Hollywood Reporter:

The New York State Senate passed a bill legalizing gay marriage late Friday in a 32-29 vote, and many in Hollywood immediately took to Twitter to applaud the news.

“Tonight we’re all New Yorkers! Straight & gay alike, let’s all celebrate marriage equality,” tweeted Kathy Griffin. “The right side of history!”

“Marriage equality…. vote yes,” added Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin’s It’s Complicated co-star Steve Martin tweeted to him: “Alec! Now we can get married!” To which Baldwin responded: “Ok. But if you play that effing banjo after eleven o’clock….”

Tweeted Shannon Elizabeth: “Congrats to NY!!!! I just heard gay marriage passed 30 minutes ago-yayayay!!!!!!”

Wrote Alyssa Milano: “Way to go, New York. One people. One planet. One love. #Equality4All”

Actress Elizabeth Banks weighed in: “Party on Christopher Street! Wish I was there. Congrats New York. #terroristsdidnotwin”

Lindsay Lohan praised the state’s governor: “Nice work to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.”

Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan said the West Coast should follow New York’s lead: “Way to go, NY. Time to catch up, California.”

(more…)

It’s impossible to work in the theatre industry and not have colleagues, business partners and life-long friends who are gay. I have always viewed this fact as one of the most wonderful and enriching dynamics of the theatre community.  It’s so invigorating being part of a show (which very soon takes on the characteristics of a family) and have people from every walk of life represented, often by “Type A” personalities who bring joy and variety to the daily routine of presenting a show.

After collaborating with gay associates for almost thirty years, I’ve reached the conclusion that most gay men hold a fundamentally center/right view on most economic and national security issues.  The over-riding feeling expressed to me from my gay friends is the deeply held desire to be left alone.  And after watching GOProud Chairman Christopher Barron take this obnoxious attack from non-entity Cenk Uyger for having the temerity to identify himself as a conservative, I’ve reached the greater conclusion that the conservative movement needs articulate and courageous voices like this as part of our team.

As Mr. Barron puts it: “I have an easier time being openly gay with conservatives than I do being a conservative with other gay people.”  So, if CPAC and the Republican Party can be accepting of gay conservatives who don’t hold exactly to every single position espoused by the party, why can’t Broadway do the same?
(more…)

Being a woman is great in this post proto-feminist world, and if you aren’t already a modern woman, I’d like to take you out of the kitchen and bring you up to speed. I was raised to believe in antiquated ideas — such as a woman needs to act like a lady and that a child needs both a mother and a father! Preposterous. Last week I squeezed out eight fatherless kids while at the sports bar during half-time – I do have a few pre-existing kids from different baby daddies, but I was keeping up with all the octomoms in the neighborhood.

Multiple births are the new Mercedes.

The only married couple I know, Bob and Bruce, come over every so often to teach my boys how to be men, and then take them shopping for child-appropriate skincare and those awesome bio-degradable Chanel onesies I’ve seen on many fatherless celebrity babies.

When Bob and Bruce are busy, the guys I pick up at the bar the night before hang out with them for guy-time. This is handy because I learn these men’s names as they introduce themselves to my brood. Once they are acquainted I can get to work on my new fragrance line without worrying about the rugrats.

Had a real job back in 2008, but that stable, pre-proto-feminist lifestyle is so not important these days. Who needs jobs and money when you can be featured in a reality show and/or dance with the stars while pretending to not exploit your friends, family and children? (more…)

Okay, here’s my favorite headline of the day – no, make that year.

Take a look-see, for yourself, see.

Yes, the AP headline reads: “NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery.”

Yeah it’s only a mystery if you’re in the media, and really stupid. Everyone else pretty much understands why the terrorist left a fuel bomb in an area filled with families.

He hates us. He hate our country, our culture. He wants you dead.

