USA Today: Landmark SCOTUS Ruling

WASHINGTON—Following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision making same-sex marriage legal nationwide, sources confirmed Friday that only 47,000 social justice milestones need to be reached before the U.S. achieves full equality. “This is a watershed moment for civil rights that finally brings the dream of living in an equitable society one tiny fraction of a step closer to reality,” said civil rights lawyer Helene Najjar, adding that the country could now turn its attention to closing the income gap, ending racial discrimination in law enforcement, and providing equal educational opportunities for all children, among tens of thousands of other issues. “We have been striving for this victory for decades, and we will continue to fight for a more just society until we have reached all 47,000 human rights milestones that still need to be achieved. This win proves that we are inching toward living in a nation in which we have equal rights for transgender people, people of color, people with disabilities, people living in poverty, women, immigrants, and countless other marginalized groups.” Experts confirmed that even with the Supreme Court’s ruling, the U.S. would still need to achieve 8,000 more milestones before gays could be considered fully equal.

The Onion.

Yes, of course this is important, and Fagburn's as pleased as anyone, but, you know, other stuff...

PS And a big thank you to Satan for making it all happen. x

Huff Post Gay Voices: The Gay Onion

Just beyond satire.

PS It's probably the most visited gay (non-porn) media site in the world, so... go figure.

USA Today: Going Back To Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS—Addressing the controversy surrounding his state’s recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Indiana governor Mike Pence forcefully insisted to reporters Monday that the new law has nothing at all to do with what it was explicitly intended to do. “Let me state directly that in no way is this law designed to allow the kind of anti-gay discrimination that is the law’s single reason for existing,” said Pence, emphasizing that provisions authorizing businesses to refuse service to gay customers were nothing more than the only explanation for the law being drafted in the first place. “Regardless of the widespread misconceptions surrounding it, I want to reassure Hoosiers of all backgrounds that this law will never be interpreted in the way it was unambiguously designed to be from the very beginning.” Pence further clarified that the act’s sole purpose was in fact to safeguard the free exercise of religion it was in no way whatsoever created to protect.

The Onion.

Satire!

Gay Teen: Worried

"I don't know what's happening to me," Faber admitted to reporters Monday. "It's like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I'm tempted to go behind my friends' backs and attend a megachurch service, or censor books in the school library in some way. Even just the thought of organizing a CD-burning turns me on."

Added Faber, "I feel so confused."

The openly gay teen, who came out to his parents at age 14 and has had a steady boyfriend for the past seven months, said he first began to suspect he might be different last year, when he started feeling an odd stirring within himself every time he passed a church. The more conservative the church, Faber claimed, the stronger his desire was to enter it.

"It's like I don't even know who I am anymore," the frightened teenager said. "Keeping this secret obsession with radical right-wing dogma hidden away from my parents, teachers, and schoolmates is tearing me apart."

The Onion.

Point? The Onion - 'America's finest news source' - is apparently up for sale.

Happy Sunday!

Clickhole: If Gay People Said The Things Hungry Straight People Say

Totes hilair satire on what's become a YouTube cliche! Enough!!!

Clickhole: Listen To The Dinosaur, Kids!

Brought to you by Clickhole.com which is brought to you by The Onion.

Not much going on, so I'm going out.
x

النصر على إيزيس ! الموت النظام العالمي الجديد ! الموت لأمريكا !

Religious News: History Of The Westboro Baptist Church

According to one of his estranged sons, Fred Phelps, the founder and longtime leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, is in gravely ill health. Here is a look back at some of the milestone moments in his controversial church’s history:

1929-2014: Fred Waldron Phelps is born, beginning a period of nearly 85 years during which not a single moment of doubt passes through his mind

1951: Margie Simms, the future Mrs. Phelps, meets the love of her life

1955-2014: Nobody cracks open a Bible

1968: Jesus Christ personally visits Fred Phelps in one of his dreams and asks what the fuck is wrong with him

1972-1979: The disco years

1991: Westboro Baptist Church blasted after adopting slogan expressing what dozens of churches actually believe

1994: Topeka residents admit they must hand it to Westboro Baptist Church for ending all that gay cruising in Gage Park

1999: In return for years of loyal patronage, church receives 200 free “God hates fags” posters from local Kinko’s

2010: An increasingly paranoid Fred Phelps becomes convinced God may be a fag

2013: Phelps excommunicated after advocating for more compassionate hatred

1955-2014: Gets a whole lot of undeserved attention

The Onion.

