That’s not a problem. However, enter the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is giving D.C. and ultimatum: re-write the legislation so that they can continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians in their hiring and in their married couple benefits (for all of their employees, including those working in multiple social service programs they run) or the Catholic Church will stop all social services programs in the district.

Apparently, the Catholic Church does not think gays and lesbians can work with the homeless.

Or, with healthcare.

Catholic Charities, the church’s social services programming arm, serves 68,000 people in D.C., and the church provides some $10 million out of its own accounts to provide the services.

“What would Jesus do?” one might ask the Catholic Church: stop serving the homeless and discriminate against gays and lesbians? I guess that’s what they expect.

Now, that’s f’d up.

The five candidates competing for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination are slated to speak at the dinner: Nashville businessman Ward Cammack, State Senators Roy Herron of Dresden and Jim Kyle of Memphis, former State legislator Kim McMillan of Clarksville, and Jackson businessman Mike McWherter. A straw poll will be taken at the conclusion of the evening.

Registration starts at 6:00 pm. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at www.hcdp.us/kefauver, or by calling the Hamilton County Democratic Party at 423-266-4125.

I forgot about the fact that with a computer, sound can be altered, and anyone can sound like a pop star.

I just listend to her new hit single, “Tardy for the Party,” on YouTube, and I was feeling the song. I can see why people have said it is becoming a popular hit at gay clubs.

I found another clip of Kim dancing with a Detox, a West Hollywood drag queen, on YouTube, and it was hilarious. As usual, Kim has a cigarette and a glass of wine in hand as she dances to her song.

But, is Kim conning all of her gay fans into thinking she is talented?

Needless to say (for anyone who follows the show), she sounds horrible performing the song live, and she cannot dance. Brian Moylan wrote a review of her live performance, and it was scathing: “‘Tardy for the Party’ Live Will Give You Nightmares.”

Obviously Kim’s vocals in her live performance are terrible, but I am wondering what you think of her song. Leave a comment below!

The designation of “spouse” was offered in the just released results of the 2008 Census Bureau’s survey because in several states same-sex couples can get legally married.

The designation of “spouse” was offered to respondents in all 50 states, giving the first ever profile of same-sex couples who are committed in the traditional spousal sense in the US.

Gary J. Gates of The Williams Institute at UCLA has analyzed the recent US Census Bureau release of data from the 2008 ACS as it pertains to same-sex couples.

Responses to the US Census Bureau’s survey suggest that there are about 565,000 same-sex couples in the US.

Same-sex couples are shifting the traditional paradigm and definition of the term “spouse.” More than 1 in 4 (nearly 150,000) same-sex couples designated themselves as spouses.

Surprisingly, Wyoming and Utah had a high rate of same-sex couples selecting the designation of “spouses” despite the lack of legal recognition in those states.

Massachusetts, the first state to permit marriage for same-sex couples in 2004, had an estimated 3.63 same-sex spousal couples per 1,000 households in 2008, ranking first among all states. Vermont, which has offered civil unions since 2000, ranked second at 2.71. The remaining top five states ranked by same-sex spouse prevalence were Hawaii (2.43), Utah (2.32), and Wyoming (2.28).

Same-sex couples were more likely to call themselves spouses in states that recognize marriages of same-sex couples – 31% of same-sex couples in states with marriage recognition identified themselves as spouses. In states with no form of recognition, only 26% identified as spouses.

I am so proud to be an American when I think of what this means for gays and lesbians. Here is what I believe this means:

First, the federal government is beginning to create a federally recognized and protected class of people based on sexual orientation. This is so from the hate crimes legislation, and now it is trickling into public policy discourse on spousal relationships.

When I was doing research for my thesis in college several years ago, I could not find any way to argue for equal protection under the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment because gays and lesbians did not constitute a legally recognized class.

For the federal government to be making these strides in simple discourse is for the federal government to provide a class based on sexual orientation, which could lead to the federal courts recognizing an inequality between hetersexual and same-sex couples.

Second, gay and lesbian couples are calling themselves spouses even thought they cannot get legally married.

Self-imposed, cultural, and institutional homophobia and heterosexism have prevented same-sex couples from being able to self-identify as “spouses.” Such a self-designation would have been laughable decades ago when the mere thought of same-sex marriage was foreign to American public policy discourse.

Finally, same-sex spousal identification normalizes and naturalizes the same-sex marital relationship to outsiders and to heterosexual people.

Below is a map detailing the prevelance of same-sex couples identifying as spousal couples. In the map, the darker the state, the more pevelant the identification.

The US Census in 2010, for the first time in its 200-plus year history, will count same-sex couples who identify as married

Charles Robbins, Executive Director and CEO of The Trevor Project emailed me asking me to detail the Trevor Project.

The Trevor Project is the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.

Click here to access the website for the Trevor Project, which operates the only accredited, nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth. If you or a friend are feeling lost or alone, call The Trevor Helpline. There is hope, there is help.

