Nearly 25,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in support of Ellen and an LA Times poll shows that nearly 95 percent of respondents think JC Penney should keep her on.

The company said Friday that it ‘stands behind our partnership’ with Ellen.

You can read more about this and get to the petition by going over to my story at Gay Star News.

Here’s an excerpt:

Nixon manages to keep a similarly clear-eyed perspective on her relationship with [Christine Marinoni], despite the titillation it has caused in the tabloid media. She has less tolerance for the skepticism she says her relationship has sparked among some gay activists who find her midlife switch in sexual orientation disingenuous.

“I totally reject that,” she said heatedly. “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

Don’t you just love this photo?

It was taken earlier today when Days of Our Lives star Chandler Massey met Kristy McNichol.

They happen to have the same publicist, Jeff Ballard, and he made the introduction.

“She is a wonderful actress and is so warm and down to earth,” Chandler said after meeting McNichol for the first time.

Kristy’s view of Chandler: “What a cutie!  He is so adorable and talented.”

As you know, Kristy earlier this month publicly acknowledged that she is a lesbian and did so because she wants to help LGBT kids who are bullied.

Although Kristy has not acted for more than two decades, the Emmy winner is still well-remembered for her television roles on Family and Empty Nest and such feature films as Little Darlings, Only When I Laugh and The Pirate Movie.

Chandler, meanwhile, is doing an outstanding job as gay teen Will Horton on Days of Our Lives. He’s been so good that the current issue of Soap Opera Digest, which just arrived in my mailbox today, names him as “Performer of the Week.”

“The young actor has had to delicately balance his alter-ego’s fragility, profound hurt and confusion, not to mention his intense anger at [his mother],” the magazine notes. “The material marks the first time Massey has really been pushed to show off all his skills and he has fully embraced the challenge.”

Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry have been an item for eight months but the world just learned of the star coupling in November.

“It’s so awesome,” Perry told E! Online’s Marc Malkin Thursday at the Critics’ Choice Awards. “I would never have expected that me and her [sic] would be dating.”

“We met and we just instantly connected,” Perry added.”We’re so alike but so different, too. It really works.”

So, is marriage a possibility?

“I don’t know,” Perry tells Malkin. “We gotta get through a year first. It’s been eight months. We’re going on nine. We haven’t even lived together yet.”

Today, I complete the trifecta with this story on Pariah writer-director Dee Rees.

She has made such a superb film, so deeply moving and authentic.

I hope a lot of people go to see Pariah when it opens in theaters tomorrow.

While Pariah is not her life story, Rees says there are similarities.

‘It’s the emotions I experienced that were the same,’ she said during a recent Los Angeles press junket for the film. ‘Who I was was not a choice. … I knew this film was a universal story. I’m excited to see it playing out and seeing people respond to it.’

Click HERE to read the story in its entirety.

Rosie chatted Huffington Post about a wide range of topics in an interview posted today. Here is what she has to say about Madonna:

“Madonna is my age. I don’t have that big sister reverence of looking up to her. We’re very good friends. I just saw her new movie, “W.E.” and it’s amazing. It’s a brilliant piece of work. She is probably the most talented person I have ever met in my life. You don’t get to be Madonna in this lifetime without an immense amount of talent and I think when people see this movie, that not only did she write and direct but she produced it as well, they’re going to be shocked. She’s a meteoric, once-a-generation type talent and she’s a pretty phenomenal human being as well.”

The couple met in line at Starbucks!

Rosie broke the news today to audience members of her new talk show on OWN.

Rosie has four children with her ex, Kelli Carpenter,  and last year split from artist Tracy Katchick-Anders.

But once the show was on, she would occasionally speak about her then-partner Allison Adler and their kids. On Wednesday’s show, as the ladies held a discussion about celebrity privacy, Sara acknowledged what had been buzzed about over the weekend: she is dating musician Linda Perry.

“All these articles are out that I’m in a new relationship,” Gilbert told the audience, prompting applause. “I go online, and it’s on CNN … it’s weird.”

“I can’t believe anyone cares,” she said. “I do want to share stuff with you guys but I guess I’d rather do it on my own terms – in full hair and makeup.”

According to the New York Daily News, the pair were spotted holding hands in West Hollywood over the weekend.

The two were also seen together at the LA Gay & Lesbian Center gala earlier this month and the day before Thanksgiving Perry had tweeted: “Grocery shopping with @THEsaragilbert. Her contribution: breaking the balsamic vinegar trying to figure out if she had spotted Bill Cosby.”

I reminded her that a few years earlier, she had become a little distracted my a tiny hole I had near the shoulder of my favorite old sports coat that I no longer wear.

