many of the same reasons.

Kirchick, again, slips in a gay stereotype as he asks Meghan McCain why she never said a damn thing about same sex marriage the entire time she was blogging for her father.

McCain — a fan of Lucky Cheng's drag club in New York City where she gets her Lady Bunny fix — says that during the campaign no reporter bothered to ask for her views on the matter. Had they, she would have told the truth and not worried about further upsetting conservatives already wary of her father's maverick reputation. "I never would have lied," she says.

I mean, she's obviously all gay friendly, she goes to drag shows! And despite the fact that same sex marriage and Prop 8 came up through the campaign, never once did she think to write or say anything about it, but now it's her big bugaboo? That might be why people think she's using the issue to seek attention, other than professional jealousy, sexism or homophobia.

And in a week when some Republican members of the Senate have quoted Ricky Ricardo at the first Latina Supreme Court nominee, lectured her about racism and the need to show empathy to the poor, beleaguered white man and repeatedly invoked her Wise Latina comment and yet other people have begun talking about how Regina Benjamin might not be the right body type (for a woman) for a Presidential appointment and the Young Republicans elect an unreconstructed racist to lead their organization (and all of this barely a year after Hillary Clinton ended her run for the Presidency which was marred by over sexism, especially among Republicans), this quote rings pretty hollow.

"Homophobia is the last socially accepted prejudice," McCain says, repeating it for emphasis. So it's only natural that she also views the fight for gay equality as "my generation's civil rights movement."

McCain must walk in some pretty rarified Republican circles to have missed all the racism, sexism and sizeism that some seem to find more than just socially acceptable. But I guess since there's only one prejudice Kirchick really cares about, that's what's important.

Megan McCain Will Be Heard [Out]

Related: — [Yale Daily News]
Shorter James Kirchick: I Can't Get Laid Because Of "Liberal Intolerance" [Ezra Klein]
Will Someone Tell Feminists to Get a Sense of Humor? [Commentary]
Surgeon General Post Is A Big Job For A Big Lady [MSNBC]
Young Republican Leader Finds Racism LOL-Worthy [Gawker]
Young Republican Leader Audra Shay Is Crazy, Illiterate, Racist [Gawker]
Audra Shay, Facebook Hate Monger, Elected Leader Of Young Republicans [Gawker]

Earlier: Female Nominees Continue To Face Scrutiny Over Their Size, Weight

In an Entertainment Weekly profile by Tim Stack, Hilton says of his altercation with will.i.am,

I realize I said the most hurtful word. I don't believe being gay is bad. I'm not homophobic. I couldn't be any gayer and I couldn't be any prouder. I've got rainbow flags shooting out of my eyes.

Stack calls him "surprisingly chastened," but he doesn't really sound all that sorry in The Advocate, where he says, "I thought about calling him the n word, but I thought the f word was even worse." He goes on to say, "I reacted in the worst way possible," but the fact remains that Hilton basically wants, as Richard Lawson says, "to have us congratulate him for not saying the racist thing he was thinking." Or that he thinks gays are more marginalized than blacks? Or that homophobic slurs are worse than racial slurs? Or that the word faggot from the mouth of a gay man is worse than the n-word from the mouth of a non-black person? The mind reels.

It seems pretty likely that Hilton doesn't "believe being gay is bad." And he seems to understand that he shouldn't have said what he said. But what is the moral status of a homophobic slur spoken by a gay person to a straight person, presumed hurtful because said straight person is presumed to be homophobic? And is this homophobia ouroboros similar to the one created by Sacha Baron Cohen, a straight person playing a gay person who is (maybe) supposed to make fun of homophobic stereotypes?

Slate's Dennis Lim basically comes down on the pro-Brüno side. He writes that Hollywood has been offering up "square-jawed," humorless portrayals of gays for so long that it's refreshing and even subversive for Baron Cohen to portray a funny, no-holds-barred "sissy" — and an oversexed one at that. He writes,

Is any viewer really going to think that this hyperbolically crass and ridiculous narcissist-who wears mesh tops and eye-searing lederhosen, refers to his adopted African baby as a "dick magnet," and drops faux-Teutonic vulgarities about his waxed arschenhaller-represents "the mainstream of the gay community," as one troubled Hollywood "gay insider" put it? And are the gays who anxiously anticipate the mocking, hostile reactions of the unenlightened really that blind to Brüno's obvious counteroffensive strategy, which is to make that mocking, hostile idiocy the subject of his film? The beauty-and perhaps even the moral logic-of Baron Cohen's method is that those who're not in on his joke are invariably the butts of the joke.

