Eric Hyman and Max Mutchnick and their daughters

Yesterday's New York Times gave two (three, actually) weddings between gay men high-profile coverage in the crucial last days before voting on California's Proposition 8 takes place.

In a lengthy spread in the Fashion & Style section, the paper covered the wedding of Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick and his husband Eric Hyman, including a picture of the couple and their two daughters.

And in the traditional Weddings & Celebrations section, the paper announced the double wedding of GLAAD's Damon Romine and Charles Robbins (executive director of The Trevor Project) and Romine's father David and his partner Larry Barrett, who have been together for over 16 years.

Recently-wed George Takei and Brad Altman were among the guests of the tandem Romine wedding, and both newlywed couples celebrated by taking in Leslie Jordan's show after the ceremony.

Warmest wishes to these couples, and to all those Californians (and otherwise) who have exercised their rights since the change in legislation regarding same-sex marriage this summer. (Including my own pals Pietro and Brent, who flew from NYC to San Fran to get married over the weekend. Congrats, guys!)

David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris on the Emmy Awards red carpet

Is being an out gay actor still an issue in Hollywood? Gay actors like Neil Patrick Harris and TR Knight are currently flourishing on television and testing the boundaries of that age-old argument, but will we ever have an openly gay star on the level of a Tom Cruise or Will Smith?

That’s the topic at hand in an article that appeared in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times that takes an in-depth look at the changing landscape for gay actors in Hollywood. Much has been made about the recent GLAAD report that found over 80 LGBT characters on television for the fall season, and even though a great deal of them play second fiddle to the straight leads, their presence still represents a dramatic change in the approach to being an out actor.

Gay publicist Howard Brageman is quoted as saying “We’ve gone from the revolution to the evolution”, and while that is in some ways true, Hollywood still has a great deal of evolving to do. Gays in the media now are arguably as visible as we’ve been at any other time in history, but the “revolution” doesn’t seem to extend beyond television. While television stars like Harris and Knight can play straight characters by day and walk the red carpet with their partners at night, that luxury doesn’t seem to extend to their movie-star counterparts. Internet chatter and innuendo on some of our big stars is deafening, yet we’ve still yet to see one take the next step and come out.

We are still, in the words of USC media professional Larry Gross, “Waiting for the Jackie Robinson moment”. Whether or not this moment ever truly comes is a question that won’t be answered for some time, but the article also highlights some promising new developments surrounding young actors like Fringe’s Jasika Nicole, who are defying the closet and maintaining successful careers. 

                                                     Out Noah's Arc star Daryl Stephens

The question really isn’t whether or not there are gay actors in Hollywood (anyone who has ever had any interaction with theatre geeks knows that it’s nearly impossible for all those ‘mos to get lost in translation on the way to the Walk of Fame), but rather when they will start to take their tentative steps out of the closet.

Three of our most well-known out actors (Harris, Knight, and Chad Allen) were outed or nearly outed by some form of tabloid intervention, so their coming out (while honorable and noteworthy) was less bold than, say, an actor who did so with no provocation while promoting a $100 million movie which bore his name above the title.

The first steps out of the closet from actors like the aforementioned as well as now officially out Noah’s Arc actor Daryl Stephens serve to show that the closet foundation is rattling, but the movement is still waiting for a big, splashy movie-star pioneer to open the door to the future of openly-gay actors in Hollywood.

Of course, we follow this topic rather closely here day-to-day, so the article wasn't much of a bombshell. Did anyone catch the article and have any thoughts? Share in the comments! 

The latest New York Times Magazine has a great cover story on how young gay guys view marriage — basically, how gay folks under 30 are different from their older counterparts when it comes to tying the knot. The author profiles a number of younger gay couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is now legal. (Interestingly, the couples are all white, something the author acknowledges, but doesn't explore.)

What's it all about in a nutshell? Basically, a lot of young gay men no longer see themselves as all that different from their straight counterparts, so of course they want to get married (and most who get married want to have kids, too). But at the same time, having been excluded from full participation in society for so long (and being, well, gay), some of these folks feel they can "pick and choose" the aspects of heterosexual marriage they like while ignoring those they don't (and others were pretty traditional).