The Trevor Helpline was established in 1998 to coincide with the HBO airing of the award winning short film, Trevor, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres.

The Trevor Helpline is a free and confidential service that offers hope and someone to talk to, 24/7. The Trevor Helpline’s trained counselors will listen and understand without judgment. If you or someone you know would like to talk to one of our highly trained counselors, dial 866-4-U-TREVOR.

I love it, and I think it will make you want to move your body. What a Halloween treat! Enjoy!

Time for Miracles plays after For Your Entertainment completes on the website, and I actually like it better. It is not as much of a dance song, but it is smooth.

In this clip, The Onion does a parody of a segment from the Today Show.

Instead of discussing cute new Halloween costumes for children, the people at The Onion thought it would be funny to take this annual news story and make it humorous.

What better way to do this than to play on gender stereotypes.

The title of the clip says it all: “How to Find a Masculine Halloween Costume for Your Effeminate Son.”

I laughed throughout the clip because I identified with the effeminate children. Having been an effeminate child myself, I thought back to the years of gender-moulding I went through, being coached by parents and friends to throw a football, to date girls, to be tough, and to exude masculinity at any given moment.

To this day, I still cannot properly throw a football.

With Halloween upon us, I think it would be more ironic for me to dress as a football player. That would be laughable.

So, what will you be going as this Halloween?

I just returned to Tennessee from a trip to Destin, Florida. That’s sunrise over the Destin Harbor to the left and at the bottom of the page.

I commented to my brother (who lives in San Fransisco) that Destin is not gay.

Then he said, “But, you’re in Destin.”

Destin is full of things for GLBT people to do, but there is not one specific restaurant, bar, or nightclub that caters primarily to GLBT people.

Alas, I did find a dueling piano bar, which was very theatrical (theatrical = more than likely gay-friendly).

At Rum Runners Dueling Piano Bar and Grill, I had an excellent time requesting several Elton John songs. Unfortunately, the guys playing pianos and drums must not have liked Michael Jackson because after three Michael Jackson requests with $5 tips attached, they never played any Michael Jackson music.

So, my friend and I left the piano bar in search of a straight strip club called Sammy’s. We chose to walk there after we had been charged $18 cabfare just to go over a bridge (the cab driver must have known we were from out of town).

We walked around for about 15 minutes, but we never found Sammy’s.

The best part of the trip was renting a pontoon boat and a jetski from Mango Maddie’s rentals for just $335 for four hours.

When my friend was riding the jetski he hit a wave and my Versace sunglasses flew off of his face (thankfully, they were imitation Versace’s that I had purchased at Chattanooga’s Hamilton Place Mall for $10).

There was a lot of good food in Destin: McGuire’s Irish Pub and the Back Porch were my favorites. At the Back Porch, located directly on the beach, we walked into the restaurant with sand on our feet, and I ordered a margarita and a blackened Mahi Mahi sandwhich.

I almost asked for one Mahi because I was not that hungry (House Bunny, the movie, reference), but I thought my friends and family had overplayed that joke.

There is also an amazing shopping opportunity in Destin: Silver Sands Factory Outlet Mall, which is the nation’s largest designer outlet shopping mall.

The mall sells coupon books for $3, but if you find something on sale in a shop, you cannot use your coupons. So, the coupon books were worthless–until we got to Perfumania.

I have not had Georgio Armani’s Aqua de Gio in years, and I decided to use a 20% off coupon on the Aqua de Gio purchase.

Destin is no San Fransisco, and Destin prides itself on not having any gay nightlife so that it can appear more “family-friendly.”

My friend and my family who went with me definitely showed that Destin can be both “gay” and “family friendly.”

This was true for a gay couple at Mariah Carey’s Vegas concert last Saturday.

Three years ago, the gay couple was discussing marriage, and one of the partners said that he would get married only if he could meet Mariah Carey.

Well, it happened after Mariah Carey invited the couple onto the stage at her last show at The Palms in Las Vegas.

The other man accepted the proposal, and Mariah Carey toasted them with champaigne.

This does many things for the progress of gay marriage. Having Mariah Carey toasting gay marriage with her fans cheering in front of her is huge, especially considering that she is the best-selling female artist of the millennium.

The Newlywed Game tests couples about how well they know each other.

The gay contestants were: 72-year-old George Takei (Star Trek actor and frequent guest on the Howard Stern Show) and his husband Brad Altman.

Takei told KCRA TV, “We’re boldly going where no other gay couple has gone before. I think, you know, the Newlywed Game is really progressive because America is getting to be much, much different than the America that I grew up in. And, I think this show is very appropriately reflecting the changing society. And, so Brad and I were absolutely delighted when we got the invitation from the Newlywed Game to join in.”

Altman and Takei became husbands on September 14th last year prior to the passage of Prop. 8 in California, and they still enjoy legal recognition of their marriage.