And he calls the climax of the movie, in which Brüno makes out with his opponent during a wrestling match, "a brilliant tactic against homophobia: the gay-panic offense." The idea that an over-the-top joke based on stereotypes — whether racist or homophobic — is actually a joke on people who believe the stereotypes is hardly new. It's the basis of Sarah Silverman's whole career. And while Baron Cohen offers a twist on this by actually eliciting homophobic reactions and inviting viewers to make fun of those, it's hard to accept that a straight comic is totally on the gay community's side in making fun of obnoxious straight people. It's especially hard when a lot of his act revolves around talking funny and walking funny and wearing silly clothes. The idea that viewers aren't going to be laughing at these aspects of the film — or that they will be laughing at simply an exaggerated character rather than an exaggerated gay character — is a bit naive.

A homophobic slur spoken by a gay person — especially with the intent to hurt — is still a slur, and gay stereotypes are still gay stereotypes, even if they're meant to be meta. Ultimately, though, none of these things likely matter much to Perez Hilton or Sasha Baron Cohen. Hilton tells Tim Stack, "I don't care if you like me, I just care if you read my website." And Baron Cohen probably doesn't care if people like him, as long as they see his movie. Ultimately, Brüno isn't about challenging stereotypes are breaking down barriers — it's about getting laughs and selling tickets. And Perez Hilton is all about publicity — the love that loves to speak its name.

On The Offensive [Slate]
Perez Hilton Won't Shut Up [Entertainment Weekly]

Related: Perez Hilton Would Rather Be A Racist Than Bad for The Gays [Gawker]

Brüno, which opens tomorrow, is similar to Sacha Baron Cohen's first film Borat, but according to the reviews it's more mean-spirited and has even less of a plot. The fake working title: Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt pretty much says it all. Adapted from a character on The Ali G. Show, Brüno is a fixture in the European fashion world until he commits a major runway faux pas and is fired from his Austrian talk show. Along with his assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammaresten), he sets out for America with the hope of becoming "the biggest Austrian superstar since Hitler." This leads to a series of sketches in which he foists his absurdly flamboyant gayness on unsuspecting Americans, from Ron Paul, to a "gay deprogrammer," to a group of aggressively heterosexual deer hunters he compares to the ladies on Sex and the City.

A scene filmed with La Toya Jackson in which Brüno gets her to eat off the body of a Mexican laborer and tries to get Michael Jackson's phone number was cut by the studio on the day Michael died, but other than MJ nothing is too sacred for a good penis joke. Many critics were shocked that the film was only rated R, since Brüno is shown pantomiming oral sex in great detail and using a fire extinguisher and a Champagne bottle while having sex with another man. Almost every critic was unperturbed by the film's ridiculous depiction of gay men, which they reasoned was OK since the film is actually mocking homophobic people (though it's still getting a laugh out of gay stereotypes). Their biggest complaints were that it seemed some of the "real" Americans were actually actors, and the film wasn't quite as funny as Borat. Below, we check out the reviews for Brüno.

Rolling Stone

Baron Cohen takes justifiable relish in ambushing the gullible and the guilty - clueless stars eager to latch on to a fashionable charity (since George Clooney has Darfur, Brüno wants Darfive), mothers who'd starve their kids for a modeling gig, kinky swingers into all kinds of sex except same-sex, bogus efforts to bring peace to the Middle East (Brüno confuses Hamas with hummus), and the adoption of babies as accessories (Brüno swaps his iPod for little black OJ and loses custody until he throws in a MacBook Pro). And you haven't lived till you see Bono, Elton, Sting, Snoop Dogg and Chris Martin sing Brüno's "We Are the World" anthem. The lyrics urging North and South Korea to stop fighting since they both look Chinese haunt me still.

