AfterElton Briefs: President Obama makes it official, "Trauma" is saved by the gay, and more!

President Obama signs the Department of Defense Authorization Bill, which contains the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hates Crimes Prevention Bill, into law.

Following this assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Gay reporter sprite Michael Ausiello has news about an upheaval behind the scenes of Brothers & Sisters. Stay tuned!

• Yesterday in the Briefs Alan Ball teased about the upcoming season of True Blood, but our favorite sprite has the down and dirty spoilers for next year. Here's a hint — lots of eye candy.

• Today President Obama signed the Hate Crimes Bill into law, but as you can see from the heartbreaking video below, it probably wouldn't have helped Jimmy Wheeler.

• NBC's Trauma was on the precipice of cancellation until this week's Halloween coming-out episode earned it a slight uptick in ratings, thus guaranteeing it at least three more weeks on air.

• Cher's son Chaz Bono will appear in his first television interview tomorrow on Entertainment Tonight .

It's all their fault!

• We knew that The Golden Girls was a television classic, but according to Christwire.org, it "Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals". Hmm ... and here I thought it was American Gladiators. *BTW, there is much debate about this, but I think it's fairly obvious that Christwire is a satirical website, ala TheOnion or LandoverBaptist).

• The winners of the GLAAD Media Awards in Advertising were announced today, and taking the top prize for Mainstream Ad was the Orbitz "Golfers" commercial.

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

This guy!

British karate star Simon Howard. Hi-Ya!