Michael Jensen's blog

Joining Patrik-Ian Polk and Cheyenne Jackson as one of Logo's Legacy Campaign honorees is the very deserving Bryan Batt. The Mad Men star is another out actor who has made his mark as an actor, but also as a gay activist who has helped advance gay causes. 

In addition to his television credits, Batt has a long strong of Broadway shows to his name including La Cage Aux Folles, Beauty and the Beast and Sunset Boulevard. And did we mention this New Orleans native is also an accomplished interior designer? 

So congrats to Bryan on the very worthy honor!

I'm afraid it's mixed news tonight for gay folks in the U.S. as voters in Maine — where the blatantly anti-gay Catholic church lobbied intensely against gay-marriage — stripped gays and lesbians in that state of the right to marry.

Meanwhile in Washington state, the recently passed "everything but marriage" domestic partner law has been called in favor of pro-gay forces. I happen to live in Washington state and for many reasons, opponents were never able to gain much traction in trying to repeal the law.

In other positive news, Kalamazoo, Michigan voted to uphold that city's anti-discrimination law while Chapel Hill, North Carolina elected a gay mayor and in Houston, Texas, lesbian mayoral candidate Gena Locke advanced to a run-off to be that city's next mayor.

Wouldn't you just know that minutes after I put up the last post and plan to sign off for the day, the new trailer for Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince of Persia has to get slipped under the office door. Man, a hardworking editor's day is never done!

Both Jake and the movie look pretty good — as long as I ignore the fact it's based on a video game. Still, if all those straight boys get Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft then I'll damn well take my beefcake action picture based on a video game too!

Levi Strauss Inc — that would be the blue jean and clothing folks — have long been incredibly strong supporters of the GLBT community. That commitment is again being demonstrated via Levi's joint efforts with New York City's Hetrick-Martin Institute which is the home of the Harvey Milk High School.

The two have joined forces to raise $500,000 for Hetrick-Martin to support its services for GLBT youth. The campaign — GiveThemHope has already raised nearly a $100,000 — and features GLBT youth talking about the reality of their lives and why so many gay youth still need the support of places like Harvey Milk.

Below you can see a couple of the PSAs but there are more videos of gay youth sharing their stories over at GiveThemHope.org where you can also donate to this very worthy cause.

Thure Lindhardt

Over the weekend, the Danish film Brotherhood snagged the best picture award at the Rome Film Festival. Directed by Nicolo Donato, the movie is about a secret love affair between two members of a neo-Nazi group. You know, your classic "self-hating gay racist falls in love with another closted gay racist and all sorts of wacky adventures happen" gay romantic comedy. Or perhaps it's a little darker than that. 

Will Young's new album Will Young: The Hits drops November 16th and to get folks talking, Will has released the video for the first single "Hopes and Fears." In a twist worthy of Torchwood's Captain Jack, the video has Will pregnant with a baby.

As to how and why Will got pregnant, well, that isn't explained. Alas, the new video isn't embeddable, but here is a link to the new song, but here are a couple of more pics. Oh, and for those who don't remember, Will is the winner of the U.K.'s first Pop Idol (think American Idol) and he came out back in 2002 before a U.K. tabloid could out him.

Check out a brief sample of Adam Lambert's "Time for Miracles" track from the upcoming soundtrack for 2012. It definitely sounds like our boy, but I have to say I'm a little puzzled/troubled by such a blatantly "commercial" move. Aren't power ballads for Hollywood blockbusters something an artist traditionally does later in their career when they are either trying to cash in, prove they are still relevant or both?

But who am I to judge? Adam has been absolutely brilliant so far and I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing!

Enjoy this tasty treat designed help to stall the inevitable soul crushingness that is known as the start of the work week. Savor it because as soon as you're done, it begins...

Rainy days and Mondays always get me ... whoa!

I'm usually not a huge fan of when a TV show or movie tries to take advantage of social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook to promote their program or film. Their efforts are usually kind of ham-fisted and not terribly funny.

That is so not the case with Glee's use of Twitter as Kurt Hummel, Sue Sylvester and other characters from the show supposedly tweet out their thoughts. Somebody at Fox pretty much these guys down pitch perfect as demonstrated by these hilarious tweets! Death panels! Ha!