(POP NEWS) Shocker; Bring IT; Trans-late; Bad Move; Non Endorsed; Stray; Swan; Deep; Art!

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(POP NEWS) POT and MARRIAGE; NO HOPE; GOOSE; RE=BILLED; REJECTED; DONE; TYPE;TRICK; EXPIRED; CLASS!

• POT and MARRIAGE: Colorado OKs Civil Unions!

• NO HOPE: No Pope Yet After Second Blast of Black Smoke!

• GOOSE: Chavez Poison Theory Being Investigated!

• RE-BILLED: Man Returns Book 69 Years Late, Blames WWII!

• REJECTED: Aftermath of Richard III Discovery: Hate Mail!

• WHO CARES? Boy Scouts Takes Poll, Asks About Bunking With Gays!

• DONE: Toronto's Fab 'Gay Scene Magazine' Closes Up Shop!

(OUTscene TV) Van City's Iona Whipp Performs (Pole Dances) on the 2012 Pride Party Cruise!

(OUTscene TV) Van City's Raye Sunshine Performs on the 2012 Pride Party Cruise!

(OUTscene NW) PHOTOS/TV: Cruisey T's Pride Cruise was an L.E.C. Experience!

MK w/ James Steck       MK/OS

by MK Scott 

Van City Pride is never complete until you make it on a Cruisey-T Pride Cruise, in my case the Pride Party Cruise which is a 4 Hour Floating T-Dance that starts at the Harbour Marina and travel to the English Bay and Back.

Besides Dancing where you stand, there were Drag Performances by Van City's own Raye Sunshine, and Iona Whipp. Did I mention the all-can-you-Buffet Dinner?

CruiseyT's main focus is to raise funds for local charities and organizations within the Gay & Lesbian Communities. Since the inception of CruiseyT in 1991, a total of $600,000 has been donated to worthy causes and direct service agencies. Check Out the Grande Finale on September 2nd.

I still long for the days when Seattle had its own "Queen City Cruise" which was always a Lubricating, Ejaculating Celebration! 

(OUTscene America) PHOTOS/TV: Satisfying Van City Pride Parade was Community, Community, Community!

Thomas/HP

by MK Scott

Hundreds of thousands of spectators took in the annual Vancouver Pride Parade Aug. 5 on a spectacularly sunny day.

This year's event saw several milestones, including a visit from the premier of British Columbia Christy Clark and, for the first time ever, participation from the Vancouver Canucks professional hockey team. One thing I love about this parade is that all forms of Government were represented including Fire, Police (The Police Chief Marched) , City, etc. Only 2 Corporate sponsors, TD Bank and Telus Communications. The rest was community, Community, Community! Think if the city and the community of the Seafair parade participated in Seattle's Pride. What a sight!

(POP NEWS): Canadian Pop; CARRIE BOUND; Wright Mentoring!

RE-VEALING: Canadian Pop Music Is Gay!

CARRIE BOUND: Sex and the City Brownstowne: Yours for $9.65M!

MENTORED: Chely Wright Opens Kansas City Center For LGBT Youth!

(Marriage News Watch): Canadian Marriages May be in Danger After All!

by Matt Baume

Canadian marriages may not be so safe after all, with an author of the country's marriage equality law raising the possibility of an anti-gay stealth attack. Here in the US, nearly a hundred mayors across the country come out for marriage equality, including one who testified during the Prop 8 trial. We're just one vote away from passing a marriage bill in the Washington Senate, but time's quickly running out. And remember that cute Australian ad with the first-person courtship? I'll talk to the American college student who's busy raising funds to bring that ad to the states.

VALID: Canadian Justice Minister: All Same-Sex Marriages are Legal!

Seeking to allay concerns about the legitimacy of same-sex marriages performed for foreigners in Canada following news yesterday about a pending court case, Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson spoke out Friday at a Canadian Club luncheon:Speaking at a Toronto luncheon Friday, Mr. Nicholson blamed the Liberal government that preceded his for not filling a “legislative gap” that has left thousands of same-sex couples in an agonizing position of being unable to divorce should they feel a need to.

The situation has been “completely unfair to those affected.” Mr. Nicholson said. “I want to make it clear that in our government's view, these marriages are valid.”

Nicholson added: The Civil Marriage Act will be changed to ensure that any marriages performed in Canada that aren't recognized in the couple's home jurisdiction will be recognized in Canada nonetheless, he said.

“This will apply to all marriages performed in Canada,” Mr. Nicholson said. “We have been clear that we have no desire to reopen this issue – both myself and the Prime Minister consider this debate to be closed.”