But the media – an entity full of fragile egos and bubble-encased boobs – just can’t see that. In fact, it’s kinda awesome how huge and gaping their blind spot toward radical Islamic fundamentalism is. If only there could be other motives for the mayhem, so they’d never having to place blame on anything (except America, of course).

So I thought I’d help them out, and find motives the media could be comfortable with.

So why did Faisal Shahzad try to blow up Time Square? (more…)

Chip Johnson in the San Francisco Chronicle:

I certainly understand the anger fomented by one individual’s generous contribution to the clearly mean-spirited campaign of Proposition 8. But, I’m not so sure I agree with the message being sent by gay and lesbian activists in the case of 96-year-old Lorenzo Hoopes.

96 year-old Lorenzo Hoopes

The civic-minded Oakland citizen – with more than 50 years’ experience in public service – is currently the target of gay-rights activists who say his $26,000 contribution in support of the 2008 ballot initiative that reversed the state’s same-sex marriage law makes him unfit to hold public office.

And to make their point, critics have launched a campaign to block his reappointment to the board of directors of the Paramount Theatre, a city-owned landmark in downtown Oakland. (more…)

Oakland, California Mayor, Ron Dellums

The San Francisco Chronicle: 

A $26,000 contribution to the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California appears to have cost a 96-year-old former Mormon temple president his seat on the board that oversees Oakland’s historic Paramount Theatre.

Amid rising criticism from the gay community, Mayor Ron Dellums said Tuesday that he was putting on hold the reappointment of Lorenzo Hoopes, most likely signaling an end to Hoopes’ 30-plus years on the Paramount board.

“The community is asking us to reconsider, and that is what we are going to do,” mayoral spokesman Paul Rose said. (more…)

Apart from the fact that she’s a smoking hot California babe and I’m a 47-year-old mother of two teenage sons, Carrie Prejean and I do have some things in common. We’re both from San Diego. We both attend The Rock, an urban mega-church pastored by former San Diego Chargers defensive back, Miles McPherson. And we’ve both been slammed as raging “homophobes” by the New Media left. 

So when Andrew Breitbart asked me if I’d interview Carrie about her new book, Still Standing, out November 9 from Regnery, I chuckled and thought: The liberal faithful will think this is perfect: One “fanatical homophobe” interviewing another. 

Except that they would be wrong.

In case you’ve been living under a rock this year, Carrie Prejean is the former Miss California who became an accidental lightning rod in the spring. At a glitzy pageant held April 19 at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Carrie appeared poised to be crowned Miss USA. But during the final segment of the contest, a Q&A with pageant judges, Carrie drew as her questioner the gay gossip aficionado, Perez Hilton. 

Ignoring the longstanding pageant tradition of steering clear of politically charged questions, Hilton launched this salvo: “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”  (more…)

A lot of Republicans may feel that we’d be best-served to avoid this issue altogether.  As a Conservative, however, I feel compelled to explain why many of us out there are opposed to the currently proposed same-sex marriage bills and not to civil unions.  Plus, it’s not everyday that I get to put on a Leprechaun costume!

Note: No tasteless holiday parades were actually performed during the making of this video. (more…)

The folks at Entertainment Weekly see little wrong with the tabloid exploits of blogger Perez Hilton. The fevered mind behind Perezhilton.com, a site that makes US Weekly look like The Economist, gets a glowing feature article in this week’s edition. The mag allowed Hilton, known for scribbling angry/hateful/pornographic images all over celebrity pics, to decorate his own portrait with terms like “Zexy,” “Faboosh” and “Hawt.”

But that’s nothing compared to the kid glove treatment Hilton gets in the accompanying text.

