Miller beer: Take our logo off street-fair poster

Amid pressure from conservative Christian groups, Miller Beer has asked the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco on Sunday to remove the company's logo from the official 2007 festival poster:

Statement Regarding Folsom Street Fair

While Miller has supported the Folsom Street Fair for several years, we take exception to the poster the organizing committee developed this year. We understand some individuals may find the imagery offensive and we have asked the organizers to remove our logo from the poster effective immediately.

Here's the poster (click to enlarge):

Drama Queen: Christine Dolen blogs about local gay theater

From Christine Dolen's Drama Queen blog:

Holding Action

The Rising Action Theatre was all set for a splashy opening this weekend -- new space, new production -- but construction delays on its 100-seat space in Oakland Park have pushed back the company's plans.  The production of Terrence McNally's Some Men, a collage of gay history built around the guests at a gay wedding, will now open Oct. 19, after a preview Oct. 18.

Doug Williford (seated) and Sam Yazbeck are in the eight-man cast, and Michael Reed (he staged Swinging on a Star on Broadway) directs.  The still-under-construction theater is at 840 E. Oakland Park Blvd.  Mayor Larry Gierer is expected to cut the ribbon to officially open the space at 7:45 p.m. Oct. 19.  The show will run through Nov. 18, with performances at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $25 -- but for $50, you can see the show and get dinner at Primavera Restaurant, 830 E. Oakland Park Blvd.  For info, go to the Rising Action web site or phone 1-800-595-4849.

There is another gay play in town (though there are no performances this weekend, Sept. 28-30).  The Sol Theatre Project is doing James Edwin Parker's Two Boys in a Bed Together on a Cold Winter's Night. As you see if you click on the link to Sol's web site, the play -- about the before, during and after of a sexual encounter between strangers -- features full nudity.  So if you're under 18, forget about it.  Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 6 p.m. Sunday, and tickets are $20 to $25.  Sol is at 1140 N. Flagler Dr. in Fort Lauderdale.  Call 954-801-9207 for information.

Radcliffe keen to take on gay roles

By BETH HILTON, Digital Spy

Daniel Radcliffe is keen to take on a gay role following his West End debut in Equus earlier this year (pictured).

The Harry Potter star said he feels ready to play a homosexual character after working up the courage to appear naked on stage.

He said: "I don't think it would particularly affect me. I mean, I'd never play a gay character just for the sake of playing a gay character.

"If the script was good and it was a good gay character, then that wouldn't bother me. Playing characters exploring their sexuality is a challenge.

"I'm 18 and so the parts I'm going to be given will be for characters around that age range when people are exploring their sexuality."

Craig will try to withdraw plea today

BY JOSHUA FREED, Associated Press

Sen. Larry Craig's attorneys will try to convince Judge Charles Porter at a hearing today that the Idaho senator's guilty plea was a mistake.

Craig has said his foot-tapping, hand gestures, and looks into a bathroom stall were misconstrued by the police officer conducting a sting for bathroom sex at the airport. Craig's attorneys wrote that he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct because he feared his June 11 arrest would trigger a story by an Idaho newspaper that had been investigating his sexual orientation. Craig has denied that he is gay.

Craig won't be attending the hearing, according to Judy Smith, a spokeswoman for Craig attorney Billy Martin.

"He's already gotten lots of justice and fairness," said Mary Jane Morrison, a professor in criminal law at Hamline University. "A court will view this as taking not just a second bite at the apple, but a fourth and fifth bite. Because he had the right to refuse to plead in the first place, and put the state to its proof. He had the right to have an attorney help him figure out what was in his best interest."

Craig announced that he intends to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30, but a spokesman has said there is a slight chance he may keep his seat if he can withdraw his plea.

Craig's attorneys are trying to prove that letting the senator's plea stand would be a "manifest injustice." The term isn't defined in the law, but is generally left up to judges to determine on a case-by-case basis, legal experts said. If the plea is withdrawn, prosecutors could refile charges.

Craig's case should be reopened in part because he never appeared in court before pleading guilty, his attorneys argued.

In plea bargains in open court, judges walk the defendant through testimony about precisely which actions violated the law. Craig mailed in a written plea agreement that admitted disorderly conduct, but the agreement did not describe exactly what he did that was illegal. Craig's attorneys argued that a judge's inquiries would have prevented Craig from pleading guilty because it would have become clear that he hadn't done anything illegal.

Minneapolis defense attorney Joe Friedberg said that argument is a lot better than the one that Craig was panicked into a guilty plea.

"The only shot he's got is if the judge determines that there's no factual basis for the plea," he said. "I don't think that a factual basis is set forth in that plea, and I think that it should be voided. None of his stress ... makes any difference."

Morrison said it's not uncommon for judges to demand less detail in misdemeanor pleas.

"They're pretty careful on felony (cases), and they're not so careful on misdemeanors," she said.

Indeed, prosecutor Christopher Renz argued in court papers that thousands of guilty pleas are entered the same way.

If Porter refuses to allow Craig to withdraw his guilty plea, the senator can take it to the state's Court of Appeals. On Tuesday, that court ruled against a different defendant who wanted to withdraw his guilty plea for criminal sexual conduct because he said he didn't understand part of his plea.

