In partnership with Freedom to Marry, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream has renamed its “Chubby Hubby” flavor to “Hubby Hubby” in support of gay marriage in Vermont.

Ben & Jerry’s has a long history of commitment to social justice, including gay rights. Its partnership with Freedom to Marry, a national leader in the movement for marriage equality, aims to raise awareness of the importance of marriage equality and to encourage other states to follow the blazing trails of Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Maine. Freedom to Marry promotes the national conversation about why marriage equality matters and brings together partner organizations into a larger whole – a shared civil rights campaign.

via Serious Eats & Heather Gold

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guest post by Al Ridenour

Time to rethink Bulgaria. Forget feta cheese, women’s choirs, and communist thuggery. Someone is rebooting  Bulgaria, and his name is Azis. At one level, you could simply describe him as a performer of chalga, a commercially streamlined fusion of traditional Romani (“gypsy,” ok?) folk-music and pop. But that would hardly do. In truth, Azis is Bulgaria’s answer to Madonna, Michael Jackson, Boy George, Liberace, and Marilyn Manson all rolled into one colossal glitter-dusted, KY-oozing jelly roll.

A Romani outsider by birth, this Balkan Bear’s star rose quickly with his first release in 2003, an unsuccessful bid for Parliament in 2005, an unofficial but highly publicized gay marriage in 2006, and the birth, in 2007, of a daughter via artificial insemination. But all this is nothing compared to the visual spectacle of his music videos. Whether playing Bollywood in an Erte-inspired Ice Queen get-up or playing nasty with Tom-of-Finland-inspired gangsters, the stylistic audacity of this hefty and uncompromising man-diva clearly demonstrates: it’s not your father’s Bulgaria anymore.

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guest post by Aaron Muszalski 

While there’s an ongoing debate over who actually created the character of Batman’s iconic nemesis The Joker (comic book artist Bob Kane, writer Bill Finger and artist Jerry Robinson have all variously claimed the idea) one aspect of his origin seems to be relatively free from dispute: that the creators drew their visual inspiration from German actor Conrad Veidt’s portrayal of the character Gwynplaine in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs. An adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel, the film was directed by German expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, with Veidt in the title role.

A well-known film actor with a long career, Veidt also appeared as Cesare the somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Grand Vizier Jaffar in The Thief of Bagdad, and as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca. The latter role being especially notable as Veidt himself was a fervent anti-Nazi, who emigrated from Germany to England in 1933, one week after marrying Illona Prager, a Jewish woman. Veidt also played what is likely the first homosexual character written for the screen, in Richard Oswald’s pioneering gay rights film, Anders als die Andern (”Different From The Others”).

Veidt died of a heart attack in 1943 while playing golf in Los Angeles.

The Joker is still at large.

UPDATE: Boing Boing just posted about the Inspiration for Super Friends’ Hall of Justice.

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guest post by Jason Schupp

Shortly after Prop 8 passed in California, a conversation on the Heather Gold Show about its passing prompted Heather and guest Tara Hunt of Citizen Space to gather several others and start organizing EqualityCamp. A one-day event to discuss new ways of gaining support for same-sex marriage, EqualityCamp is using the BarCamp unconference format, with event planning and proposed panels being orchestrated on the BarCamp wiki.

It happens Saturday, January 3rd in San Francisco from 10am-6pm, at Citizen Space, located at 425 2nd Street @ Harrison, 3rd floor. Tickets are $21 ($20 + $.99 processing fee) and limited in number, and are available through Eventbrite. There’s a student/unemployed rate of $6 (including processing fee) as well. An explanation on where that money goes is on the site, which mentions that any funds left over will be donated to an organization decided upon by the attendees.

For more info, the organizers made the video FAQ above about the event.

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“The Times of Harvey Milk”, the Oscar winning 1984 documentary by Rob Epstein that tells story of San Francisco’s first openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk who was tragically assassinated in 1978, is now available on Hulu. This is a really amazing documentary and provides a great look into an important period in San Francisco’s history. It also makes a great companion piece to the recently released film “Milk” by Gus Van Sant.

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guest post by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)

Look out San Francisco! South Carolina is making a play for our lucrative gay tourism revenues.

Sound absurd? Consider:  SF may have The Castro, Pride, and legalized marriage, but South Carolina has Hilton Head, antebellum mansions, and burly Civil War reenactors dashing though the woods in cute uniforms. And which of those do *you* think Judy Garland would prefer??

Frankly, this confirms a suspicion that has probably been lurking in the minds of many San Franciscans for quite some time. (”South Carolina = GAY!”) But back in the Palmetto State, some of the locals are reluctant to come out of the closet. MSNBC reports:

A state employee has resigned and officials have disavowed an international advertising campaign that led to calls for an investigation of tourism posters proclaiming “South Carolina is so gay.”

The campaign, which plastered the London subway with posters advertising the charms of South Carolina and five major U.S. cities to gay European tourists, landed with a resounding thud in South Carolina, where the issue of gay rights has long been a political flashpoint. [...]

The tourism department quickly said it was canceling payment of its $5,000 fee for the posters, which it said were approved by a low-level state worker who did not run the idea by senior officials. The employee, who was not identified, resigned last week, the agency said.

A spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, who has been mentioned as a possible running mate for the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said the governor agreed that the posters were “inappropriate.”

image via Amro Worldwide

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