This shouldn’t come as any surprise, but for me Palm Springs is just too damn hot! From MyDesert.com: Palm Springs has the highest concentration of same-sex couples living together in California, new findings from the 2010 Census show. With about 115 same-sex couples for every 1,000 households, Palm Springs ranks ahead of other notably gay-friendly cities like San Francisco and West Hollywood, according to an analysis of census data by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. Several other Coachella Valley cities ranked at the top of the list, including Rancho Mirage at No. 4, Cathedral City at No. 5 and Desert Hot Springs at No. 10.]]>

I posted about this last week – the Arkansas newspaper that omitted a surviving same-sex spouse in an obituary, then defended the decision by saying they don’t list pets, either.

From Reuters: (Reuters) – A battle between gay rights groups and an Arkansas newspaper over an obituary is picking up steam after a near-truce fell apart. After saying they would review their policy banning the inclusion of life partners in free obits, the Batesville Daily Guard’s newspaper executives published an editorial defending the policy. Now the protests are going forward, and the central figure in the controversy, the gay life partner of a man who died from spinal meningitis, is threatening legal action from a hospital bed. “I want a hundred times more now than I did at the beginning of all of this, which was just to have my name listed,” Terence James told Reuters on Monday. James has been diagnosed with the same illness that killed his partner, John Millican, on June 11. Oscar Jones, the newspaper’s attorney, told Reuters on Monday that the policy was still being reviewed and that it was “a process,” not something they could do overnight.
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It was John Wayne Gacy, the killer of teenage boys, who came from Waterloo, Iowa, not John Wayne the actor. And she sounded so informed on the Sunday talk shows . . .]]>

Located in Santa Rosa, CA, the nation’s first retirement community to provide continuing care for LGBT people has gotten a hearty reception. From PR Web: Fountaingrove Lodge, the nation’s first retirement community with the option of continuing care for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community, is in high demand with approximately 50% of units already reserved. Fountaingrove Lodge is located on ten acres in Sonoma County in the heart of California’s Wine Country, and observed its Model Grand Opening on June 18-19 with a well-attended Open House and ribbon-cutting and a first look of the model home. The community is set to open its doors in late 2012 or early 2013. “In just the last few weeks we have received an incredibly enthusiastic response from the LGBT community,” says Bill Gallaher, co-founder and principal of Oakmont Senior Living (OSL). “Construction of the main building hasn’t begun and yet half of the units are already reserved, which truly illustrates the demand that exists for this type of community and the void that we are gladly able to fill.” More than 400 people attended the Model Grand Opening weekend festivities at Fountaingrove to get a look at the bungalow model home on the site. The event garnered significant media attention, with guests and dignitaries admiring the high-quality workmanship and exquisite design of the model home. A proclamation from California State Senator Mark Leno added to the prestige of Thursday afternoon’s ribbon-cutting and VIP preview celebration. Fountaingrove Lodge will be comprised of six bungalows and 64 well-appointed apartment homes in nine different floor plans – ranging from 830 to 2,001 square feet – designed in the Craftsman style of architecture, with the use of fine woodwork and stone inside and out that echo the native rocks and trees on the site.
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I read “Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” by the late John Boswell many years ago, so it’s not news to me that same-sex unions have been with us much, much longer than our opponents would have us believe. It’s important to keep that in mind when we have people like Archbishop Dolan calling this a radical social change. Radical implies sudden, unexpected and recent. Our marriages are none of those. From Reason.com:

“I can’t go that far; that’s the year 2000! Negroes [and whites], okay. But that’s too far!”
—President Richard Nixon on gay marriage, speaking in August 1970; quoted in John Ehrlichman, Witness to Power No one knows the names of the first gay couple to exchange wedding vows. You should keep that in mind as same-sex marriage becomes law in New York: The earliest milestones on the road to marital equality were made quietly, privately, and far from any civil authority. The public recognition of gay unions emerged gradually, reaching wider and wider circles until finally even governments started climbing aboard. Contrary to the rhetoric you still hear from some of the idea’s opponents, gay marriage was not cooked up in some D.C. laboratory and imposed on America by social engineers. It was built from the bottom up, and it was alive at a time when the typical social engineer thought homosexuality was a disease. Members of the same gender have been coupling off for centuries, sometimes with ceremonies that look rather marital to modern eyes. Here in America, gay marriages predate the modern gay rights movement. Six years before Stonewall, the 1963 book The Homosexual and his Society described informal gay weddings where “all the formalities of [a] legally certified and religiously sanctioned ceremony are aped with the greatest of care.” Those unions didn’t always last (the authors noted that it “sometimes takes no more than a week or two” before the lovers “recall that their marriage has no legal, religious, or moral sanctions” and take off), but as the resilience of the euphemism longtime companion suggests, a match between two men or two women could be as lasting and loving as any heterosexual coupling. ]]>

You gotta take the sour with the sweet when it comes to Louis C.K. He’s bound to say something that offends you sooner or later, but overall he’s awesome, speaks the truth, and we need him in our world. Here’s what he has to say about gay marriage: From Buzzfeed: “It doesn’t have ANY effect on your life. What do you care?! People try to talk about it like it’s a social issue. Like when you see someone stand up on a talk show and say, “How am I supposed to explain to my child that two men are getting married?” . . . I dunno, it’s your shitty kid, you fuckin’ tell ‘em. Why is that anyone else’s problem? Two guys are in LOVE but they can’t get married because YOU don’t want to talk to your ugly child for fuckin’ five minutes?” – Louis C.K.]]>

Classy. From the Chicago Sun-Times: The 42nd annual Chicago Pride Parade marched forward Sunday, even though the tires on 30 to 50 floats were slashed hours before the event’s start. The floats were damaged overnight at a storage facility, Associated Attractions Enterprises Inc., near 48th and Halsted streets, and an employee discovered the damage about 5 a.m., police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli said. A parade official said tires were being replaced and all of the floats were expected to be repaired in time to be in the parade, which began at noon, though several did not proceed in the planned order.]]>