The NY Post

The humor is more mean-spirited [than in Borat] and sometimes forced, a few bits don't work at all, and there's an inescapable feeling that director Larry Charles, returning from Borat, has staged some scenes with scripted actors serving as Bruno's victims... Bruno mincingly walks a fine line in exposing homophobic behavior and perpetuating wince-inducing gay stereotypes. Not to get all PC on you, but the straight, outrageously dressed Baron Cohen camps it up in what has legitimately been criticized as swishy gay equivalent of blackface.

Reel Views

Some moments of discomfort within Brüno result from a sense that the filmmakers are not playing fair. The spontaneity of Boratis largely absent and, although some sequences are undoubtedly unrehearsed, there are indications that some were staged. The difficulty in telling one from the other speaks to the craft used to assemble the production, but it also robs Brünoof a key element - the belief that Baron Cohen is using "real" Americans to illustrate his points. The "reality" embraced by Brüno is no less artificial than the one embraced by many so-called "reality" television shows. When it comes to making viewers laugh, however, Brüno hits a home run - provided the viewer is not easily offended.

To say that Brüno pushes the proverbial envelope is to understate the situation. The only things separating this movie from a hard NC-17 are some well-placed black rectangles that hide potentially graphic content. Even with that consideration in place, it's hard to imagine why the normally prudish MPAA did not slap this film with its harshest rating. An extreme pantomime of oral sex would normally be enough to prohibit anyone under 18 from seeing this with or without an accompanying parent or guardian. And that's far from the most outrageous scene in the film. When it came to matters sexual, Borat was hardly restrained or in good taste, but Brünomakes it look like a morality play with puritanical values. Some of this content is hard-core (in more ways than one). It is also at times laugh-aloud hysterical - funnier and raunchier than anything presented in the summer's surprise hit, The Hangover.

The New Yorker

Could that be Baron Cohen's cunning plan? Might he actually be in the business of revealing our cauterized senses, and the wound where our finer judgments are meant to be? A nice idea, but I'm afraid that Brüno feels hopelessly complicit in the prejudices that it presumes to deride. You can't honestly defend your principled lampooning of homophobia when nine out of every ten images that you project onscreen comply with the most threadbare cartoons of gay behavior. A schoolboy who watches a pirated DVD of this film will look at the prancing Austrian and find more, not fewer, reasons to beat up the kid on the playground who doesn't like girls. There is, on the evidence of this movie, no such thing as gay love; there is only gay sex, a superheated substitute for love, with its own code of vulcanized calisthenics whose aim is not so much to sate the participants as to embarrass onlookers from the straight-and therefore straitlaced-society beyond.

Variety

The humor — and it keeps on coming — carries with it an almost immediate sour aftertaste, as Bruno's intentions, and necessarily Cohen's along with them, appear far from honorable. As in Borat, Bruno's pranks are designed to expose people's presumed latent prejudices. But while the previous film got away with this high-wire act for most people, Bruno is more erratic, partly since one is more aware of the game being rigged but also because Bruno himself comes off as someone the world scarcely needs another example of — a self-absorbed narcissist for whom fame is the only goal. Cohen is critiquing this attitude, of course, but the film comes to share too much of this anything-for-effect mindset.

NY Magazine

Underlying all these gags-the funny, the crude, the funny and crude-is a hard truth: Flagrant gay behavior drives a lot of heteros insane. To be honest, I'm uncomfortable watching two guys with tongues down each other's throats, too, but at least I know the problem is mine, not theirs. When the hushed, arty Brokeback Mountaincame out, its couplings set against purple mountains majesty, many right-wing commentators announced that they couldn't bear to watch such abominations. To them-and to those who'll see Brünobecause it's the latest gross-out comedy sensation-Baron Cohen is proclaiming, "Suck on this!"

The Hollywood Reporter

Bruno's adopted African baby paraded before a black audience is not funny. It's embarrassing, as is any joke that bombs, yet the comic keeps going back to it nevertheless. This is one of several instances where an audience might experience both exasperation and tedium with the comic's relentless act of running a joke into the ground... We sense, as we never did with Borat, the comic behind the character. Especially when his accent keeps changing — from an unconvincing Austrian to his own British and even to a whisper of Borat himself.