In that case, the appeals court ruled it was up to the trial court to decide whether to allow pleas to be withdrawn.

British prime minister parties at gay disco

From PinkNews.co.uk

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has attended an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) event for the first time, PinkNews.co.uk can reveal.

He partied at the Absolutely Equal fringe party being hosted by the gay rights charity Stonewall and Barclays at the Labour party conference in Bournemouth minutes ago.

Mr Brown spent ten minutes with delegates, activists and party workers at the gay event.

He was accompanied by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (and Equality Secretary), Harriet Harman and the Minister for Equality Barbara Follett. The ministers addressed the audience.

Yesterday, Mr Brown paid tribute to Ms Harman's work "pioneering this cause of equality" when he pledged "no discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, age, or faith. And no discrimination against the disabled." That was his only mention of gay rights in his conference speech.

Earlier this year, Gordon Brown took part in his first interview with the gay press by engaging in a questions and answers session with PinkNews.co.uk readers.

Iranian President's Official Website Deletes His Columbia University Commentary about Homosexuality

News release:

New York - Upon monitoring the Iranian press reaction to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech and comments at the Monday forum hosted by Columbia University, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) discovered an odd disparity. The English version of the President's official website (www.president.ir) provides a full and complete transcript of his speech and the Question & Answer segment where he claimed that homosexuality does not exist in Iran. However, the Persian-language transcript has excised both the question about treatment of lesbians and gay men in Iran and President Ahmadinejad's soon to be legendary response.

The President's website purportedly provides the authoritative transcripts of his speeches and is relied upon by the news media in Iran. To date, not a single Persian-language media outlet in Iran - including Iran's official news agency, IRNA, and the semi-independent news agencies, ISNA, Mehrrnews and Farsnews, and the Wednesday morning newspapers - has reported on the President's comments.

After President Ahmadinejad's speech on Monday, the Professor John H. Coatsworth moderated a Question & Answer session. Among the questions was why Iran has executed citizens who are homosexuals, to which the President responded "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."

"The first reaction of many of us was to join in the astonished response to President Ahmadinejad's clearly outrageous view that no lesbian or gay people live in Iran," said Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of IGLHRC. "But the whitewashing of his comments from the eyes and ears of most Iranian citizens speaks to something more troubling. His denial attempts to simply erase from public view the lives of men and women who face regular abuse in his country. Perhaps he knows he could not credibly get away with such a denial among his own people."

IGLHRC has documented widespread and systemic violations of the rights of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Iran. For more information about IGLHRC's work, visit: www.iglhrc.org.

###

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) is a leading human rights organization solely devoted to improving the rights of people around the world who are targeted for imprisonment, abuse or death because of their sexuality, gender identity or HIV/AIDS status. IGLHRC addresses human rights violations by partnering with and supporting activists in countries around the world, monitoring and documenting human rights abuses, engaging offending governments, and educating international human rights officials. A non-profit, non-governmental organization, IGLHRC is based in New York, with offices in San Francisco, Johannesburg, and Buenos Aires. Visit http://www.iglhrc.org for more information.

Episcopal leaders pledge restraint on gay bishops

BY RACHEL ZOLL, Associated Press

Episcopal leaders, pressured to roll back their support for gays to keep the world Anglican family from crumbling, affirmed Tuesday that they will "exercise restraint" in approving another gay bishop.

The bishops also pledged not to approve an official prayer for blessing same-gender couples and insisted a majority of bishops do not allow priests to bless the couples in their parishes.

The statement came in the final hour of an intense six-day meeting and at a crucial moment in the decades-long Anglican debate over how the Bible should be interpreted.

The Anglican fellowship has been splintering since 2003, when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, pictured.

Anglican leaders had set a Sept. 30 deadline for the Americans to pledge unequivocally not to consecrate another gay bishop or approve an official prayer service for same-gender couples.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, took the unusual step of attending the meeting for the first two days, pushing bishops to make concessions for the sake of unity. Anglican lay and clergy representatives from overseas also participated, chastising Episcopal leaders for the turmoil they've caused. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States.

It could takes weeks or months before Episcopal bishops will know whether they've done enough to satisfy Anglican leaders.

Anglicans across the theological spectrum will interpret the language of the statement differently. And Williams said he will take time to evaluate the document with a committee representing Anglican leaders and the Anglican Consultative Council, an international lay-clergy panel.

Ex-wife brings new intrigue in ghost boat case

BY LUISA YANEZ, lyanez@miamiherald.com

Two men plucked from a life raft in the Florida Straits after the boat they chartered was abandoned met more than 10 years ago when one was a boy in Cuba and the other was a military police investigator at Guantánamo Bay, according to the former soldier's ex-wife.

The account from Michelle Rowe, whose ex-husband, Kirby Logan Archer, pictured, was found at sea in a life raft Monday, adds a new layer of intrigue to a deepening mystery.

The four-member crew of the charter boat Joe Cool is still missing, two days after the U.S. Coast Guard found the charter vessel in the Florida Straits, about 40 miles north of Cuba.

