The issue strikes pretty close to home as I actually live with the author of the number two book on the ALA 's list of favorite banned books. Brent's first book, Geography Club, was banned earlier this year by some wingers who didn't even show their faces at ensuing school board hearings—bawk, bawk, bawk! Even worse, they hadn't even bothered to read the book before trying to get it banned. That's just warped. To promote reading, I suggest you read Brent's terrific follow-up to Geography Club, Order of the Poison Oak, or new books by Michael Thomas Ford, Christopher Bram, and Kevin Jennings.

(There! Are you satisfied, Brent? Now please let go of my arm.)

And I wasn't kidding about having the Left Behind Books. Actually, it's only three of them, and I could only stomach reading two-and-a-half. Don't fret—I wasn't reading them for fun, but as research. Most interesting fact I've learned so far? That Nicolae Carpathia, the anti-Christ, is created from genetic material provided by two gay men. That's right—homos fathered Satan! I'd call this rather homophobic, even if Caryn James probably would not.

GAY RIGHTS HEROES: HARVEY MILK, GAVIN NEWSOM, AND....JIM MCGREEVEY?
It's hard not to believe the former governor of New Jersey, forced to resign due to ethical lapses, would like you to think of him in those terms. The now openly gay McGreevey made appearances this week on Oprah, The View, and has had hundreds of articles written about his new memoir, The Confession. I watched both Oprah and The View, and I have to agree with Kenny over at Worth Repeating who dubbed the ex-guv Jim McCreepy.

I resent what seems to me a pretty transparent attempt by McGreevey to reinvent himself as the champion of gay youth, closeted adults, and civil rights for all queers. That would actually be a fine thing for McGreevey to become, but he keeps blathering on about being “authentic” and closer to his God and how detailing so many of his sordid sexual details was necessary to truly do an accounting of his shortcomings. Why then, many critics ask, does McGreevey have so little to say about the numerous corruption issues swirling around his administration? And I want to know why Oprah and the ladies on The View had nothing to say about those issues. Instead, Oprah kept focusing on how McGreevey could actually make love to his wife (um, Oprah, it's called friction and imagination) while The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck, just couldn't stop talking about the sex in alleyways.

Frankly, I feel a little used by McGreevey. I imagine his ex-wife can relate.

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