Is it something in the water?

Last month we had the North Carolina pastor who suggested effeminate kids be “punched” by their parents and now there’s this preacher – from the same state – who actually said the following during his May 13 sermon:

“I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. Build a great, big, large fence — 150 or 100 mile long — put all the lesbians in there… Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out… And you know what, in a few years, they’ll die.”

His name is Charles L. Worley and he is pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, North Carolina.

To read more and to see the video, go to Gay Star News.

Why pretend to be anything else but a petty little bitch?

This thin-skinned man must be tired of picking on Rosie O’Donnell because now he’s turned his sights onto Cher.

Cher, no fan of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney recently tweeted: “If ROMNEY gets elected I don’t know if i can breathe the same air as Him & his Right Wing Fascist Homophobic Women Hating Tea Bagger Masters.”

This apparently was just too much for Trump to bare. He took to twitter with this very mature comment: .@cher attacked @MittRomney. She is an average talent who is out of touch with reality. Like @Rosie O’Donnell, a total loser!

What is he? 12?

Not content with that Tweet, he then calls in to Greta Van Susteren to say: “Cher said some very unflattering and nasty things about Governor Romney, and I think it was inappropriate, what she said, frankly. [...] I’ve watched her over the years, I knew her a little bit, and, you know, she reminds me of Rosie [O'Donnell] with slightly more talent. Not much more talent, but slightly more talent.”

Cher hardly needs someone like Trump to verify her talent. This Oscar winning actress and Grammy winning recording artist with number one singles in five different decades is one of the greatest entertainment icons of our time.

Cher is a certified all-time star.

Donald Trump needs to get a life.

This is a guy who has been a star for more than 35 years now and survived some major career ups and downs.

But lawsuits filed by a pair of male masseurs have resulted in a lot of press – including the front page of the New York Post. The Travolta story even relegated President Obama’s support of same-sex marriage to a bottom headline in that paper.

Good Morning America teased the Travolta story at the top of its show Thursday morning and The Insider and Entertainment Tonight led with it.

It’s all getting pretty ugly and the attorney representing the two masseurs promises there is more to come even as Travolta’s camp provided to TMZ and other outlets what they say is proof that Travolta wasn’t even in the same city on the date one of the accusers alleges he was sexually harassed.

Is Travolta the victim of a shakedown from these masseurs (they have remained John Does in legal documents) or is he a careless movie star used to having his way?

Then there’s this latest development which I wrote about for Gay Star News: A former Royal Caribbean Cruise Line employee named Fabian Zanzi says Travolta also accosted him.

Zanzi was in charge of VIPs on the cruise and claims that aboard a ship in 2009, Travolta offered him $12,000 for sex. Zanzi said he refused.

It’s not clear if he is suing the actor or not.

It will be interesting to see play out and if it has any impact on Travolta’s career. He has starred in classic films like Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever and Grease and in popular films including Get Shorty, Look Who’s Talking, Broken Arrow, Michael, Phenomenon and Face-Off.

But his last big year at the box office was in 2007 when he was in the cast of a pair of major hits: Hairspray and Wild Hogs. He has completed the films Savages and Killing Season and is due to next star in Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father, according to the Internet Movie Database.

He has been married to actress Kelly Preston for more than 20 years and they have three children including a son named Jett who died in 2009.

Sean Harris

It did not seem that anyone in his congregation called Harris out on his tirade which quickly went viral.

But he is suffering backlash from other Christians who say ‘violence and child abuse can never be justified by the teachings of Jesus Christ.’

As of Monday evening, more than 12,000 people had signed a petition on Faithful America that includes a short statement assuring LGBT youth that faithful Christians are ‘appalled’ by Harris’ ‘hateful tirade.’

To read more, go to Gay Star News.

It is a story that has sickened me more than most of this type because it just shows what’s going on out there in our own country and what the kids are still up against even as we make advances in LGBT education and equality.

Audio of the pastor’s remarks have gone absolutely viral and he’s issued a retraction. I’m just going to go ahead and post it in its entirety here. You can decide for yourself whether you buy any of it.

I’m also going to re-post the audio of his comment below as a reminder of what he said, how he said it, and how members of the congregation responded.