For the uninitiated, Hilton runs one of the most popular tabloid sites on the Web, and his most recent claim to fame was grossly insulting Miss California, Carrie Prejean, after she dared to oppose gay marriage during the recent Miss USA pageant. (more…)

I know that embryonic stem cell research can be a touchy subject, so I opted to handle this one with both sensitivity and tact. Those are just the ABC’s of me. However, the truth of the matter is that our “opinions” on the subject don’t really matter. Embryonic stem cell research has never gone very well and few people have shown an interest in investing in it.  Logically, that alone should make it an open and shut case…

… But who needs logic when you’ve got big Government, right? (more…)

“I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I’m so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire’s recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they’ll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.” — P.J. O’Rourke, The Atlantic, July/August 2004

Thanks to Dave Konig for addressing the topic of gay marriage here on Big Hollywood the other day. As he pointed out, the issue itself might not cause most to lose sleep, come what may. But perhaps it should.

As a nation we’re at a crossroads, no question. Our banking industry scrambles to escape quasi-nationalization, our auto industry is in the process of being nationalized, and we have instituted, of all things, a Car Czar (note: it took Russia roughly 300 years to stack up so many czars). If that isn’t bad enough, nationalized health care is on the table again.

So as the Republic devolves and those with the means contemplate hightailing it to the Caymans, it’s probably time to ask ourselves what it is to be “conservative.”

(more…)

YouTube Dave Konig Roasts George Takei

As usual, Dick Cheney is right and Barack Obama is wrong.

It’s time to wave the pink flag and drop opposition to gay marriage.

I’ve changed my thinking on this one. Personally, I admit my opposition to gay marriage has always been on the same level as my opposition to the death penalty: I understand and appreciate the arguments against both intellectually – but in actual practice, I simply don’t lose any sleep over either. With the death penalty, I sympathize with moral opposition – but when a Ted Bundy takes that final ride on “Old Sparky” (or that final big sleep on “Old Lethal Injectiony”), my only real objection is that it isn’t televised. (more…)

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, Sonia Sotomayor, New York Times, Clarence Thomas, Nancy Pelosi, General Motors, Al Qaeda, The Goode Family, CNN, Larry King, Same-Sex Marriage, and Zac Efron.

All right, it’s a press conference about a beauty contest.  It’s not a world summit – it’s a beauty contest!  Should it really garner this sort of press coverage, this sort of media scrutiny, this sort of public attention? 

Well, yeah.  It should.

Aside from affording us a chance to gaze for long moments at a dazzling woman, the runner-up to the Miss U.S.A beauty contest, Miss California, Carrie Prejean; there actually was great import revealed at this morning’s Trump Trump, Donald Trump, The Donald, Trump-Trump-Ta-Trump news conference.  (I’m not sure I mentioned that it was a DONALD TRUMP news conference?)  (more…)

Leo Penn, the father of famous actor Sean Penn, was hauled before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (the McCarthy hearings) during the 1950s and harassed, spied upon and ultimately blacklisted for his political views (he attended a pro-union meeting called to support other black- listees.)

He refused to accuse others, and lost his livelihood for a period of time, but went on to direct many TV shows including Star Trek, The Law and Mr. Jones, and I Spy.

Now Carrie Prejean, beauty queen and determined supporter of marriage between a man and a woman, finds herself smeared on the Internet, castigated in public, on TV, (Chelsea Handler on E! channel has taken aim with a vicious gleam in her vodka-stoked eyes) and her parents have been dragged through the mud as well.

So where are the free-speech warriors? How about Sean Penn and the rest of the Hollywood elitists who think the First Amendment was written solely for their benefit? Penn has made millions playing everything from a stoner in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” to gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, who was slain in a horrific attack in San Francisco that also resulted in the death of San Francisco mayor George Moscone. (more…)

So why is it, that a joke about kidney failure is funny, but a joke about two bullets in an elevator needs an apology? Even though both punch lines suggest death, in the two bullet scenario the victim is a Democrat. Suggesting the Death of a Democrat is a far more serious matter. (I’m also not sure why TWO bullets would be necessary, although my Mom hunted alligators once, and claims that smaller brained animals can withstand more headshots.)

