According to the post:

The LGBT community has been tweeting and facebook this story all over the internet to try to bring attention to McMillen’s plight. We know what this statement means, The Itawamba School District is trying to villify McMillen to all her classmates, students that might have been indifferent or even supportive of her sexual orientation before, will now blame her for the prom being cancelled. We also know that an “unofficial” prom will be organized and McMillen will not be invited. It is probable that McMillen is not the only LGBT student at the school, so the school district is effectively endorsing a “no gays allowed” prom.

Ellen Degeneres Fans see this as an opportunity to step up and do for the LGBT community what Oprah has done in the African American community.

Read more and get the links at: Lez Get Real!

“I’m not making this up,” Overby said. There have been studies on identical twins showing that they often share the same sexual orientation but the chances are a lot lower if they are fraternal twins. There is no definitive “gay gene” even though human beings have shown definite signs of having a “gaydar.”

Unfortunately, Overby said that there’s limited research on public opinion but even with the limits it is believed that 41 percent of the population believe homosexuality to have a biological basis—numbers that go far past the 13 percent that believed the same thing in 1977.

From 2007 until 2008 there has been a Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, internet-based with 20,000 registered voters (although Overby only used 1,834 of them in his presentation) asking questions regarding the etiology of homosexuality, attitudes toward gay adoption, and attitudes toward gay civil unions and presidential vote choice. There are a wide range of control variables: demographic and social, political, and even personality. There may be problems with Internet surveys since they limit the number of Americans voting, but the digital divide is closing rapidly–20 percent of Americans have no land lines, instead having cell phones only and 75 percent of Americans have Internet use at home.

More at: Western Herald!

But let us not forget those who are less fortunate.  Those who don’t have money for gifts, those without family and those who aren’t filled with “cheer”.

You may not be able to change the world, but you can always give the gift of kindness, and that is one gift that really does keep on giving all year long.

Don’t hesitate to smile at a stranger.  Don’t think before you commit a random act of kindness.

Enjoy your holiday season, but do whatever you can to promote kindness.  With it, you really can make a difference, one life at a time.

Happy Holidays!

The wording is as aggressive as ever, with statements like “Smoking can cause a slow and painful death” and “Smoking causes fatal lung cancer” it leaves very little to the imagination, they are not very nice images, in fact they are rather shocking and disgusting. But will such things have an impact, will they make smokers stop and throw away the packets preaching impending doom? Are the new ’shock’ packets going to cause the mass cessation of all the UK’s smokers?

I am not convinced myself, as a former smoker, it wasn’t the packet that was attractive, it was the things inside, it was a habit I had, not an attraction to the red and white of the Marlboro packet. I didn’t much care for the outsides, I just wanted to fill my lungs with that sickly, yet ultimately satisfying smoke. Yes, I know the dangers, I saw the warnings on the packs, but I still did it, I still smoked and more to the point I still enjoyed it.

OK, so now a non smoker I am, and to be honest I am a little shocked by the photographs on the packets, but would they have encouraged me to give up had I not already done so?        Nope, I fear they would not, I’d have simply transferred the pack with the disgusting and off putting photograph to another one without such an image, or indeed a special leather holder that I often used. You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink, equally you can give a smoke all the information about how harmful his habit is, but you can’t make him give up.

Smokers are not completely stupid and ignorant people who’ve come down with the last shower, they know the dangers of what they do. I’ve never met a smoker that didn’t clearly understand that what they were breathing in possible could kill them. I’m pretty sure that every smoker understands that each ciggy they partake of is in actual fact shortening the span of their very time on this planet. But that in itself does not cause them to stop, it’s other factors that do that. Money is another major factor, it’s pretty expensive to smoke these days, a pack of 20 costs between £4.50 and £6 (that’s $7.35 to $9.81) (most of which goes to the tax man!) Another reason for giving up is pressure from loved ones, indeed had it not been for Matt’s very persuasive techniques, I’d have been puffing on a Marlboro right this very second as I write this blog. Social acceptance plays it’s part, long gone are the days when you can smoke inside buildings, other than your own home. These days you are thrown out on to the street or the back yard or other such smoking area, out in the open, confronting the elements.