The Onion: Close-Minded Man

DULUTH, KS—Claiming it is “impossible” to get him to consider different points of view, exasperated acquaintances of local man Kyle Dunham told reporters Wednesday that the 34-year-old is completely unwilling to listen to even a single argument as to why homosexuality is an abomination.

Sources familiar with the account manager’s maddeningly rigid beliefs said that no matter how patiently and logically they present the extensive evidence demonstrating that gays and lesbians are systematically destroying society, the narrow-minded Dunham simply tunes them out.

“You try to have a rational conversation with him in which you carefully explain, point by point, how the Bible reveals that homosexuality is abhorrent and dangerous, and his eyes just glaze over,” said neighbor Alex Richardson, who told reporters he has never met anyone in his life so resistant to facts that contradicted his preconceived ideas. “Even when I bring up something basic that most informed people agree on—like how a man who lies down with another man is condemned to eternal hellfire—he just shakes his head.”

“I could spend all day calmly and methodically spelling out what befell the Sodomites,” Richardson added. “But it all goes in one ear and out the other.”

The Onion.

Hell: Now A Thriving Epicenter Of Gay Culture

THE MALEBOLGE, NETHER REGIONS OF DARKNESS—Noting the incredible rate at which the community has grown, sources confirmed Thursday that Hell, the Endless Kingdom of Misery, is now a booming haven of gay culture.
The Great Abyss, home of the damned, is reportedly inhabited by some 600 million condemned homosexual or transgender souls, a large proportion of its total population, and has by many accounts blossomed into an oasis of gay activism and community events...

“I’ve only been here for a few months, but I’ve already fallen in love with it,” said 49-year-old Daniel Edelson, adding that he has already befriended hundreds of fellow gay men and women in the accursed underworld, all of whom have welcomed him with open arms. “The streets of fire and brimstone are full of so many great cafés, restaurants, bakeries, independent bookstores, and of course plenty of gay bars and clubs. There’s just so much to do.”

Additionally, the Inferno’s Gay Pride Parade, held every July in the Second Circle, is noted for its extravagance and high attendance rate.
Reports confirmed that, with thousands more homosexual souls flooding the Gates of Hell every day, the Chasm of Wickedness and Sin has truly become a sanctuary for gays and lesbians alike, a feeling proudly shared by a majority of heterosexual locals...

In stark contrast to Hell’s ongoing embrace of persecuted groups, sources confirmed that Heaven remains the most bigoted and intolerant place in the universe.

The Onion.

The Onion: Baby Goes With Homosexuality

EDMOND, OK—Following weeks of deliberation during which he carefully considered what sort of life he wanted for himself, 4-month-old baby Nathan Reynolds announced Wednesday that he had decided to be homosexual.
“I thought about it for a long time,” said Reynolds, who took into account both how his peers would view him and how he would be treated by society at large before determining his sexual orientation. “I weighed the pros and cons of homosexuality, and ultimately I decided that it was the right thing for me...”

The Onion.
Warning: Ends up repeating the same joke to make a not very convincing point about The Gays being "Born This Way".

Grand National: The First Openly Gay Racehorse

Not much of nancyboy note in today's papers, so - as the country has gone Grand National Crazy!!! - this seemed like a good excuse to resurrect this beautiful thing from The Onion. - an hilarious satire of the vomitorium of banal cliches that the media's treatment of The Gays and The Sports et al all too often descends into.
'Where are the openly gay racehorses?' sounds like an article just waiting to emerge from the brilliant mind of Patrick Smugtwit.
"Imagine if there weren't any black horses!" etc etc.
Maybe The Onion should have got him to contribute some of his piercing insights to the above?

