Perez Hilton is on the cover of The Advocate!

Oh boy, I have a feeling this is going to piss a lot of people off.

But hey, you can’t say people aren’t going to be talking about The Advocate which features the more-controversial-then-ever Perez Hilton on its new cover.

The issue, according to an editor’s note, had already gone to press by the time Perez made national news by calling will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas a “faggot” after they exchanged words at a 2009 Much Music Video Awards party. An updated version appears on Advocate.com.

Here are some portions of the profile by writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis:

“I’ve been working so hard on my health and my body,” [Perez] tells me sometime during the 20 minutes it takes us to drive four blocks, “and I’m almost to the point where I’m comfortable enough to show it off. When I am, I’m going to be naked, all the time, everywhere. I’m going to be like Marc Jacobs. Every photo shoot he does, he’s naked. That’s going to be me.” There’s symbolism, I think, in Perez’s impending nakedness. Both professionally and socially, the 31-year-old Perez, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, tells me he’s never felt so happy, so free. (This is a month before Perez saw his world upended in Toronto, June 21, at the MuchMusic Video Awards, when he called Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am a “faggot” and then allegedly was punched in the eye by the band’s manager. Instead of receiving sympathy, Perez, who posted an angry and tearful video on his blog the next day, was ridiculed by celebrities and readers of his blog alike, some of whom said he had it coming. Perez also found himself under attack from many in the gay community, who were aghast to learn that he’d used the word “faggot” to describe the musician. “I’ve always known that a lot of gays didn’t like me,” he told me a week after the incident, “but after this it felt like no gays liked me. It was one of the worst weeks of my life.”

I ask him if he ever feels a conflict between his roles as a gossip blogger and gay rights activist. “Do you ever feel the need to tone down the outrageousness when you’re making the argument for gay marriage?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t really separate the two parts of me like that,” he says, wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt that says “Vote for Gay Marriage.” “I mean, I’m gay, and I make no apologies for that. Ever. I’m just being me. Besides, there are a lot gayer people out there than me. On the gay scale, I’m probably a 6 out of 10. I could be way gayer!” He pauses to answer an e-mail on his Sidekick. “But what’s wrong with being gay, anyway?” he huffs 10 seconds later. “Nothing. I love being gay! I’m gay. I suck cock. I went on this date the other night with this guy who said he didn’t like sucking cock, and I was like, ‘Excuse me? I don’t have time for you.’ I’m gay. I’m very gay. And I like sucking cock. A lot. Put that on your cover!”

Two weeks after my trip to see him, he angered many people by posting pictures of Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the film Milk, engaging in what appears to be unsafe sex with another man. Why would Perez, who claims to want nothing more than gay equality, post photographs that could defame one the movement’s brightest spokespeople and be used as ammunition against his message?

“I actually have a huge crush on Lance,” Perez told me by telephone the day he ran the pictures, “but I’m all about equality, about treating gays the same way I would treat straight people. I would post the pictures if it was a straight celebrity. I love Rihanna, but recently her naked pictures leaked and I posted them. So should I not do it with a gay celebrity? Do we want to be treated equally, or do we not? Besides, I’m a gossip blogger. This is my job.”

In person, Perez comes off as significantly less vitriolic than his blogger persona. I found him to be surprisingly laid-back and even likable in real life, but he’s not a deep or nuanced thinker and seems generally unwilling (perhaps unable?) to look critically at himself. He seems all too eager to genuinely believe his own spin, to make up his mind and then go searching for the evidence — or the rationale — to back it up. And though his close friends praise his honesty, he doesn’t strike me as all that intellectually honest.