Entertainment Weekly

The more uncomfortable Brüno makes people, the more he draws attention to their petty churlishness and homophobia. When
 he ambushes the maverick politician Ron Paul with a go-go dance, you can forgive a visibly shaken Paul for thinking Brüno is nuts - though that's hardly an excuse for calling him ''queer.'' Yet is Brüno the scurrilous man-tramp himself a homophobic caricature? My honest answer is: yes and no. Baron Cohen's portrayal certainly feeds into a stereotype of haughty flamboyance. But if one condemns the movie on that basis, then shouldn't we toss Christopher Guest's sublime turn in Waiting for Guffman, Robin Williams' inspired camping in The Birdcage, and so many others onto the bonfire, too? The bottom line is that Baron Cohen, even at his most scathing, makes Brüno gleefully unapologetic about who he is.

The NY Times

The film demonstrates, at a fairly high level of conceptual sophistication, that lampooning homophobia has become an acceptable, almost unavoidable form of homophobic humor, or at least a way of licensing gags that would otherwise be out of bounds. An early sequence that graphically shows Brüno and his lover exerting themselves in various positions and with the assistance of, among other things, a Champagne bottle, a fire extinguisher and a specially modified exercise machine, derives its humor less from the extremity of their practices than from the assumption that sex between men is inherently weird, gross and comical. The same sequence with a man and a woman - or for that matter, two women - would play, most likely on the Internet rather than in the multiplex, as inventive, moderately kinky pornography rather than as icky, gasp-inducing farce.

Myers might not actually know anything about the fashion industry, models, modeling, designing clothes, fashion magazines, or any of the other aspects of the process by which we, as a species, get up in the morning, take a look in the mirror, and decide how we are going to present ourselves to the world. But he would never let a little thing like ignorance of the topic at hand stand between him and the opportunity to write 842 words of thundering copy about the "fascist industry" and its "Fourth Reich" of gay designers who want all women to look and dress "like a teenaged boy" — or else. There are many things wrong with his views.

Firstly, Alexandra Shulman did not write to designers and tell them she and her magazine would "would no longer accept from them any pictures of skeletal she-models." Shulman's title, British Vogue commissions its own photo shoots, according to its own concepts. What Shulman asked in her leaked letter was for fashion houses to make its sample clothes in a more realistic size, so that when Vogue stylists pull garments for their shoots, the models can fit them. Say what you will of the corroded advertising/editorial barrier in fashion magazines, British Vogue still is not in the business of merely reprinting fashion houses' own images of their wares.

Furthermore, the French term haute couture does not mean, as Myers says, "high culture." Couture is French for "sewing," and haute couture means "high sewing," or "sewing at the highest level." Myers goes on to base an entire paragraph's argument on his misunderstanding of haute couture — something about how the fascistic ambitions of fascist gay designers are fascistically totalitarian, and the fashion industry as a whole illegitimately claims the mantle of "high culture" to further its fascism — which, because it is a wrong argument but also because it is an entirely spurious one, based on a mistranslation of the French that no high school student in the language would make, we can entirely forget.

The writer has strong criticisms of designers he considers gay, like Versace, Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior. But, strangely, he puts a raft of other out, proud, homosexual fashion talents in a category of his own invention — and then criticizes them for that. Karl Lagerfeld and Jean-Paul Gaultier are not of ambiguous "cosmopolitan sexuality"; each is a gay man whose partner died of AIDS-related illness in the late 1980s. In his excitement at apparently having coined a term and now getting to plump it up with meaning, Myers similarly miscategorizes as a "cosmosexual" Valentino, who has been in a same-sex relationship with his business partner Giancarlo Giammetti for almost 50 years.

Myers goes on to make blindingly homophobic statements about "gay designerdom" and its "fascist, woman-hating ethos." The argument rests on the boneheaded assumption that only a man who wants to fuck a woman could possibly know how to dress one. (Françoise Sagan might have said "A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you," but modern women dress for a lot of reasons unrelated to sex as well.) The allegation that a designer has to be a red-blooded straight male in order to treasure a woman's body and make her look sexually enticing is laughable; any perusal of the collections of Tom Ford would quickly disabuse an observer of such a notion. (But who are we kidding, Myers by now has proved that he wouldn't know Tom Ford if he blew him.)