“Oh my God I’m always picking at you!” she said apologetically as wife Lara Embry laughed. “I’m just a picker.”

I assured her that it was all right by me.

Jane looked so happy and relaxed that I wondered if life as a superstar – after decades as a busy and successful character actress – had become more manageable.

“No!” Jane said.

But Lara, who she was married to last year, thinks they have because they are now in a new home they had built that she describes as “calming.”

“Ever since we’ve known each other we’ve been building this house,” said Jane. “So yes, things have started to level out – especially now that we live in this house. It feels so good. I sometimes still feel a little overwhelmed but its all good.”

The couple also shared with me their thoughts about last week’s Glee episode called “The First Time” where couples Kurt and Blaine and Rachel and Finn had sex for the first time. Groups such as the conservative Parents Television Council were up in arms before the episode even aired.

“I think they did a great job with that episode, I thought it was so sweet and tender,” Jane said. “We had Rachel and Finn having their for first moment and I thought they did that tastefully. Nobody was humping each other. They basically showed these kids post-coital if you will. It was just tender and sweet. If you have a problem with homosexuality, then maybe you have a problem with that.”

Added Lara: “What they are upset about is their own issues.”

Jane went on that night to present the evening’s other high-profile couple, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka with the Rand Schrader Distinguished Achievement Award.

Now another very famous person, Ellen DeGeneres, will be using her high profile to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS around the world.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made the surprise announcement earlier today during a speech at the National Institutes of Health.

“Ellen is going to bring not only her sharp wit and her big heart, but her impressive TV audience and more than 8 million followers on Twitter, to raise awareness and support for this effort,” Clinton said. “I know we can look forward to many contributions from Ellen and her loyal fans across the globe.”

In a letter to Ellen, Clinton (pictured with DeGeneres during an earlier appearance on her show) wrote: “By lending us your energy, compassion, and star power to serve as our Special Envoy for Global AIDS Awareness, your words will encourage Americans in joining you to make their voices heard in our campaign to achieve an AIDS-free generation. The enormous platform of your television show and your social media channels will enable you to reach millions of people with the strong and hopeful message that we can win this fight.”

According to the State Department, here is Ellen’s response which, of course, includes a bit of humor: “I’m honored to have been chosen by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as Special Envoy for Global AIDS awareness. The fight against AIDS is something that has always been close to my heart. And I’m happy that I can use my platform to educate people and spread hope. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go look up what “envoy” means.”

There will be nine new episodes of the series that intimately follows a group of high-profile lesbians living uncensored before the cameras. It will go into production in Los Angeles and New York in early 2012.

While seasons one and two focused exclusively on L.A.’s tight-knit lesbian community, season three will introduce several new women from the New York scene while also featuring the return of key “fan favorite” cast members. A search for new cast members is expected to start soon in L.A. and N.Y.

Creator and executive producer Ilene Chaiken said: “We’re excited and gratified to be picking up the stories of our most beloved season 2 cast members at some truly major and life-altering junctures, and we think it’s time to throw down and invite the women of New York to join in and demonstrate the claims they’ve lobbed at us these past few years…that New York’s women have something more to say about lesbian life, something that isn’t being said by our Los Angeles ladies. Bring it on, Brooklyn!”

The Real L Word is created and executive produced by Chaiken and fellow executive producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of Magical Elves (Project Runway, Top Chef).

Here are some more highlights from the Ellen’s interview in PARADE:

On dealing with rejection in Hollywood after she came out as a lesbian in 1997:
“I didn’t work, didn’t have any money. No one [in the business] would even talk to me on the phone.” With the outline of her talk show in hand, she finally convinced Hollywood that she was “not just gay,” she says, but “a funny woman who happens to be gay.”

DeGeneres says her own family was more understanding when she came out at age 18:
“If anything, it was a shock to me. I’d always known that I had crushes on girls, but I also liked boys-though I wasn’t drawn to them romantically. For me to get in touch with myself enough to recognize that I was gay, and then not to stay private about it, was a huge step.”

DeGeneres found the behind-the-scenes nastiness of American Idol off-putting:
“It was disappointing to hear things about the kids, the drama going on. Some of them are not as grateful as you would expect. All of a sudden they have fan mail, millions of people saying they’re great, and some of them just stop appreciating it.”

Look for the full story in the Oct. 30 issue of PARADE and to check out Ellen at her photo shoot and read an excerpt from her new book, visit:
http://www.parade.com/celebrity/2011/10/behind-the-scenes-ellen-degeneres.html

“We thought about it. We love to be around children after they’ve been fed and bathed,” Ellen writes in her new book Seriously … I’m Kidding. “But we ultimately decided that we don’t want children of our own. There is far too much glass in our house.”