I’m not mad about Wanda Sykes recent diatribe against Rush Limbaugh and other Republicans. Today, you expect this kind of nonsense at the Correspondent’s Dinners. It is modern tradition to spare no mercy for the attendees. Being an edgy comic myself, I often find that the meat is much sweeter when it’s closer to the bone.  Edge comedy means that you are trying to land that punch line so close to the precipice of good taste that it is very likely to fall over. On more than one occasion I have personally felt the plummet after I misjudged where the line stopped. (more…)

According to my wife, I have a tendency to state my opinion as fact.  She suggests that I begin my sentences by saying “It’s only my opinion, but…” and go on from there.  It’s my opinion, however, that people already understand that it’s my opinion and that they share it if they’re smart, or don’t, if they’re not.  Furthermore, I don’t see my main function as a communicator to convince liberals, who are notoriously as blind as bats, to see the light, but to provide my fellow conservatives with ammunition to use against left-wingers and, whenever possible, to amuse. 

Gloria Steinem

In any case, in the spirit of compromise, let us pretend that each of the following paragraphs begins “It’s only my opinion, but…” 

When Gloria Steinem, who had been lionized by the ladies of NOW for her rather dumb remark about women needing men like fish needed bicycles, finally got married at the age of 66, I thought people should have sent her greeting cards complimenting her on having belatedly grown gills.  (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

Greetings, from a poolside cabana at a trendy boutique hotel in Santa Monica. Oh, how I love these overpriced overnight stays. The sleek designs. The ambient music. The uniformly attractive and stylishly dressed young staffs. The plush beds with sheets of an absurdly high thread count. Weird faucets and weirder sinks. I bask in the attention to detail. W is my favorite letter. Philippe Starck is a personal hero.

As a realist, I’ve built into my mindset that the majority heterosexual population is less than exclusively responsible for creating this and countless other high-end consumer and artistic experiences. Plus, I have a ton of wonderful gay friends – even ones “married” and with children. If gay activists created “A Day Without a Gay” (as they promoted Dec. 10 of last year), I’d be the first to cry “uncle” – even before Cher. So, accordingly, I make philosophical and political accommodations. I’m – as the MTV generation says – “gay-friendly.”

But lately, color me “gay perturbed.” “Gay-friendly,” a term once manifestly redundant, now seems a glaring contradiction. (more…)

The God of this age has declared someone un-holy.  Take up your stones and follow me.

The reigning Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has sinned mightily.  Not in any of the traditional ways, at least, not that we know of, but that is no matter because she has not sinned against a traditional God.  She has done something far worse.  She has sinned against the true almighty.  She has sinned against Pop-Culture.  For those of you who still cling to antiquated, intolerant, patriarchal religion, you may have a difficult time understanding why Miss Prejean must be made example of.  First, you might not understand how she has made herself unclean to begin with, and even if you could understand it, you might not understand why she must be cleansed with her own suffering and blood.  Of course, that is because you believe in a loving, righteous God who is full of grace.  Please, grow up.  Quit trying to force your religion on the rest of us.  The only good evangelicals evangelize in the name of our new King, and She is right displeased with Miss Prejean.

In fairness, Miss Prejean was already on pretty shaky grounds with The Culture.  After all, she is a beauty queen.  I will readily admit to not knowing much about beauty queens, other than what The Culture has allowed me to know, of course, which is that they are, to a person, uniformly white, upper-class, insecure, and vapid creatures with hardly a thought in their pretty little heads.  Most of them, if not all, have overbearing, hypocritical stage mother’s who don’t so much love them as they objectify them and live their own lost youth’s vicariously through them.  They have no personal values, of course–any pretense to the contrary is merely a contrivance meant to earn them points with the judges, a series of sex-addled male miscreants who are themselves secretly doing drugs and sleeping with half of the young fools anyway.  So, clearly Miss Prejean was already in need of some serious penance.  At a minimum, she needs to get an STD, make a sex-tape, and grow up, as one Cultural Rabbi recently prescribed a wayward daughter, but there was still hope.  Not anymore. (more…)