Don’t Start on the packet?

Wishing to see your children graduate, get married, have kids, get divorced, become an alcoholic or whatever life throws in their path if perhaps another major reason for banging the cancer stick habit on the head. Indeed I know friends who have decided to quit because they are now parents and want to watch their offspring grow.

Health, some people give up because they can no longer run up a flight of stairs without coughing and wheezing, which is a pretty clear indication that one probably needs to cut down or quit the habit that can form within a few hours but can take a life time to give up.

I’ve known various people that have given up for one of the above reasons, yet I don’t know of anyone that has given up because of the warnings on the packs. The only people these pictures really disgust is non smokers, people who’ve never started, or the reformed smoker who has given up. It’s an affront to our sensibilities that such images should be forced into our view on a daily basis. Smokers, I feel, are awear of the dangers, but continue their habit anyway, a horrible picture on a packet will have little or no impact. Moreover, as a recent convert to the smoke free population (it’s been around 10 months since my last cigarette) the only time I feel like having one these days is when I see one of those anti smoking advertisements on the TV!        Never underestimate the attraction of the opposite of instruction. 89% of people will walk on the grass if they see a sign saying “Don’t walk on the grass” In a recent European survey, over 80% of people pressed a red button which had the instruction “Do Not Press!”

Yes, I agree that smoking is harmful, yet I am the first to admit that people, who value their health, should give up, or better yet, never start. But equally I’m am pro choice, if you as an individual wish to smoke, then that’s up to you, go right ahead and do so, it’s your choice, your right, and ultimately you life, but I’ll bet seeing a vile picture on the pack will have no impact on you giving up your habit, nope, I’m guessing it’ll just make you turn the packet over!

Jason Shaw taking a puff of life @ The Seafront Diaries & here at Best Gay Blogs

Today’s fag hag, he writes, “feels like she’s throwing around a designer label or telling me she knows a celebrity — a kind of social conspicuous consumption … In the past decade, gay men have become less defined and ghettoized by our sexuality than ever before, making terms like ‘fag hag’ feel as retrograde as, well, ‘Will & Grace.’”

Maybe. But considering we’re living in the heyday of fag haggery — the Stonewall riots have given way to the Bravo TV revolution — we figured we’d celebrate some of the women who are working hard to love the gays who love them back.

Find out who they are at: Lemondrop!

According to Page Six, Kid Rock simply isn’t a fan of twitter…and perhaps isn’t too gay friendly either.  The redneck rocker also stated:

“I don’t have anything to say, and what I have to say is not that relevant. Anything that is relevant, I’m going to bottle it up and then squeeze it onto a record somewhere.”

So, here is a good ole’ Michigan redneck, who somehow became a rich celebrity. Just goes to show, you can take the trash out of the trailer, but you can’t take the trailer out of the trash!

Get more from this story and more really hot pics of really hot guys at: Gay Daily Hot!

“Queers Against Israeli Apartheid” is being held Saturday to “reignite Toronto’s queer community in the fight against apartheid,” according to an announcement on the Ontario Public Interest Research Group Web site.

“Israel has now begun to frame itself as a tolerant, queer-positive democracy,” the announcement read. “This can never be reality under occupation.”

The keynote speaker is El-Farouk Khaki, co-founder of Salaam: Queer Muslim Community and Pride 2009 Grand Marshall.

B’nai Brith Canada called on members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to reject the program.

“It is the height of irony to single out democratic Israel in this fashion when it is the only country in the Middle East that guarantees the fundamental freedoms of all its citizens without distinction,” said Frank Dimant, the executive vice president of B’nai Brith Canada. “In stark contrast, the rights of the LGBT community in neighboring Arab countries are routinely trampled on.

“Members of Canada’s LGBT community who are constantly battling discrimination should be mindful not to become part and parcel of the anti-Israel machinery that continues to churn out hateful and divisive propaganda.”

Courtesy of JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Read the rest at Think Progress.