In other words, it will pretty much drive Bill Bennett, Maggie Gallagher, and every other outspoken critic of same-sex marriage berserk. How dare gay people sully the noble institution of marriage with their egalitarian, sometimes non-traditional ways!

From left to right: Maggie Gallagher, Andrew Sullivan, Bill Bennett

But there's more to it than that. It seems to me the article pretty much proves exactly what Andrew Sullivan has been arguing for over fifteen years now: that same-sex marriage is a normalizing force on the gay community, and, perhaps, a positive, liberalizing force on the straight community, too. (Sullivan is a disingenuous lunatic with a disastrous record as a pundit during the Clinton and Bush years, but he was right about same-sex marriage looooong before anyone else was even talking about it, so credit must go where credit is due.)

In other words, the article will probably drive the gay radicals even crazier than it does Bill and Maggie. Sell outs! Assimilationists!

Hmmm, something to piss off the irrational fringe on both the right-wing and the gay left? Now that's a good article!

• The enigmatic Heath Ledger talks about playing Bob Dylan in Todd Hayne's new flick about the iconic musician, I'm Not There.

• Out playwright Terrence McNally likes to collect Shakespeare figurines. Well, who doesn't?
  

• This week's "Modern Love" column is about a lesbian who wanted to have kids with a gay man. Call it When Harry Met Sally But Didn't Want to Have Sex.

• And the out Ed Droste and his band Grizzly Bear got a nice little mention.

• Director Frank Oz says there is nothing wrong with the way Peter Dinklage's gay little person is treated in his film Death at a Funeral.
  

• Lance Bass talks to the New York Times about "fan-boys" and what comes next for him.
  

• The out Darren Star and Sex and the City columnist Candace Bushnell are no longer BFF.
  

• Speaking of BFFs, Ugly Betty's Michael Urie & Becki Newton in joint interview to LA Times discuss how they met and all their on set improvising.

• Olivia Newton-John's closeted gay employee kills self. Prompts singer to speak out publicly about seeking help for depression.

• Sir Ian McKellen has taken on Shakespeare's King Lear to great success. The British thespian brings the role to New York in a few weeks, but the Times catches up with him to discuss the very difficult part. And to apparently ogle McKellen while changing. Reports Alan Riding:

(After our conversation this reporter was invited to accompany him while he changed from jeans and sweater into his Lear costume to record a scene used to publicize the production’s Antipodean tour. And, at a glance, it seemed evident that he is an actor who still works out.)

• Perry Moore talks about his new gay teen novel Hero. (Check back soon for our interview with Perry!)
• Editorial cartoonist Tom Toles takes on Larry Craig and anti-gay Republicans-- brilliantly.
  

• Gays in New Jersey help revive town owned by a Methodist organization which in turn won't let them hold their Civil Unions there.
• Larry Craig isn't Idaho's first gay sex scandal.
  
• Laura Mac Donald writes about America's Toe-Tapping Menace.
  

Like most good blue state liberals, one of my favorite Sunday morning activities is to hang out with Sunday New York Times. And the Times usually has at least one if not more than one article of gay interest. So this week I thought I'd bullet a few that I thought folks might find interesting!

• Seth Rogen made a big splash with this summer's Knocked Up and in this article he talks with writing partner Evan Goldberg about working together. But what really struck was the accompanying pic of the two fellows holding hands for no apparent reason and with no explanation. Cool!
  
• It's not a big surprise gay boys like Mo'Nique so much.
  
• The male character in Stardust who gives hair and fashion makeovers, and wears a tutu isn't gay? I'm down with that. (FYI, that info comes toward the end!)
• How the internet helped bring gay men's grooming techniques to the straight masses.
  