It is completely shameful.

From Harris:

The purpose of this document is to issue an official statement of retraction of any and all words that suggest that child abuse is appropriate for any and all types of behaviors including (but not limited to) effeminacy and sexual immorality of all types. I should not have said what I said about “cracking,” “punching,” and particular bias toward outward attraction of girls. Nor should I have used the words “special dispensation.” I did not say that children should be squashed. I have never suggested children or those in the LGBT lifestyle should be beaten, punched, abused (physically or psychologically) in any form or fashion. The gospel is the only source of power sufficient to deliver anyone from the power, penalty, and presence of all forms of sin including, but not limited to, all forms of sexual immorality including homosexuality.

I apologize to anyone I have unintentionally offended. I did not say anything to intentionally offend anyone in the LGBT community. My intent was to communicate the truth of the Word of God concerning marriage. My words were not scripted. It is unfortunate I was not more careful and deliberate. I can understand how these words could be misunderstood without the context of years of ministering to the people of God at Berean Baptist Church. I have received nothing but notes of appreciation and support from the people within the church. To those in the greater body of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the world–I seek your forgiveness if I have offended or hurt the cause of Christ. I have learned from this and will seek to be more articulate and deliberate with my words in the future.

However, I do not apologize for the manner in which the Word of God articulates sexual immorality, including homosexuality and effeminacy, as a behavior that is an abomination to God. Nothing in this official statement of retraction should be perceived as an apology for the overarching intent and message of the sermon and the need to define marriage as one man and one woman and to maintain the gender distinctions that God created from the beginning when He made them male and female (Genesis 1). I recognize that there are those in the LGBT community who believe that their sexual behavior is not sin. I do not agree with them and this official retraction should not be misunderstood as an apology for the gospel of Jesus Christ or the Word of God.

I do not apologize for the manner in which I emphasized the importance of one man and one woman getting married and staying married for the benefit of their children and society.

I am confident that if the state of North Carolina was not in a state constitutional battle to define marriage as one man and one woman, this sermon would not have received the media attention it has through the intentional framing of my words without the context of the entire sermon on various blogs.

So we wonder why gay or transgender kids want to kill themselves?

It’s because of people like Sean Harris, senior pastor of Berean Baptist Church in Fayettesville, North Carolina.

Harris should be banned from his church for advocating violence against children who may not fit into the gender roles their parents would like them to.

He said during his Sunday sermon: “So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, ‘Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,’ you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.’

No one booed, no one protested. They just laughed nervously.

He had more to say: “Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you reign her in. And you say, ‘Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.’”

In case parents in attendance thought the pastor’s advice was too extreme, he assured them it is not: You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?” Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.”

Below is audio of his sickening tirade via GoodAsYou.com:

All kinds of attention has been given to Rosie’s comments earlier this week that Lindsay Lohan not only is miscast as Elizabeth Taylor in an upcoming Lifetime movie, but that Lohan should leave the spotlight altogether and get herself together.

Rosie returned to The Today Show Thursday and elaborated on why she said what she did: ‘I (was) watching Whitney Houston’s funeral, and I remember thinking why didn’t more people say what they knew?’ O’Donnell told hosts Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. ‘We all knew, when she would not show up to do this show, not show up to do my show, we watched Being Bobby Brown and it was like watching Sid and Nancy, they were people who were in the throes of addiction. But all that anyone cared about was that the show was getting ratings, not that this woman, this talented individual, this human being, this mother, this daughter, was worth saving… To look at Lindsay Lohan you can’t help but feel for her. I don’t think she’s untalented, I think she’s quite talented.’

Access Hollywood caught up with Lohan this week to get her take n Rosie’s remarks:

It’s funny that someone you don’t know at all can say something so intrusive and so knowing,’

She believes she is a good choice to play Taylor: ‘I know that I’m great. I know that I know Liz Taylor very well, and I share the same makeup artist and the same hair stylist. We’ve worked with a lot of the same people.’

But one thing Lohan doesn’t know, apparently, is that Miss Taylor hated being called Liz.

It was always, Elizabeth.

