• Hunky UK rugby player and gay icon Ben Cohen (above left, promoting testicular cancer awareness) has a write-up in the Guardian Unlimited. Apparently not everyone loves him as much as the gays, but says Ben:

Some people are really homophobic but my auntie's a lesbian and it really doesn't bother me. We're in the 21st century. They're happy and that's what it's all about. You're only on this earth once, you only get one shot at it.

• CNN edits out gay general's question during YouTube debate because rumors of a Hillary tie. Media Matters says "bwak-bwak-bwak". I guess Republican candidates should only get questions about which are cuter: kittens or puppies?

• Greg Hernandez of Out in Hollywood chats with Work Out's hunky (naturally!) trainer Greg Plitt.

• Plus in this week's BEST.GAY.WEEK.EVER! Ian McKellen is a bear, steaming kisses, and more!

Keith Kerr, a 43-year military veteran and retired brigadier general was one of the ones chosen to ask a question in Wednesday nights CNN/YouTube debate. The only problem is that the Republican audience booed Kerr as they tried to shout him down during a follow-up. Classy, huh? Why should that surprise anyone. After all, it's Bush who let soldiers languish in horrendous conditions at the Walter Reed Hospital.

Kerr specifically asked the Republican candidates including Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Representative Duncan Hunter why "American men and women in uniform are not professional enough to serve with gays and lesbians?"

Romney, who was for gays in the military before he was against it, dodged the question when pressed by the debate's host Anderson Cooper. Romney said he'd have to consult with the military. Governor Mike Huckabee said, “People have a right to have whatever feelings, whatever attitudes they wish. But when their conduct could put at risk the morale or put at risk even the cohesion that Duncan Hunter spoke of, I think that’s what is at issue, and that’s why our policy is what it is.”

Huckabee referred to Hunter's convoluted response which was:

“And the reason for that, even though people point to the Israelis and point to the Brits and point to other people as having homosexuals serve, is that most Americans, most kids who leave that breakfast table and go out and serve in the military, make that corporate decision with their family, most of them are conservatives, and they have conservative values, and they have Judeo-Christian values. And to force those people to work in a small, tight unit with somebody who is openly homosexual, who goes against what they believe to be their principles -- and it is their principles -- is I think a disservice to them. And I agree with Colin Powell that it would be bad for unit cohesion.”

That makes sense since this isn't actually a Democracy or anything and the bigotry of a few should certainly trump the rights of minorities. Oy. You can see a clip of Kerr being interviewed after the jump.

So, being a girl and everything, I can be either annoyed or flattered at the way gay men sometimes use feminine terms. One day it’s all “You go, girl” and the next it’s “Oh, her!” But while gay male culture might give me whiplash on the girly man thing, I like it a lot better than the way mainstream culture uses it.

I recently blogged about a Seattle radio station gay-baiting American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar, a 17-year-old singer with long hair, a sweet smile, an interesting sense of style, and let’s just say not as much as might have been hoped for in the way of talent.

That’s not why people had a problem with him, though, and his talent – or lack of it—was not the subject of all the catty comments on YouTube and other Internet hotspots for the cultural intelligentsia Idol fans. They were way too busy calling Malakar a sissy – that is, when they weren’t taking a page from self-described “queen” of all media Perez Hilton and calling him “Sangina.”

Like probably forty million other queers reflecting on this issue and unlike Jimmy Kimmel, I sincerely don’t know or care if Malakar is gay. He has a loyal fandom of screaming teenaged girls, and he says he’s straight. But I do know one thing for sure: that boy’s a sissy. And I say that in the most positive way.

One compelling argument in favor of sissydom is that it can extend your lifespan. “The rules are simple, and stretch back to the first backlot MGM ever built,” said Johann Hari in an article about the popularity of Brokeback Mountain. “There are two types of Acceptable Gay Man: you can be a sexless sissy who is fairly happy with his female friends and waspish one-liners, or you can be masculine and actually have a sex drive – in which case, you will die.”

On the other hand, it apparently wasn’t that much of a leap for Don Imus’ producer to go from calling Malakar “sissy Sanjaya” to saying that he should be the victim of a hate crime, so the lifespan argument might not hold up to much scrutiny.

We have no idea what the deal is with these guys, but we kind of think they rock. Gay, straight, bi, Thai, whatever -- four teenage guys lip-syncing to Mika's "Lollipop", doing full choreography (and well!), and substituting "Gay Love" for "Say Love" in the lyrics pretty much gives me hope for the future. And they say kids these days show no initiative...

Watch the full clip below:

With any luck, if you start the video embedded at the end of the full post you'll get a message that the video is no longer available. If it does play, what you will find starts out harmlessly enough, mixing images from the 80's cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe with The Village People song "Macho Man." It looks like the kind of silly fan-created video found throughout YouTube. But then towards the end of the video, a homophobic message comes up, as can be seen below:

One of the disappointing aspects of this video is that it's been viewed over 20,000 times and saved to a user's favorite videos folder by 18 users. Amid all this exposure, saying "All fags burn in hell" has managed to go unflagged by YouTube users (or, alternately, the video has been flagged and passed by YouTube's screeners). Our sister site recently noted how LGBT content on YouTube is frequently suppressed by abuse of the site's "Flag as inappropriate" feature, while similar heterosexually-themed content gets a pass. Here, a blatantly homophobic message is going unnoticed.

It's likely that every time the video has been viewed, the viewer didn't watch it until the end and didn't see the example of hate speech -- therefore having no reason to think the video should be reported. That's a small consolation, however, since that still means a large number of viewers must've gotten to the hateful message at the end and the video remains unflagged.

What's truly fascinating, though, is that someone would spend hours poring through He-Man episodes to find the moments where Prince Adam comes off as effeminate, splicing them together, and syncing them to the music, just to throw in a bit of hate speech at the end. It's gay panic in pen-and-ink. Did the creator feel the need to assert his/her hatred for gays after spending all that time fixating on gay-coded images? What would motivate someone to put so much energy into this spiteful message in the first place? Or is it just a misfired attempt at politically incorrect humor? Whatever the reason, it appears that a large number of YouTube users were fine with "All fags burn in hell." Watch the full clip below.

After a week of voting, the YouTube 2006 Video Awards have been announced and coming in second place for "best series" is a young guy from Kentucky named William Sledd for his "Ask a Gay Man" series.

Sledd, 23, doles out helpful fashion tips in short videos filmed in his bedroom. The series is very funny. So funny that a lot of people assumed the kid was an actor playing a character. (Remember LonelyGirl15?) But no, apparently William Sledd is an actual Gap employee in a Paducah, Kentucky mall.

He seems like a sweet kid, and there is something very endearing about his complete guilessness. Only don't get him started on peg leg jeans or carpenter pants-- they seem to be particular sore spots with him.

According to his website, William's life ambition is to guest co-host The View. Something tells me Rosie O'Donnell will get wind of him and make it happen.

Actually, I hope the kid is able to parlay his YouTube fame into success in the mainstream media. Who knows, maybe one day he can supplant Steven Cojocaru as television's go to guy for fashion tips. Please, God, somebody supplant Cojo.

Anyway, you can get a taste of William Sledd and his "Ask A Gay Man" series in the clip below.