The Onion: Officemates Unwittingly Spend Entire Workday Talking To Each Other On Grindr

HOUSTON—Without either man ever becoming aware of the other’s identity, coworkers Matthew Durbin, 28, and Caleb Simmons, 26, spent an entire workday exchanging salacious messages with each other on the gay male dating site Grindr, sources reported Monday. “Are you as horny as I am right now?” Durbin wrote to Lucky_88, which, unbeknownst to him, is the username of the man who sits 30 feet away from him and with whom he occasionally exchanges awkward small talk in the office break room. “I want to stick my tongue into your hot, wet mouth. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.” At press time, sources confirmed the men’s plan to hook up had been aborted after each had arrived at the agreed-upon meeting place and unexpectedly caught sight of a coworker.

The Onion. 

PS Please don't spoil the magic by pointing out the rather obvious flaw in this otherwise good gag. 

President Obama: You Had A Wet Dream

Coverage of the second inaugural speech by President Obama - Dear Leader of the Free World etc - was so fawning I trust the North Koreans were taking notes.
Gay bloggers and journalists of the knicker-wetting tendency got rather over-excited because... he mentioned The Gays! *

"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."

Later invoking/mentioning-in-passing the Stonewall riots - sans irony - once more we are told that gay liberation now means gay marriage.
Give me a long-term committed relationship recognised by the state, or give me death!
Of course, in the midst of America's "guns, god and gays" kulturkampf this is hardly meaningless.
But do such nice platitudes and rousing rhetoric - essentially a single sentence plus one word - mean we can and must forgive and forget all else Obama has done.
As with David Cameron, support for equal marriage is a "progressive/liberal" totem which covers a multitude of sins.
One of the few party poopers pissing in the punchbowl was The Onion; Obama Begins Inauguration Festivities With Ceremonial Drone Flyover

WASHINGTON—Taking the oath of office for his second term today, President Barack Obama joined thousands of supporters in the nation’s capital for traditional inauguration festivities that included a prayer invocation, a parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, and a ceremonial flyover of three combat drones. “When Obama was being sworn in on the Capitol steps, we could hear the drones screeching by overhead and everyone got really excited,” spectator Andrew Meyers, 34, said as he eagerly trained his eyes on the unmanned aerial vehicles that have taken out several hundred innocent civilians during presidentially authorized strikes in Pakistan and Yemen. “They go by super fast, but luckily there are Jumbotrons all over the National Mall, so nobody missed out. Wait, they’re coming back!” At press time, sources confirmed that inaugural celebrants were enjoying the Jumbotron’s live closed-circuit feed of the still-open prison facility at Guantánamo Bay.

Can only a court jester criticise a king?

PS The Guardian front-page above has a trail for an article about prejudice against the trans community. Presumably part of what could be a long-running mea culpa by the Guardian/Observer post-Burchillgate...

* A selection of comments from American gay pundits. Barftime!

Update: 'Obama selects his causes carefully, politically. It’s good he has, in his own understated way, paid tribute to the Stonewall uprising. I’m sure many thousands are Google-searching that term since the speech, maybe some feeling inspired by what they learn. But as we revisit the Stonewall experience, should we not also recall how the Obama administration arms the police in countries like Saudi Arabia where gays are flogged, lashed or executed? And should we not note that the campaign for gay rights, however important, is no substitute for a campaign to topple U.S. imperialism, the endless source of war?' - Gary Leupp, Counterpunch. Via @howupsetting. x

Update 2: Obama, civil rights is about legislation, not alliteration. Nancy Goldstein, Guardian Cif.

On Outsourced Bob: Beats Working LOLZ!

9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos
11:30 a.m. – Take lunch
1:00 p.m. – Ebay time.
2:00 – ish p.m Facebook updates – LinkedIn 
4:30 p.m. – End of day update e-mail to management.
5:00 p.m. – Go home

A typical workday for "Bob", a software worker who outsourced his own job to China and spent his days dicking about on the internet.
You probably saw this yesterday, it went viral and was picked up by the media worldwide - Google News currently lists almost 450 articles.
Here's The Guardian's take; Software developer Bob outsources own job and whiles away shifts on cat videos.
They presented it as (unchecked) fact - well, it just could possibly be true.
But it's nigh on impossible to verify.
"Bob" is not named, nor is the firm he supposedly worked for.
Funny that.
But hey, why not just print the legend?
It's a funny story, nobody died, fills a space, beats working...
The story comes from the Security Blog - Verizon Business, a company that a cynic might suggest has more than a little vested interested in wanting bosses to increase surveillance of their workers.
Though some have suggested the real source for it was probably this skit on the American satirical website The Onion; More Americans Outsourcing Own Jobs Overseas: A new Department of Labor report finds personal outsourcing is revolutionizing how Americans don't do their own work.