His comparison of the supposed project of fashion to "the earlier schemes of Marxists and National Socialists, to create The New Man" is risible in its hyperbole. Lastly, he shares this vision of the fascist designer gays' "New Woman" ideal:

This emaciated elf eats on Tuesdays and her tiny peapod of a bowel sheds a shrivelled pebble or two about once a month. She hourly snorts cocaine like a bee smothering itself with pollen. At night, she lies listlessly akimbo beneath her many lovers, a comatose orchid being ravished by a series of priapic wasps. Then up at dawn, to stride the gaunt catwalk, all skin and shin and rib and polished pubic bone.

Which is about the most offensive thing I've read all week.

Thank you, Kevin Myers, for your homophobic, misogynistic, mistranslated, ahistorical, straight-men-do-it-better idiot's guide to the fashion industry. Rolling out of bed, scrubbing the hungover sleep out of the corners of your eyes, you happened upon a story about skinny models, decided this was A Problem You Could Solve which would also, happily Solve Your Problem Of Filling The Weekly Column With Copy, and that moreover taking as a topic your vision of the industry as full of coke-addled sluts who can't even feed themselves would provide ample opportunity for you to get nice and angry about those nasty little faggots you've always had such a problem with, and also to transcribe for a mass audience the fantastical model snuff film that you guiltily play in your head every night during your ritual of self-abuse. Thank you, no, really, thank you for acquainting the world with your ignorance and closed-minded prattle so now we know what to avoid.

Cosmosexuals Redesign Women To Suit Their Own Demented Needs [Irish Independent]

Obviously, we care about gay marriage. It's just unfortunate that the latest installment in the pro/anti debate was spurred in the most ridiculous manner possible: a standoff between a celebrity blogger and a beauty queen. Now, even celebs who remained silent during discussions of state propositions that would have actually, like, changed something, are sharing their opinions on same-sex marriage. And of course, Carrie Prejean's inalienable right to give a prejudiced answer at a beauty pageant must be defended. Below, we break down the flurry of celebrity responses - whether for PR or for parity - to Miss California's answer. Even if this isn't the case for Hollywood C-listers, consider this the last we have to say on the subject.

Anti-Carrie Prejean, Pro-Gay Marriage

• E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic Twittered on Tuesday that "I know i'm a journalist, and i should be objective ... but she is an ignorant disgrace and she makes me sick to my stomach." [Fox News]
• Perez Hilton's fellow judge and former Miss Nevada, journalist Alicia Jacobs blogged: "I can tell you that it GREATLY affected me & the final score I gave Carrie Prejean. ...Personally, I was STUNNED on several levels. First, how could this young woman NOT know her audience and judges? Let's not forget that the person asking the question is an openly gay man, at least 2 people on the judges panel are openly gay. Another judge has a sister in a gay marriage. Her very own state pageant director, KEITH LEWIS is an openly gay man who has been a very generous benefactor of hers...in many ways. Did I mention I was STUNNED? I was also personally insulted & hurt. [Alicia Jacob's Stage 3 Blog]

Pro-Carrie Prejean, Pro-Gay Marriage

• Though California pageant co-chair Keith Lewis initially criticized Prejean, he now says, "I support Carrie's right to express her personal beliefs, even if they do not coincide with my own." [Fox News]
• Miss Kansas Emily Deaver was asked the same marriage equality question once in a pageant. She says beauty pageant questions are hard, but, "I answered that I believe people should have the choice on who they marry." [Kansas CW]
• Kristen Dalton, the newly crowned Miss USA says, "I'm proud of [Miss California] for speaking from her heart, and she's passionate and what she believes in, and she's proud of herself," but "I think that all couples should be able to be recognized legally, and they should be able to enter into a union. Whether or not it should be defined as marriage, I don't know, I'll leave that up to the politicians." [Perez Hilton]
• Former Miss USA Shanna Moakler wrote on her MySpace blog that she doesn't hate Miss California, but, "She lost the crown because she wasn't able to convey compassion for ALL the people that as MISS USA she would be representing. and if YOU like it or not, gays and lesbians make up this country as well. THIS is why we have judges so they can find the RIGHT woman who obtains these qualities." [Shanna Moakler's MySpace]