But in an essay posted Wednesday, the Star Trek icon writes that “there remains a long and ugly shadow across the organization, for the Boy Scouts of America–the largest youth organization in the country–continues to discriminate openly against LGBT people, both as members and as scout leaders.”

Takei is speaking out because of Boy Scouts dismissed Ohio den mom Jennifer Tyrrell as leader of her son’s troop because she is a lesbian. [See story HERE].

“Ms. Tyrell had taken the troop to soup kitchens and on conservation projects at a local state park. She imbued in the scouts the core values of citizenship, compassion, respect, and responsibility,” he writes. “But no matter: She was hounded out, merely because of who she is and who she loves. As a former scout, it is particularly distressing to see this rigid homophobia of the scout leadership exercised so callously in this day and age. While I respect the right of organizations to their beliefs, when the organization is as influential as the Boy Scouts, I am compelled to speak out–and I have just as much right to voice my opposition to bigotry and call for its end.”

Here is a LINK to the entire piece.

I’m kind of mortified because I have so much respect for her but don’t really feel I did anything wrong when I wrote a post earlier today entitled Jean Stapleton disses Lindsay Lohan too.

The 89-year-old television icon, best known for her role as Edith Bunker on All in the Family, had tweeted about Lindsay Lohan playing Elizabeth Taylor in an upcoming Lifetime movie: ‘Agree with Rosie O’Donnell on the ‘Today’ show- Lindsay Lohan should not be portraying Liz Taylor. She needs some time away from Hollywood.‘

Miss Stapleton, who I had exchanged Twitter pleasantries with in the past, posted this tweet earlier today: @greghernandez I didn’t “diss” Lindsay- she is a very talented actress but the role is not right for her now. Please don’t distort my words.

She later added this message to her 1,000-plus followers: FYI: I meant no insult to Lindsay- a very talented actress who I hope has a long, fruitful career. The role is simply not right for her now.

Was ‘diss’ a poor choice of words to use in the headline? I’m not so sure. But I certainly did not mean to upset Miss Stapleton!

I hope that by posting her follow-up tweets, we can all go back to being friends.

So guess who else weighed in with her thoughts today?

A TV icon who is closing in on 90, who is active on Twitter and who isn’t Betty White: Three-time Emmy winner Jean Stapleton.

She tweeted earlier today: “Agree with Rosie O’Donnell on the ‘Today’ show- Lindsay Lohan should not be portraying Liz Taylor. She needs some time away from Hollywood.”

I love hearing from Stapleton who, unlike Betty White, has retired from acting.

Not allowing gays and lesbians into the organization is such a disgrace.

I was a Cub Scout in the 70s and I was so excited to be a part of the Pinewood Derby and to wear my uniform to school on the days of my den meetings. Some of the best times I ever had with my dad as a kid were on Scouts-related activities.

I didn’t know then that I was a part of an anti-gay organization but it does taint my feelings about the Scouts now.

There’s a really brave woman named Jennifer Tyrrell who I wrote about yesterday and her story is making a lot of us think about how we feel about the Boy Scouts of America as an organization in the year 2012.

Tyrrell is the Ohio mom who was den leader of her son’s scouting troop but got kicked out, after a year, because she is a lesbian.

GLAAD tried to set up a meeting between Tyrrell and the BSA this week but the organization refused and issued this statement to CNN: ‘Our focus is on delivering the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. Our mission does not include teaching young people about sex or sexual orientation, and we do not believe it is Scouting’s role to introduce this topic in our youth development program.’

To read the complete story, which includes statements from other parents in Tyrrell’s former troop, go over to Gay Star News.

It’s not known if Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly will be watching tonight’s Whitney Houston-themed episode of Glee or if he thinks kids who watch it might be influenced into trying cocaine, a drug that contributed to the singer’s death.

But O’Reilly did watch last week’s episode of the musical dramedy when it featured a transgender student. O’Reilly went on to say that the episode and the show’s other LGBT characters might lead some of the kids watching to experiment with their gender identity or sexuality.

I talked to several attendees at Saturday’s GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles about O’Reilly’s remarks including Chaz Bono, the transgender activist who was honored that night.

