15 months after the launch of www.pghlesbian.com along comes www.pghgay.com, Pittsburgh's Gay Men's Blog.  Mozarti, a lifelong friend of mine (since second grade), takes his homo-thoughts in a whole different direction than us lesbo correspondents.  He covers everything from homophobia in the Catholic Church to homoerotic fixation with men's underwear. 

We need to gayify the 'burghosphere a bit more.  Can www.pghtrans.com be far behind?

It has been a super-duper busy week for me at work and home so not much not time for blogging.  Here's a few interesting snippets

The Tribune-Review's columnist Matt Sober dances with the homo issue once again as he tackles Ann Coulter -- really, isn't she such an easy target after all?  Anyway, Sober has the good sense to recognize that faggot actually is an offensive slur.  Then he devolves into a strange comparison to Seinfeld episodes and mixed metaphors and some other inane stuff.  It is not a particularly good column, a bit too much on the folksy appeal to the yinzer 40something type column.  But at least he recognized that us gays have been under siege far too much of late and someone should go pick on somebody else.

Now here's something interesting. A professor at California University of Pennsylvania (CUP) is claiming that the university is complicit in the oppression of gay students. 

"Gay and lesbian students are treated differently," charged William O'Donnell, of the Theater and Dance Department, during the convocation attended by more than 200 faculty, staff and students

The gathering was prompted by an incident three weeks ago in which racially charged notes were attached to the dormitory room doors of about a dozen black students.

O'Donnell alleged that the Washington County university discriminates against gays and lesbians. He said discrimination, including harassment of openly gay students, served as a "model" to other students and helped to fuel the recent racial incident.

The University, of course, denies the allegations.  Apparently, someone targeted an African-American student with racial harassmment and the university failed to respond appropriately.  She had to leverage a television interview to get some justice done.  Now, O'Donnell's charges come to light.

Is anyone surprised the queer students might be treated differently?  Not that its okay, but CUP isn't exactly the bastion of civilization ... and I can speak from firsthand experience that queer students are not well treated at the University of Pittsburgh.  The article does not list a single incident or the perspective of any students.  Surprised that gay students didn't talk with the reporter?  Huh ...

OK, I gotta draw this long day to a close.  I'm getting my house ready to rent and its exhausting.  Never ending cleaning. 

OK, maybe it has just been a long day in the trenches.  Because I can't understand Reg Henry's latest column.  In what I think is meant to be irony, he positions her "babe" status against her man qualities -- being a hateful jerk.

I have a question. How is it that Ann Coulter is so belligerent and testosterone-laden? I know, I know, this isn't the 19th century, and women don't sit around stirring teacups with silver spoons. Still, she is the toughest guy in the conservative camp, a brawling longshoreman in a miniskirt.

That is why I suspect that she is really a cross-dressing man. She is certainly cross, and men are the more notorious gender for behaving badly. Do I know this for certain? Of course not. I am not married to her -- hurrah for me and all of us who are not! -- and have not done the necessary research.

Ah, Reg, labeling Ann Coulter a cross-dresser because of her faggot comment.  Sigh.

Now Reg is clearly a smart guy and gets the appeal of Ann Coulter to the wingnuts.

No wonder the lovely Ms. Coulter unleashed a bit of her trademark venom to cheer up the boys despairing there in the VIP seats.

This is what she does. This is why she was invited to that forum. This is why she is the toast of conservatives. She speaks the vile things that many believe but dare not speak. Oh, and she's as subtle as a train wreck, which they really like in a person.

There you have it.

Reverend Edwards once again faces church court charges for performing a lesbian wedding. Previous charges were dropped due to technicalities, which some suspect was a convenient way for the Presbyterian Church to sidestep the larger issues around gay and lesbian members of the faith community.

A Florida minister has again filed a complaint against the Rev. Janet Edwards, who faced charges in church court for marrying a lesbian couple before the court determined last year that the charges were filed four days too late.

The Rev. James Yearsley said he refiled the accusation with Pittsburgh Presbytery, charging that Ms. Edwards defied her vows and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), which prohibits same-sex marriages and bars pastors from performing them.

Click here for our previous coverage on this issue.

Ms. Edwards, 56, is a parish associate at the Community of Reconciliation in Oakland and a longtime activist for gay people in the church. She said she does not believe she violated the promises she made at ordination by marrying two West Virginia women in June 2005.

