From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Little Gay Billy’s BIG Gay Newsapalooza!!!

Holy smokes—the GLBT movement is so active these days that keeping up with it all is like drinking from a Jagermeister hose:

• North Carolina votes in 6 days on an anti-gay constitutional amendment. As Scott Wooledge pointed out Monday, this thing is a trainwreck that threatens countless straight people, too. Find more info at Protect All NC Families, the Courage Campaign, Facebook and twitter.
• For encouraging parental violence against children perceived as gay, and doing it with such giddiness, I’d bet the farm that Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, North Carolina ain’t gonna make it to Heaven
• There’s a new Daily Kos group in town. Say hello to Remembering LGBT History. They’d love to have you follow and/or join them.
• Cheers to the Sioux City Journal. Their April 22 front page was devoted entirely to an editorial on bullying. It’s as if to say, ‘How frigging loud do we have to yell as a society before we start nipping this thing in the bud?’
• It’s been great to see the transgender movement getting so much publicity lately. Not all the news is positive, but a Google News search shows that a lot of it is. DKos’s TransAction group is a great place to learn and discuss more.

• 25 years. Wow. That’s how long the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) has been active. Said Rachel Maddow on her show last week:

The reason AIDS can be a chronic manageable condition, the reason it is possible to imagine it ending, the reason ending it is in reach even now—in significant part is due to a very radical group called ACT UP, which I belonged to for a big, defining chunk of my life before I was ever in media. And which has a deserved place in American history that a lot of people will try to ensure never gets told. But it will be told. Happy 25th birthday, ACT UP. You set out really aggressively and controversially to change the world. And you changed the world.

• Speaking of anniversaries, Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk could have marked the high-school-themed comic’s 40th year any way he wanted. He chose to sketch out a story about a gay couple going to the prom:

“As I sit in on the classes at my old high school, I see how the younger generation’s attitude towards gays is more open and accepting than that of their predecessors. It shows promise that this emerging generation will one day bring this cultural war to an end. Until then, this story is an attempt to reach across the divide and speak to the intolerance that still exists on the other side.”

Good for him. And thanks.

• Speaking of speaking of anniversaries, two snaps and a twist to must-read GLBT-themed blog Joe My God, which turned 8 last week. Okay, that’s it. I’m all anniversaried out.
• In Tennessee, you can still say “gay.” Call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer “Takei.”
• President Obama Saturday night: “In my first term, we repealed the policy known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In my second term, we will replace it with a policy known as It’s Raining Men.” Me: “Hallelujah.”
• No two ways about it: Southern Maine Pride (June 16 this year) has the most adorable logo of any Pride event this year anywhere IN THE WORLD. Click and scroll down a bit to see the rainbow lobster waving the rainbow flag. Aww…he’s got my eyes.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold… [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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