Relatives of the crew members fear they were forced to abandon the vessel.

Archer, who was found in the raft with Guillermo Zarabozo, 19, of Hialeah, is wanted in connection with the January theft of $92,600 from an Arkansas Wal-Mart where he worked as an assistant manager.

No charges have been filed against anyone and the search is on-going.

Rowe, who divorced Archer in 2005, said she last saw her ex-husband in January. Arkansas court records show that their divorce was bitter; she alleged that they moved to Arkansas in December 2003 because Archer was AWOL from the Army, something he later confirmed in his testimony. The AWOL matter was resolved and he was discharged from the military.

She also testified that, after they separated in 2003, she entered into a lesbian relationship and that Archer had begun a homosexual relationship with a man named Greg, and that Archer ``was also with five or six other gay men during that time.''

The testimony is summarized in a Arkansas court of appeal order of Jan. 31, 2006, that kept the couple's two children in the custody of Archer.

Archer testified that he was not gay -- but Rowe testified that he was and that one of his relationships was with a boy who was still in high school.

Rowe told The Miami Herald that her ex-husband met Zarabozo, then a boy, at Guantánamo Naval Base where Archer was stationed as a military police investigator with the U.S. Army in the mid 1990s.

At the time, Zarabozo's family was among thousands of Cubans who had tried to leave the island on rafts. They had apparently been intercepted at sea and taken to the base, where Archer took an interest in the rafter boy, then 6 or 7 years old.

''He told me about the boy. He said he took him under his wing. He stayed in touch with him all this time,'' Rowe said.

She said Zarabozo ''even came to visit him in Arkansas.'' He stayed with Archer, she said.

After he became a fugitive, ''I think he picked up that boy and they decided to head to Cuba to start a new life,'' Rowe said.

Coast Guard officials say that the GPS navigational device onboard the Joe Cool indicated that it was headed from Miami Beach to Bimini, then made a sudden turn south toward Cuba about 35 miles out.

Rowe said she called authorities in Miami to alert them about her ex after reading on MiamiHerald.com that he had been found at sea.

''I'm not a scorned lover, but he's a piece of s..t,'' she said. ``And people should know.''

Photo: WFOR / CBS4

Wentworth Miller: 'I can't kill gay rumour'

By Kimberley Dadds, digital spy

Wentworth Miller, pictured, has slammed reports claiming that he is gay and has insisted that he simply has not found the right girl yet.

The Prison Break actor has been romantically linked with Brothers & Sisters star Luke MacFarlane on several occasions and claimed that he can not "kill the rumour".

Although he denied the speculation to media in Australia last year, reports still suggest that he is gay because he keeps a low profile and rarely talks about his private life.

Miller has now hit back at the claims and explained that he has been concentrating on his career while he waits to meet a girl he likes.

He said: "I’m not gay, but that rumour can’t be killed. I’d like to have a girlfriend and a family. But I haven’t met the right one yet.

”Until then I’m focusing on my job. I had to wait so long for this chance. I savour every second on set even if it means 14 hours of shooting a day."

Episcopalians try to prevent split

By RACHEL ZOLL, Associated Press

With the Anglican world anxiously waiting, Episcopal leaders weighed their response to demands that they bar any more gays from becoming bishops.

A bishops' committee took a break late Monday after working on a statement that could determine whether the global Anglican fellowship splits apart.

The Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S., caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Anglican leaders set a Sept. 30 deadline for the Americans to pledge unequivocally not to consecrate another gay bishop or approve an official prayer service for same-gender couples.

A vote by the full House of Bishops was set for Tuesday, the final day of the Episcopal meeting.

"We are working very closely with one another whether we are on the conservative end of the church, the liberal or the moderate middle," said liberal Los Angeles Bishop Jon Bruno. "We're looking to make as full, clear and complete a response as we can."

Bishop Ed Little, a theological conservative from of northern Indiana who wants to stay in the Episcopal Church, said that lay and clergy leaders from the Anglican Communion who have been attending the six-day meeting are pushing bishops to make concessions.

"They've all said in essence, for the good of the church, for the good of the communion, you have to take a step back," Little said.

The 77-million-member communion is a fellowship of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England. It is the third-largest Christian body in the world, behind the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Most overseas Anglicans are traditionalists who believe the Bible bars gay relationships. But liberals, who emphasize biblical teaching on justice and tolerance, are a majority in the 2.2 million-member Episcopal Church.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, took the unusual step of attending the meeting here on its first two days, warning Episcopal leaders behind closed doors that they must make changes to keep the communion together.

Last year, the top Episcopal policy making body, the General Convention, asked bishops to "exercise restraint" by not approving candidates for bishop "whose manner of life presents a challenge" to the church. However, the measure isn't binding, and a lesbian with a female partner is among the finalists in an upcoming election for Chicago bishop.

The Episcopal prayer book has no liturgy for blessing same-gender couples, but about a dozen of the 110 U.S. dioceses allow priests to perform the ceremonies.

Judi Bottoni / AP Photo

Rowan Williams, left, archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican spiritual leader, and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the Episcopal Church, speak to reporters in New Orleans, Friday, Sept. 21, 2007.

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