This is huge, people! The first pro-gay federal legislation in history! Equality, here we come.

On the heels of the release of Hilary Swank’s new Amelia Earhart biopic, which is getting horrid reviews, critics are asking where have the strong female characters gone?

A group of LGBT individuals in Boston are planning to protest President Obama for not being enough of a fierce advocate for gay rights, on issues like DADT and DOMA.

Two Sudanese women were arrested during a raid and  sentenced to $110 in fines and twenty lashes for nothing but simply wearing pants.

A judge in Cook County has dismissed a case brought against Craiglist for not effectively curbing prostitution ads on its website.  The judge says there are plenty of legitimate services being offered.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their crime-fighting ways are moving to Nickelodeon, as Viacom buys the franchise from the Mirage Group for $60 million.

A student in Australia has been attacked by a school supervisor for promoting a rally in support of gay rights.  The teacher yelled “Faggot kid, you don’t know what real marriage is!”

Couples Retreat star Kristen Bell says she’s excited to get back to her “snarkier roots” in the movie musical Burlesque where she plays Christina Aguilera’s rival. She also says Christina has written music for the film.

Ewan McGregor says he enjoyed kissing Jim Carrey in the film I Love You Philip Morris, which is set for a February 2010 release in the United States.

As I’m sure many of you know by now, after years of trying to get federal hate crimes legislation passed that includes sexual orientation, Congress has finally passed the bill and now it heads to the President’s desk for him to sign. Here on CNN Corey Johnson and Dan Savage discuss the significance of this bill passing.

For those of you not familiar, Dustin Lance Black is the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the Gus Van Sant directed Harvey Milk film called Milk, that starred Sean Penn and James Franco. He gave a very moving speech at the Academy Award Ceremony that actually got removed from the telecast in several Asian countries because he talked about homosexuality.

As it turns out, Mr. Black may have a sex tape–one which is dated in 2006 before he became famous, and it’s being shopped around by an agency called Starzlife, the website for which is maybe not so incidentally shut down at the moment.

Lance was scheduled to appear as the Grand Marshall in the New York City Gay Pride Parade and some are thinking it’s possible he may pull out.

Perez Hilton has all the NSFW pictures.

I suppose this disappoints me, only because it will confirm stereotypes about gay people and their sexual behavior to many homophobes who refuse to see us as more than just sexual deviants, but at the same time plenty of heterosexual male celebrities have had sex tapes and have not been vilified by the media at all. Not to mention in this case, it was made before Black was even a celebrity to begin with. Human beings are sexual beings, and yes that includes gay people. And the fact that he had sex, and happened to photograph it for film it four years ago, does not take away from his value and worth as a person or as a gay rights advocate.

Below is his moving speech from the Oscar ceremony.

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Sadly Stephen seems to have more guts than the Democratic politicians we’ve elected that have promised to fight for us.