"Of course it is difficult to be called a heretic or apostate by a fellow Presbyterian and another Christian. But I really learned from the first round and I want to focus my soul on reconciling prayer," she said yesterday. "I'm hoping that I can talk with people who disagree with me and that we can find our way to reconciliation.''

Would that all Christians walk in such humility when confronted with someone who disagrees with them. 

Anti-war protesters chained together, their arms covered by tar and plastic pipe, blocked the entrances to Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center in Lawrenceville this morning.

About 50 people were involved, including those chained together, those bringing them coffee and food, a makeshift band and other supporters.

This is the type of civil disobedience that makes me proud to be a member of the Thomas Merton Center.  Unlike the incident last year where a cameraman was struck during an allegedly nonviolent protest. 

Imagine if Joey Porter mated with Ann Coulter ... they could spit out homobigot puppies left and right, well mostly just right. 

I just had to chime in on this.  The Tribune Review printed a list of Joey's highs and lows during his Steeler tenure. I won't recant all the amazing athletic feats he accomplished -- bully for him for doing the job he was amply compensated to do.  But here's how Scott Brown sums up Porter's homophobia:

The outspoken Porter made comments that some said were offensive last December, when he called Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. a derogatory name for a homosexual man during a post-game interview. Porter apologized for the word he used, though not to Winslow, and was fined $10,000 by the NFL.

WTF?   Outspoken?  Some said were offensive?  In what reality is calling Kellen Winslow Jr. a fag not offensive?   He was trash talking so everything he said was intended to be offensive. 

Brown was more outraged by Porter's horse-murdering dogs than his blatant bigotry.  Nice, huh? 

Now if I could just connect this to police secondary employment, the mayoral endorsement or Dennis Regan ...

Here's what she said today at the Conservative Political Action Conference.  h/t 2 Political Junkies:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ?faggot,? so I ? so kind of an impasse, can?t really talk about Edwards.

Here's a clip at Crooks and Liars.

The Human Rights Campaign has issued a press release calling for America's leaders to repudiate this new low in political discourse.

Is anyone surprised?  Really?  I can't even muster up an indignant response so I'm going to go kiss my sweetie and curl up with this great novel called Baghdad Burning.

Sometimes greed can be a dyke's best friend.  In this case, it means Joey Porter will take his trash-talking bigotry and hit the road for greener pastures.  I don't care if he made 879 tackles last year and was Most Valuable Stud three years running or even if he did single-handedly hold back the entire Steeler team so Jerome Bettis could have his moment in the sun ... I don't even care that his team mug shot is plastered all over the city on the anti-homicide billboards urging people to report murders.

I think we're better off without him and his arrogant disrespect for any creature other than himself.  We are not fans of Joey Porter.

This lesbian couldn't be happier. 

h/t Pitt Girl

The City Paper covers the recent meeting of the minds of the Christian Associates of Southwestern Pennsylvania and KDKA head honchos in which they determined well, really not much of anything other than to mutually continue beating their own drums of "we did nothing wrong."

That's a complete load of hooey and Brent Dugan is dead because of it.  When I read the article, I just heard wheels spinning furiously as both sides desperately try to avoid taking responsibility for the homophobia underlying their actions.  Brent's friends seem to genuinely believe he killed himself due to the betrayal by his lover and the publicity of KDKA, a stance that to me just perpetuates the loneliness he must have felt even among his closest loved ones.  If the Presbyterian Church continues to dodge "the gay question," people both in and out of ministry who happen to be gay will suffer. 

Ledcat pointed out that I have not yet considered KDKA's homophobia and she's right.  Pursuing a gay minister in a bookstore story is obviously tapping right into gay-hysteria and shame on them for pandering to the, well, shame factor in society.  But I still say pointing the finger at Marty Griffin misses the mark.  He's just one cog in a giant wheel of gay-intolerance.

Everyone let this man down.  His loved ones.  His faith community.  His fourth estate.  And his community --- we perpetuate a culture that excludes, minimizes and reduces homosexuality to second-class status.  Everyone is to blame for this man's death.

As everyone dances the denial route, it is apparent that Brent Dugan is as lonely in death as he seems to have been in life.  Thank goodness, his God is more compassionate than his fellow human beings.