No Comment On Carrie Prejean, Pro-Gay Marriage

• Perez Hilton's fellow pageant judge Holly Madison twittered in reponse to Moakler "[Y]ou did a great job tonight mama! where is the party now, cause I am so upset." [Fox News]
• In response to Perez Hilton asking what she thought of gay marriage via Twitter, Britney Spears tweeted: "Love is love! People should be able to do whatever makes them happy!" [@BritneySpears]
• Heidi Montag responded to Perez Hilton, tweeting: "God says in the bible that we should love our neighbor and he created us all as equals. I know in my heart that gays and lesbians should have the same government rights that Spencer and I will when we get married. So, yes, this blonde Christian believes in gay marriage and I hope to one day go to YOUR wedding, Perez!!!" [Perez Hilton]
• Miley Cyrus reponded with the following tweets: "i second that!!! wow heidi is smart!!! shes amazing." Then, "Jesus loves you AND your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! thats like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz hes gay and that is WRONG and very sad! like i said everyone deserves to be happy." And finally: "i am a christian and i love you [Perez] - gay or not. BECAUSE you are no different that anyone else! we are all gods children! i am not saying this so would be nice on your site (though that would be nice jk;) but because the LORD has spoken 'love cuz god loves'." [Perez Hilton]
• Jewel, in response to Perez Hilton: "I believe in liberty and freedom for all I believe in gay marriage and the right to bare arms and tabacco! Each free to choose" [@jeweljk]
• Joel Madden tweets: "P! I believe everyone on this planet deserves Equal rights to their own pursuit of happiness." [@JoelMadden]
• DJ AM tweets: "I am 100% FOR gay marriage. It should just be called "marriage" I don't even understand why it has EVER been a question."[@DJ_AM]
• Miss Vermont Brooke Werner: "Everyone has the right to their own actions, but I totally disagree with Carrie. I have a very different perspective on gay marriage and I would never have said what she said." [Fox News]

Pro-Carrie Prejean, Anti-Gay Marriage

• Former Miss Delaware and president of The National Black Pro-Life Union, Day Gardner, says that "The judge should have applauded the fact that Carrie spoke her honest opinion rather than lie about her views." [Christian News Wire]
• Bill O'Reilly supports and agrees with Carrie Prejean. Shocking. [Perez]
• Alabama state representative Jay Love, plus every member of the Alabama House Republican Caucus and some Democrats: Drafted and/or signed a resolution priaising Carrie Prejean for standing by her beliefs. [Montgomery Advertiser]

Earlier: Miss California Doesn't "Believe" In Gay Marriage ("No Offense")
War Of Words: Miss California Vs. Perez Hilton

Yesterday opening statements were heard in the murder trial of Angie Zapata, which marks the first time someone has been tried under the sexual orientation section of Colorado's hate crime law, according to The New York Times. Zapata was killed in Greeley, Colorado, two weeks before her 19th birthday last summer. Andrade, 32, told the police that he met Zapata on the internet and they had a sexual encounter. He then found out that she was biologically male and attacked her with a fire extinguisher. In an affidavit, he said he thought he had "killed it," but Zapata tried to get up, so he hit her in the head again.

Andrade and Zapata communicated nearly 700 times via text message, cell phone, and computer between July 12 and 16 because Zapata said she was looking for a roommate, reports the Associated Press. The two spent the day together and ended up in Zapata's one-bedroom apartment. He told police that she performed oral sex on him, but wouldn't let him touch her. Andrade saw photos in the apartment that led him to ask about her gender. She told him, "I am all woman," according to Andrade.

Defense attorney Bradley Martin, who repeated referred to Zapata as "Justin," her birth name, said his client was deceived because her profile said she was a straight female. "This case is about a deception, and a reaction to that deception," said Martin, "Allen discovered that Angie, this girl he had spent the last night with, was in fact a man, and Allen snapped."

Prosecutors say Andrade plotted to kill Zapata 36 hours after figuring out that she was born male. "This is the person who spent time with her, talked to her and then, on the evening of July 16, picked up a fire extinguisher and bashed in her skull," said Brandi Nieto, a deputy district attorney, adding, "His statements will show he did this because she was transgender."

In a recorded phone conversation from jail between Andrade and his girlfriend, he said, ""It is not like I went up to a schoolteacher and shot her in the head or killed a straight law-abiding citizen." His attorney said he was just joking.