NOT LEGAL: LGBT Legal Groups Say Not to Worry About Canadian Same-Sex Marriages Being Invalidated!

Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, and Freedom to Marry have released a joint statement in response to news earlier today that the Canadian government had served notice by way of a court case that thousands of same-sex marriages by foreigners in that country could be invalidated, news which has prompted an international outcry.

Write the groups: We write to respond to a news report from Canada that a lawyer in the current government has taken a position in a trial-level divorce proceeding that a same-sex couple's marriage is not valid because the members of the couple were not Canada residents at the time that they married, and the law of their home jurisdiction did not permit them to marry at the time.

SPOILER: Female Splits Up 'Gay' Penguins!

The penguin love affair dubbed "Brokeback Iceberg" by Jimmy Kimmel is now definitely over. Pedro and Buddy, the "gay" African penguins the Toronto Zoo decided to split up last month, are now both more interested in females, the BBC reports. Buddy, who shared a nest with Pedro for a year, paired with a female within 72 hours of the split, zookeepers say. Pedro, meanwhile, has been pursuing a female for weeks without success. "Pedro is very ready to go, per se, but his prospective mate is a little standoffish," the zoo's curator of birds tells the National Post. The zoo, he says, decided to separate the pair for the sake of the species, whose numbers have dwindled from 1.2 million in 1910 to 50,000 today. As long as there plenty of females around, the curator doubts Buddy and Pedro will try to rekindle their romance. “We don’t think of gay penguins,” he says. “They’re bundled pairs. They break up in the wild, they break up in captivity."

STOP: Bullied Gay Ottawa Teen Jamie Hubley Commits Suicide!

Another horrific gay teen suicide caused by bullying, I'm so sad to report.

Gay 15-year-old Ottawa, Canada teen Jamie Hubley killed himself on Friday. Bullying was apparently to blame, the Ottawa Citizen reports. And like the recent bullying suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer, Hubley documented much of what happened to him online: Jamie Hubley documented the final month of his life in heartbreaking and painful detail.

The 15-year-old boy, a son of Kanata South Councillor Allan Hubley and his wife, Wendy Barber, kept a blog in which he wrote openly of his struggles with depression and the challenges of being an openly gay teenager. Like Rodemeyer, he cited pop stars he loved and made videos on a YouTube channel.

BANNED: Trans Worker Told to Get Off Premises of 'Family Friendly' Farmer's Market!

A transgender worker for True2You, a candle and incense vendor at Trail's End Farmer's Market in London, Ontario, was disturbing the "family friendly atmosphere" there according to the market's owner and would not be allowed back on the premises.

True2You owner Karen Clarke tells AM890 she got a call from one of the market's managers: "Everything was fine when I left and it wasn't until five to 8 on Saturday night that I got a call from the management at Trails End. Basically they said if I was going to have those people there anymore I'm invited to take my business elsewhere....He said it made everyone uncomfortable and it just wasn't right. This is a family place, a family market and this just isn't right. I just kept insisting what happened that was wrong and he said you walk up to the person and they're dressed like a woman and they've got big hands, a deep voice and tattoos and it's just not right. It's just not a family place he kept repeating that over and over again. And I kept trying to get from him what was wrong, what was so not right, what was it that people were complaining about and there was no details forthcoming that way. He called them 'those people' several times."

STALKED: Man CAUGHT using Celine's Bathtub!

Daniel Bedard was just about to step into his “nice warmish bath” when police arrived … to charge him with allegedly breaking into Celine Dion’s Canada home, where he was about to take said bath. Bedard, 36, had already eaten some pastry out of the fridge when he was caught Monday. When he saw the cops, he asked, “Hey, guys, what are you doing here?” a police spokesperson tells the AP. 

“So the officers replied: ‘What are you doing here?’ and they proceeded to put him under arrest,” the spokesperson continues, adding that the suspect jumped a fence and used a garage door opener from an unlocked vehicle to get inside the house. Bedard also allegedly wrote on some Post-It notes and left cigarette butts and snack cake wrappers on the floor, the Montreal Gazette adds. He was nabbed after the alarm system went off; neither Dion nor her husband were in the house at the time, as they normally stay in their Florida home.

UNITED: Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer practice in Montreal. Can they stop Djokovic?

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are both proud former number ones who ruled their sport by winning 26 grand slam singles titles between them before Novak Djokovic ascended to the top spot by winning Wimbledon last month, Greg in Hollywood reports.

The Serbian star is filled with confidence losing just two matches (both to Federer) in the last nine months. During that stretch he led his country to its first Davis Cup title, won his second Australian Open and first Wimbledon as well as six other titles. He’s beaten Nadal five times in a row and took away his number one ranking and has three wins over Federer this year.