‘You really have to take the source into account,’ Bono said. ‘It’s Bill O’Reilly. He’s certainly not going to say anything positive about LGBT representation on television.’

But does Bono feel frustrated to hear such things after his triumphant run on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars last fall seemed to educate so many viewers about transgender people?

‘That’s not the lesson he wants you to learn,’ Bono said. ‘He wants you to learn to be closed-minded and bigoted and to think the way that we used to and not to go into a more progressive, open state of mind. You can only really affect people whose hearts and minds are open and so I’m well aware there are people who are never going to understand me or be behind me.’

Go to Gay Star News to read my complete story which includes reaction from Glee stars Max Adler and Grant Justin as well as new GLAAD President Herndon Graddick.

You gotta be kidding!

I posted about this yesterday and got a lot of comments about it on the blog and on Facebook – and not one was supportive of Lindsay taking on the role.

So Rosie goes on The Today Show this morning and just tells it like it is: ‘The last thing she did good she was 16! I don’t think she’s right for the role, and I don’t think she’s capable at this point of doing what’s needed to portray that character. I think the interest level in her has waned significantly.’

To see what else Rosie said, go to my story over at Gay Star News.

I think this backlash is due to the fact that Lohan, once a big star, has tried everyone’s patience for so many years now by behaving like such a jackass in the public eye. She’s had so many scrapes with the law and just seemed like a punk who wasn’t learning from her mistakes and wasn’t maturing very well.

So now she’s trying to revive her acting career and she has a lot to prove. Not only does she need to prove that she’s worth hiring and will show up and do good work, she’s taking on a role that is almost impossible to pull off successfully.

It will be very interesting to see.

If Lindsay succeeds then she’ll have a whole new lease on her professional life. If she fails, it’s going to have to resort to a reality show.

L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center officials are outraged that KCBS/KCAL decided this week to display on its website the mug shots, names and birthdates of 18  men who were recently charged in an undercover sex sting operation at a Manhattan Beach public restroom.

The men were reportedly charged with what the center calls “victimless crimes” ranging from loitering to engaging in lewd conduct in a public place.

“It’s shocking that any news operation, but especially an affiliate of a major network like CBS, would choose to publish the mug shots, names and birthdates of people charged with victimless crimes, simply because the charges are salacious or related to gay sex,” said L.A Gay & Lesbian Center Chief of Staff Darrel Cummings. “Naturally we don’t condone illegal activity of any kind, but these men haven’t been proven guilty and historically, charges such as those leveled against them have involved police entrapment. Publishing their photos serves no purpose other than to humiliate and destroy their lives.”

The Center is calling on KCBS/KCAL to remove the images and names from their website. I’ll update you on the situation tomorrow!

Kirk Cameron certainly caused quite a stir last month with his comments against gay marriage and homosexuality being ‘detrimental,’ ‘unnatural’ and ‘ultimately destructive.’

Alan Thicke, who played Cameron’s dad on the long-running sitcom Growing Pains, had quickly taken to Twitter to and joked: “I love Kirk but I may have to spank him…’tho not in a gay way!”

The Six Pack had a chat with Thicke this week about Cameron and other topics which you can find in their entirety HERE.

Here are some excerpts they kindly sent me:

On Cameron’s remarks: “Kirk took quite a beating the last couple of weeks. He and I were in touch over all of [the controversy]. Basically I told him I wanted to stay out of the conversation and I’d throw in a few jokes, he should understand where I was coming from and that I respect his right to say whatever he feels. I just didn’t happen to agree with him.. I also believe in fossils and dinosaurs!”

On the backlash that followed – from both sides: “I was shocked and somewhat frightened by all of the fallout from the remarks from Kirk on Piers Morgan. I was astonished at all the hate mongering venom spewing vitriol that I saw. Going both ways, in both directions. It wasn’t only the incredibly hypocritical Christian wing who was calling me names, really vicious mean ugly kind of commentary, for my support of the gay and lesbian community. On the other hand, the gay and lesbian community attacking Kirk and all evangelicals and people of faith, that wasn’t right. I was quite surprised at the level of anger and meanness on both sides.”