Andrade is facing life in prison for the first-degree murder charge and the hate crime charge carries an additional sentence of 3 years. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have hate-crime laws that cover gender identity. According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, 21 transgender people were killed last year, but this is the first time any state's hate crime law has been applied to the murder of a transgendered person.

Murder Trial Tests Colorado Hate-Crime Statute [The New York Times]
Defense: Colo. Transgender Slaying About Deception [The Associated Press]

Controversy broke out this month at George Tomlinson primary school when some parents pulled their children out of lessons on homosexual relationships. The school told parents that if they pulled their children from class, the absence would be counted as truanting. Now members of the Westboro Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas say they will picket the school this week. The group's founder, Reverend Fred Phelps, was already barred from entering the U.K. last month when he tried to picket a play about a homophobic killing. A spokesman for the school's council said, "We are supporting teachers and schools in taking positive and innovative steps to develop children's ability to respect people's differences." [The Guardian]

Angel Chandler's partner, who has been with Ms. Chandler for nearly 10 years, was given a "paramour" restriction by the family court, despite the fact that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation deemed Ms. Chandler's partner to be "a positive influence on her children." According to Jeanne Sager of Strollerderby, "The ACLU has stepped into the fray, filing a brief this week that urges the court to remove the paramour restriction, calling it unconstitutional for interfering with Chandler's abilities to raise her children as she sees fit."

For now, Chandler and her partner are getting around the ruling by living side-by-side in a duplex, though the sad fact remains that the State of Tennessee seems to be making a point here as to what they consider to be "family"— Chandler's ex-husband, Joseph Barker, remarried 5 years ago; there are no restrictions on him or his new wife.

Court Bans Divorced Mom's Partner From Sleeping Over[Strollerderby]

Really?! The same man who once wrote the lyrics, "Pussy got bank in her pockets/ Before she got dick in her drawers," is being all judgey about other people's sexuality now? The same man who inspired Tipper Gore's Senatorial pearl clutching? Maybe his Christian spirit was there all along and we were just blind to it. We decided to go through Prince's old lyrics to see if we could figure out his progression from proud sexual panther to proselytizing Puritan. Take a trip in our little red Corvette of analysis below:

"Head", from Dirty Mind (1980)
Lyrics: "And you said/ But I just a virgin and I'm on my way to be wed/But you're such a hunk/So full of spunk,
I'll give you head/'Til you're burning up
Evangelical Evidence: I'll give you head, until you're burning up…IN HELL.

"Little Red Corvette", from 1999 (1983)
Lyrics: "Believe it or not I started to worry/I wondered if I had enough class/But it was Saturday night/I guess that makes it alright."
Evangelical Evidence: But come Sunday morning, you will have to atone for your sins. Also you're probably going to hell for what you did in that Corvette. Why do you think it's red? The devil is driving it.

"Purple Rain" from Purple Rain (1984)
Lyrics: "I think u better close it and let me guide u 2 the purple rain."
Evangelical Evidence: This one's easy. Prince was Baptized in the purple rain, and he wants us to follow him into that fabulous purple downpour.

"Gett Off" from Diamonds and Pearls (1991)
Lyrics: "Let a woman be a woman and a man be a man."
Evangelical Evidence: obviously Prince has been into stringent gender roles for at least 17 years. No pregnant men or other kinds of gender bending for this cat suit devotee in four inch heels!!!

"Lolita", 3121 (2006)
Lyrics: "If you were mine we'd bump bump bump."
Evangelical Evidence: Well it's not like he's lusting after another dude. It's just an underage girl! That's very Christian of him.

"Untitled" 21 Nights (2008)
Lyrics: "Who eye really am only time will tell/ 2 the almighty life 4ce that grows stronger with every chorus/ Yes give praise, lest ye b among . . . the guilty ones.”
Evangelical Evidence: this one is pretty self-explanatory. Though using numbers in the place of letters makes the baby Jesus cry.

*According to Perez Hilton, Prince was "misquoted." Somehow, we believe the New Yorker's fact checking team over a "Prince insider" anonymously emailing Mario Lavandeira, but we just wanted you to be fully informed.

Soup With Prince [New Yorker]
Tipper Gore And Family Values [NPR]

Earlier: Prince Says God Against Homosexuality

Is It Possible To Get Hemorrhoids From Anal Sex? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.