OZ: Man Jailed Indefinitely for Spreading HIV!

A Canadian court has decided that a man convicted of murder through HIV transmission is dangerous enough to be locked up indefinitely. Johnson Aziga had unprotected sex with at least 11 women who were unaware of his condition, seven of whom became infected and two of whom died of AIDS-related cancers. Aziga is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years, but the dangerous offender ruling means that he can be detained indefinitely on sexual assault charges even if his murder convictions are overturned, the Globe and Mail reports. 

The court decided that Aziga has an unusually high libido and that trusting him to disclose his condition to future sexual partners would be "a gamble on the safety of women in this community." The 55-year-old, who is appealing the murder convictions, gave a rambling statement to the court, saying he wanted to renounce his Canadian citizenship and serve his sentence in his native Uganda. He denied deliberately infecting the women and asked to have "HIV positive" tattooed on the palms of his hands.

ICED: Vancouver to Give Out Crack Pipes!

Vancouver is upping the ante in its efforts to fight the risks of crack addiction: The city will soon give out free crack pipes to users. Officials hope the plan will help prevent the spread of diseases through shared pipe use and will allow health authorities to reach out to users. The city already distributes clean mouth pieces; in giving out pipes, it will join cities like Calgary and Winnipeg, CBCNews reports. 

As health workers build connections with crack users, the users may be encouraged to seek help, says an advocate. “Will these services stop them from using drugs? For some people it will, but some won't,” he notes. “Some will continue to use drugs but use them safely, some will cut back, and some will die, but their lives and health will be greatly improved.” Some city officials are also hoping to create a “safe-inhalation” site that would allow users to smoke in front of health workers; the workers could provide aid should anyone overdose.

RIOT: Shame on You, Vancouver!

Vancouver's police chief is blaming "anarchists and criminals" for the violence that erupted last night after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, reports the Vancouver Sun. Some numbers from AP: 100 arrests, 150 injuries requiring hospital treatment, 15 burned cars, 9 injured cops, three stabbing victims, and scores of smashed windows in a 10-block radius. All in all, a "world-class team and the worldly city it represents absorbed devastating blows Wednesday night," writes Helene Elliott in the Los Angeles Times. 

This wasn't about hockey, "it was about power and senseless destruction and the horrifying force of the mob mentality," writes Elliott. "The Canucks' loss—their third in three trips to the Cup finals—was a handy excuse to turn this beautiful city into an ugly, smoky mess." Smashed windows can be replaced, "but memories of the destruction will linger." (Maybe this qualifies as a bright spot? The police chief notes that it took three hours to quell the violence; when the Canucks lost the Cup in 1994, it took six hours.)

No PRIDE: Catholic School Bans Rainbows!

One Canadian Catholic school went a step further than banning the word gay: It banned rainbows at a recent anti-homophobia event. “We brought signs and posters with rainbows, and we were told that we can’t put them up,” the founder of St. Joseph Catholic Secondary School’s unofficial gay-straight alliance tells Xtra. The district school board “said rainbows are associated with Pride. There’s so many other things that a rainbow could be. It’s ridiculous.” Student organizers found a way around the ban, however, by baking rainbow-colored cupcakes. 

Even then, the controversy wasn’t over: The cupcakes raised about $200 for charity, which the students wanted to donate to an LGBT youth line. But the school board “said no,” the founder says, and instructed them to donate it to a Catholic homeless shelter instead. The board had also rejected many of the materials provided for the event by political action committee Queer Ontario, including anti-homophobia booklets and an AIDS Committee of Toronto flyer. “We proposed a whole bunch of resources and only about four got approved, and the ones that were approved were censored,” the founder says.

Trans School Teacher Rejects $78,000 Offer from Catholic School That Fired Him!

A transgender teacher fired by a Catholic school district in Alberta, Canada will pursue a Human Rights comlaint rather than accept a hefty cash settlement offer:

Jan Buterman says he will proceed with his complaint against Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools, which wrote him a letter in 2008 praising his abilities but dismissing him for not being aligned with the values of the Catholic Church.

Buterman, who was a substitute teacher in St. Albert, just north of Edmonton, says the publicly funded school district can’t buy his silence with an offer of $78,000 cash or a one-year teaching job.

“I don’t want to be muzzled,” says Buterman, who has worked as a teacher elsewhere since he was fired. “They don’t want me to talk about the fact that they, as an employer, claiming authority from the Catholic Church, have discriminated against me because of my medical status as a transsexual person.”

Buterman says he expects the Catholic school board will ask the Alberta Human Rights Commission to dismiss his complaint.