• A group of students at St. Joseph's College of Communication at Chenganassery in Kerala, India were expelled for making a 5-minute film that simply discussed homosexuality. College students. In a communications program. Wow.
• BBC Two presenter Jeremy Clarkson criticized for using Cockney rhyming slang for "queer" to describe a car on his show, Top Gear. Favorite line: "Last year, he was cleared of making a racist slur about Germany because this was adjudged to be amusing rather than offensive."
• Here is an interview with Torchwood creator Russell T Davies who talks a bit about fluid sexuality and writing for us gays
• If you're not familiar with the Cartoon Network's animated show Moral Orel, Sunday's New York Times has a nice primer to the show about 11 year-old Oral Puppington who is trying to make sense of religion. Helping him do so is his dad Clay, an apparently closeted gay man who yearns for to get it on with Orel's gym coach. Naturally, he's a homophobe. There is a clip of the show after the jump.

Speculation circulated last Friday that Sacha Baron Cohen aka Borat aka Bruno aka Ali G had signed on to play Freddie Mercury in a biopic about the gay singer. A quick check of IMDB and Variety indicated no such thing, so I was pretty skeptical. Turns out skepticism was a good thing as Cohen's publicist released a statement this weekend saying it was "Pure hokum." Now that's short and to the point! Instead, it sounds like Johnny Depp is the front runner for the part--and, frankly, a better choice.

Katharine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy might be T.R.Knight's best friend, but that hasn't kept bisexual film director Mike White (who also wrote and starred in Chuck and Buck) from wondering if Heigl's upcoming relationship comedy Knocked Up isn't playing a little bit to the homophobes in the bleachers. Knocked Up is directed by White's colleague and friend Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin) and White sees the "gay" jokes in both Virgin and Judd's latest as being bullying. Says White in a Sunday New York Times article:

To me, I definitely stand in the corner of wanting to give voice to the bullied, and not the bully. Here’s where comedy is catharsis for people who are picked on. There’s a strain in ‘Knocked Up’ where you sort of feel like something’s changed a little bit. My sense of it is that because those guys are idiosyncratic-looking, their perception is that they’re still the underdogs. But there is something about the spirit of the thing, that comes under the guise of comedy, where — it’s weird. At some point it starts feeling like comedy of the bullies, rather than the bullied.

The trailer for the movie (which looks like pretty well-trod ground) is after the jump. As for the potential homophobia, there is one creepy anal sex with a kid joke and a character who reads a little gay and not in a Neil Patrick Harris way.

Where does the time go? I've been trying to get to the blog for the past two days as I've got a whole slew of items to mention, but never seem to quite make it! So hold on tight to your Flying Monkeys because I'm gonna be flinging 'em at you fast and furious!

This New York Times article oddly dances around Tim Gunn's sexuality while this New York Times article about Broadway director Jerry Mitchell (Legally Blonde) doesn't. Meanwhile, this Gay.com interview with Ugly Betty's Michael Urie doesn't even broach the topic.

David Metzler and David Collins, the executive producers who blessed us with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, are hoping lightning strikes twice with their new show Life as a Song. The gimmick? Significant events in participants lives--the birth of a child, getting married--will be reenacted as a musical. I'm most looking forward to seeing Karl Rove in Wicked:White House and Don Imus, Tim Hardaway, and Mel Gibson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

This summer CBS is inflicting on us bringing back Big Brother. As if that isn't enough, Mark Burnett has a new show called Pirate Master. In this reality show, sixteen "pirates" work together to decipher a pirate map in order to locate a treasure. Naturally, every week one of the pirates is forced to--wait for it, wait for it--walk the plank! The prize is one million dollars which is exactly what I'll offer CBS to not include any gay contestants thereby forcing me to have to watch it!

A reader in Walter Scott's Personality Parade asks about Jodie Foster's sexuality and Scott answers frankly. It's hard not to wonder if Out Magazine's recent cover with Foster on the cover isn't encouraging the mainstream media to be more frank.

Paul Rudd on Veronica Mars? I am so there.

Here is a YouTube clip about a recent Family Guy episode about prostate exams. Straight guys can be such weenies.

Gay, Straight, or Otter? Nonsensical, but cute.

David Hyde Pierce says he and John Mahoney may reunite in a staged version of Frasier. Hey, if it can be done for Legally Blonde why the hell not?

Out In Hollywood's Greg Hernandez talks with the gay gliterrati about the politics of outing. Martina Navratilova, John Amaeche, Chad Allen, and Robert Gant are so not down with it.