So when I chatted with the screenwriter and activist the other night at the 45th anniversary party for The Advocate, I asked him to weigh in on the Carson Daly episode from earlier in the week.

On his radio show, Daly made jokes about gay people not being able to take down the crazed pilot on this week’s JetBlue flight. He apologized after his remarks were posted online by TMZ.com.

“I always look at these as learning moments,’ Black said. ‘So whenever they say something wrong – and a lot of Americans think it and still leans on these stereotypes, these myths about gay people – and when someone slips and one slips out, it’s probably something they learned early on. Then they apologize and correct the record. I think that’s a learning moment for the country.’

He added: ‘In a way, it’s a terrible thing to have happen but it’s good that the country gets to learn. So much of what’s important in this movement is education and outreach. We don’t always do enough of it. So if someone gets it wrong, if we can reach out and teach them the truth, and they’re willing to learn that truth and apologize for their mistakes, that’s what we’ve got to do more of.’

Black pointed out that homophobic remarks are not limited to high-profile celebrities caught making a gaffe.

‘We’ve got to start reaching out to other communities that do it even more than Carson Daly,’ he said. ‘We have religious communities and racial minority communities that we need to do a lot more of that outreach, education and allow them to catch up.’

To see what other celebs have to say about Daly’s remarks, see my story over at Gay Star News.

Bingham is a gay man who among the heroes on United Flight 93 who are thought to have fought their hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001.

United Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania instead of a government building in Washington D.C. as was planned. Bingham’s story was the subject of the documentary With You which was seen around the US film festival circuit last year.

Bingham’s mother, Alice Hoagland, shared with TMZ.com today some thoughts about Daly’s comments.

“Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day,” she said. “He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit.”

“No one among his pick-up team of fellow passengers was asking ‘Are you straight? Are you gay?’ No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6’4” tall — who could run over a charging opponent on the field, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona earlier that summer — would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat onboard an airliner.”

‘The world has its share of strong, heroic gay men,’ Hoagland added. ‘Gay men in sports uniforms and military uniforms have been winning America’s games and fighting America’s battles for a long time: quietly, humbly, and in the face of vicious bigotry.”

Well said!

Here is part of the documentary With You:

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Sunday Morning Man: 9/11 Hero Mark Bingham

“We live in a time where gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals find courage every day to overcome adversity, stand up to bullying and find equality. I’m truly saddened that my words today suggested otherwise. I’ve long been a supporter of Gay and Lesbian rights, and I’m saddened that my comments, however unintentional, offended anyone, specifically members of the LGBT community. The fact that I have hurt anyone is devastating. I’m not that guy. I’m proud to be an ally of the LGBT community and will continue to fight with them.”

Daly had joked that gay people could not have subdued a JetBlue pilot who went berserk on a flight from New York to Las Vegas this week.

‘Most of the people were on their way to some sort of security conference in Las Vegas … it was like a bunch of dudes and well trained dudes … thank God,’ said Daly, according to TMZ.com.

He continued: ‘With my luck, it would be like … ‘this is the flight going to [the gay pride convention] in San Francisco … I mean, that would be my colleagues.’

TMZ reports that Daly then changed his voice to sound like a gay stereotype and said: ‘Uh, we’re headed down to Vegas for the floral convention.’

He has now apologized via Twitter but you have to figure that will not be the end of it.

Carson writes: “This morning on my radio show I attempted to make fun of myself & offended others by mistake. I sincerely apologize.”

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has emailed me and said they are in dialogue with Daly’s representatives and have asked him to speak out against stereotypes of the LGBT community.

I’d say it’s the least he could do.

You can listen to the comments for yourself below and I will be very interested to hear from you.

Is this at the level of what Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder once said about black people – comments that got him fired from CBS?

Madonna has no plans to cancel a concert in St Petersburg this summer because of the “homosexual propaganda law in the city which went into effect last Saturday.

Instead, the superstar plans to use the occasion to sing – and to speak out.

‘I will come to St. Petersburg to speak up for the gay community and to give strength and inspiration to anyone who is or feels oppressed,’  she told Bloomberg News via e-mail ‘I’m a freedom fighter.’

You can read more of the story over at Gay Star News.