The talk show host and De Rossi, whose starred on Arrested Development and Ally McBeal, were married in 2008.

Ellen writes that their household is already rather full.

“We have two dogs, Mabel and Wolf, and three cats at home, Charlie, George and Chairman. We have two cats on our farm, Tom and Little Sister, two horses, and two mini horses, Hannah and Tricky, We also have two cows, Holy and Madonna. And those are only the animals we let sleep in our bed.”

It was a wonderful thing for the LGBT community when country music singer Chely Wright came out publicly. She has become such an articulate and outspoken leader on various issues.

Last month, for example, she appeared on MSNBC with Thomas Roberts to talk about an anti-gay amendment in North Carolina which she called “disgusting,” “a black eye to the Sotu” and a “sucker punch to the LGBT community.”

Happily for Chely, she has also found love.

In August, she married Lauren Blitzer in a ceremony that took place at a private home in Connecticut.

Happy birthday to a very special star.

I find myself checking out Huffington Post’s new Gay Voices section each day and have been very impressed with some of the first-person columns that have been posted in recent weeks.

This one by out actress Heather Matarazzo really struck a cord. The column begins this way: I don’t remember the day that I was taught to fear God, but I do know that I was taught.

Heather later writes of making Welcome to the Dollhouse when she was 11 years old and becoming aware of gay people: Now, I had always been attracted to women, but I could never put a name to it until that summer of 1994.

Here is the part of the column I found the most stunning:

When I finished Dollhouse I was back at school and those religious education classes. In class that year was a woman who was our teacher, and she shall remain nameless. I don’t remember when exactly it came up, or how exactly it did, but what I do remember was this: she had stated boldly, “God sent AIDS to gay people to punish them for their sins.” I was aghast. I was shocked. I was sickened. That couldn’t be true; it simply couldn’t. She was talking about my friends. She was talking about me. Right there, I made a decision: if this was God, then I wanted no part of it.

Here is a LINK to the entire piece. I applaud and thank Heather for sharing her story.

Rather than being upset about it, Maddow told Ellen DeGeneres this week that she is simply bored with the topic: “I want new hate mail. I want it to be about something other than me being mannish and cow-like.”

Today, the great tennis champion and LGBT activist turns 55 and she is still going strong after battling breast cancer last year.

Martina, a nine-time Wimbledon singles champion, remains one of the few professional athletes to ever come out during the peak of their careers. Martina not only was openly gay when she was number one, but she competed and won most of her major tournaments in the 80s during a far less hospitable time.

“It’s the positive attitude that gets you through life and it is a choice,” she said when she was honored at the US Open in 2010. “I’ve always been too much of an optimist where I sort of ignore bad stuff until it sits right there in front of me. I’m saying nothing is going to go wrong and, when it does, that’s when I deal with it. That’s how I’ve gotten through life. I think it’s done me pretty well.”

I’ll say.

The New York Times review of The Rosie Show describes Rosie O’Donnell’s new television effort as “colorful and spontaneous: the funny cousin who shows up for a family ceremony late and lets suitcases of clothes, shoes and presents spill out all across the living room floor.”

The review also states: It’s not perfect television, it’s amusing television, and a reminder of why so many other OWN programs, beautifully shot and expertly produced, seem so dull.

Among the “dull” shows is the show that follows Rosie’s each weeknight, Oprah’s Life Class which is hosted by OWN owner Oprah Winfrey!

First week moments cited in the article are celebrity interviews that are relaxed and often quite intimate. such as when Rosie and guest Wanda Sykes [pictured with Gloria Estefan] discovered that as little girls, they both fantasized about having children, not with a husband, but as single mothers. “I guess that’s what little lesbians tell themselves,” Rosie said.

Concludes the review: “The Rosie Show” is an OWN program that doesn’t ask viewers to look inside themselves; it just entices them to watch.

It’s a good piece.

We see Oprah Winfrey’s reaction to walking into her old studio and seeing it completely transformed (she doesn’t look thrilled actually) and Rosie admits that Oprah had stopped by her house before they sealed the deal for “a crazy check.” Somehow, Rosie says, she passed.

Of course, The View is brought up – in particular, her last day on the show more than four years ago when she had an explosive on-air argument with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. She said when she watches the fight on YouTube, she still feels the betrayal and the two have not spoke except publicly through Twitter.

But Rosie remains quite fond of Barbra Walters: “I love her and I hope she’s going to come and be a guest.”

We all know that Rosie and Kelli Carpenter famously split four years ago and Rosie felt that she was really letting the LGBT community down: “It was probably the most humiliating experience of my life and the most painful and the most humbling.”