When I tell people I do a blog that's about how gay men are mis/represented in the media, the usual reply is a jocular; "Blimey! Must be lots to write about there."
Yet often the very same people will believe any old silly fairy story they've see somewhere.
Often arguing in their defence; "But I read it in the paper!" 
But if journalists like the above - and 100s of others - can be so credulous, who can blame their readers for falling for things hook, line and LinkedIn?
Whenever you read anything by a journalist please bear in mind the advice of Louis Heren; "Always ask yourself, 'Why is this lying bastard lying to me?'" 

PS Even Steven Poole - author of Unspeak, a great guide to critical/sceptical reading - ran with this without questioning it; Programmer Bob who outsourced his job was a model modern employee.

The Onion: 8-Year-Old Palestinian Boy Pleasantly Surprised He Hasn't Been Killed Yet

GAZA CITY—As civilian casualties continue to mount amid the escalating conflict along the Gaza Strip, 8-year-old Palestinian boy Walid Suleiman expressed both joy and astonishment Monday that he has yet to be killed in an Israeli military attack. 
“Boy, I thought I’d be dead by this past Saturday for sure, but amazingly enough, here I am,” said Suleiman, adding that he is “pleased, but pretty shocked” not to be among the estimated 100 Palestinians left dead by widespread Israeli airstrikes in the region over the past six days. 
“I’d have bet you anything that by today they’d have already dug my corpse out from underneath a giant pile of rubble and buried me alongside the rest of my family. Guess I won the lottery, eh?” 
At press time, incoming Israeli aircraft could be heard swiftly approaching as Suleiman limped back to his home.

The Onion.

For those among you taking notes, I think the body count's now 100 to 3.
Hurrah for Zionism!

Sesame Street: Elmo "Uncomfortable Working With Gay Puppeteer"

NEW YORK—While stressing that he “in no way discriminates against or dislikes homosexuals,” Sesame Street star Elmo admitted to reporters Wednesday that he is “no longer comfortable” working with his now openly gay puppeteer, Kevin Clash. “While Elmo respects Mr. Clash’s decision to come out as a gay man, it does make Elmo somewhat uneasy,” said the 26-year-old furry puppet, adding that Clash’s sexuality “conflicts with [his] personal and religious beliefs.” “Elmo simply does not agree with the gay lifestyle, and given the unique puppet-puppeteer relationship, Elmo believes that having daily physical contact with Mr. Clash as part of Elmo’s employment is now inappropriate.” At press time, Elmo had submitted an official request to the Sesame Workshop to be transferred to a different puppeteer.

The Onion. 

The Onion: Finding Masculine Halloween Costumes For Your Effeminate Son

Anna Stephenson stops by Today NOW! to show parents of girly sons costume tips to survive Halloween without accentuating their child's already obvious homosexuality.

You can't beat the classics.

The Onion: Newborn Loses Faith In Humanity

The Onion: It's Not Funny Cause It's True

Various people have commented that this new video from The Onion - Gay 12-Year-Old: 'I Like Eating Lunch Here By Myself' - isn't funny.
Erm, it's not meant to be...

DADT: Dear John

"Hailed as a monumental step toward equality by gay rights activists, hundreds of Dear John letters reportedly began reaching newly outed troops overseas this week, notifying soldiers for the first time ever that their same-sex partners back home were leaving them and starting a new life with someone else.
"According to Pentagon observers, the torrent of brusque, callous letters—which followed Tuesday's repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy—has left romantically betrayed homosexuals in every branch of the service grappling with feelings of rejection and despair, a momentous milestone in U.S. military history.
"'For too long, gays and lesbians in the armed forces were barred from receiving such letters, leaving them woefully unaware that the person they once called their soul mate had been cheating on them throughout their deployment," said Clarence Navarro of the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group. "But now all troops, regardless of their sexual orientation, are free to have their entire lives ripped out from underneath them in a single short note."
"This is a great day for homosexuals," Navarro added. "Even those who now have nothing to return home to..."

The Onion.