A California Catholic priest is assigned to work with prisons after being caught using a gay dating Web site:

FRESNO, Calif. A Catholic priest who was removed from a Merced church after he reportedly used a gay dating Web site has been assigned to work with prisons.
Church officials say the Reverend Jean-Michael Lastiri will be director of detention ministry in the eight-county Diocese of Fresno.

Bishop John Steinbock removed Lastiri from the Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Merced last year and said he was sending him to a treatment center in Maryland because of indications Lastiri had used a totally inappropriate Web page and chat room.

Lastiri said he had only entertained fantasies on the Internet and hadn’t engaged in any inappropriate sexual activity.

He should have just chatted up a twelve-year-old.

Billboards are a hot topic this week. Just one day after Clear Channel pulled a Gay.com ad from a billboard in Massachusetts, Lamar refused to rent billboard space in South Georgia to Georgia Equality.

I’m sure you can see how the following tag lines of the proposed rejected ad by Georgia Equality, which featured images of gay professionals including a doctor and a firefighter, may have offended too many people:

“I protect you. And … I am gay. We Are Your Neighbors.”

Click over to Joe Tresh’s Washington for more commentary and a look at the ad in question.

I just don’t know anymore…

From Washingtonblade.com’s SOUND OFF!:

Re “Playing our parts in ‘genderfuck’” (op-ed by Meredith Stepp, July 15):

Jennifer Vanasco’s article (“The death of femme,” op-ed, June 17) was the first time I’ve heard anyone express my own feelings about the disappearance of femmes. I am a high femme and very lesbian, and have now started to feel animosity from butch or tomboy lesbians because I’m not fitting the mold. I’ve been told that I’m stuck in the hetero world and that I’m not being myself. I feel quite the contrary. Maybe they’re dealing with their own lack of confidence for having fallen into what the stereotypical lesbian should look like. I feel free to wear make-up, grow my long hair, wear fake nails, and my butch loves it all. I disagree with Meredith Stepp; Vanasco wasn’t saying femmes were weak and butches were strong. In most cases, you find the opposite. Although I look dainty, I’m a butch top in relationships and in the bed. Maybe we should all stop basing judgments on the labels we give people. What happened to unconditional acceptance of all that is supposed to be our end goal?

If you’re a high femme and a butch top, can you have a butch-femme relationship with yourself?

Previous posts here, here and here.

What else ya got for me? This:

*The Return of Lesbian Pulp Fiction
*D.C. Man Given 24 Years in Activist’s Death
*Gay former city official files federal lawsuit
*Stone shocked by ‘homophobic’ America
*Gays To Sue “Homophobic” Moscow Mayor Luzhkov for Banning Gay Pride

Clear Channel pulled the above Gay.com ad yesterday after receiving five complaints from members of the anti-gay, anti-queer, anti-trans group Article 8 Alliance. (Click over to Downtown Lad for their contact number.)

What Article 8 Alliance had to say about the billboard:

How much worse does it get? Two naked men embracing, wrapped in an American flag, advertising a pornographic homosexual “hook-up” web site. This is where the gay movement is taking you, unless you take action.

And, sadly, a day after their complaints, the ad is replaced:

I doubt Clear Channel intends on responding to all complaints in the same fashion, and I’d love for them to share with us which lines they will and will not cross.

More: Homosexual Porn Site Ad Comes Down After Pro-Family Protest (If you haven’t already figured this out, Gay.com is a porn site. Yea, I never knew either.)

What else ya got for me? This:

*Sex Offenders Resign From Gay Pride Event
*Beyond the binary: adventures in gender
*Confessed Killer Of Mayor’s Assistant Heads Back To Court
*NJ Lewdness Arrests Spark Outrage

What is the world coming to? Doesn’t anyone believe in “appropriateness” anymore?

A Park City woman has won her battle to display pro-gay messages on personalized license plates.

Elizabeth “Beano” Solomon appealed a decision from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The DMV denied her request to put the messages on personalized plates last December.

Officials said they weren’t sure if the message crossed the line of “-appropriateness.”

But the State Tax Commission overturned that decision.

Beano Solomon/Applied for Personalized Plate:”I APPLIED FOR THEM TO , YES BE IN YOUR FACE. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY TO CONVEY A POSITIVE MESSAGE.”

There’s a chance the state will challenge the decision, for fear it will open the door for others to make a “-statement” with personalized plates.

It should only be a matter of time now before all you Utah residents find yourselves driving past a Subaru with personalized (and by the DMV) Dyke Duck plates. Oh my.

What else ya got for me? This:

*Atlanta police gay liaison announces retirement
*Rights groups call for investigation of treatment of gay men arrested in park
*Chicago Latest To Condemn ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
*Gay advocacy group applauds UA policy change
*Groups cite bias in lesbian fertility case
*SA considers gay, lesbian police liaison officers
*Indian homosexual inspires film

People are complaining, in record numbers, once again about L Word ads. Complaints were targeted at posters featured across the UK alleging they are “offensive, degrading and unsuitable to be seen by children.”

This time, however, the ads aren’t going anywhere. The Advertising Standards Authority dismissed complaints calling the posters accurate for the shows content and not offensive to the majority.

Posters for lesbian drama The L Word have generated record amounts of complaints, with members of the public saying they are “offensive”.

The posters, advertising the launch of the second series of the successful show on Living TV, featured two semi-naked women in a clinch.

Their underwear showed the days the show is screened on the channel.

Nearly 650 people complained about the adverts, which featured on billboards across the UK and public transport in London.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the number was the highest received this year.

But it dismissed the complaints, backing the advertising agency claims that the poster accurately reflected the show’s content.

They also rejected the complaints saying the posters were sexually explicit, maintaining instead that the images were not offensive to the majority of people.

More details on the posters from MediaGuardian.co.uk (site registration may be required to view article):

The series of posters for the Living TV drama The L Word, showing women from chest to thigh wearing only panties and covered in oil, became the most complained-about non-broadcast advertisement of the year.

The posters for the drama, about a group of lesbians in Los Angeles, showed models wearing panties with the phrases “hello girls” and “girls allowed” on them, attracted 646 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Other posters showed women with their hands entwined and one model with her hand tugging down one side of her knickers.

What else ya got for me? This:

*Gay Muslim appeals in U.K. asylum case
*Transsexual avoids jail after threatening transport inspectors
*One in three people think gays immoral
*Gay couples ‘will not be blessed’
*Chinese play explores homosexuality, breaks taboos
*The Hidden Homosexuals
*‘Bear’ allegedly robs Fla. gay man

Get your submissions to me soon!

Call for Submissions

Queer: Four Decades After Stonewall
Editor: Maria Angeline
Contact: queerbook@dailydoseofqueer.com
Deadline: September 1, 2005

Queer: Four Decades After Stonewall

Daily Dose of Queer is currently seeking original and unpublished novellas and short stories of Queer Culture between 10,000 to 25,000 words in length.

Guidelines:

• Submit short stories, novellas, essays and other prose at our submissions page.
• Unpublished authors will be considered.
• Previously published material will also be considered, provided you have retained your rights; please submit previous publication information (and the terms of your copyright agreement) in these cases.
• You may submit two (2) different pieces of writing.

Contributing writers will be paid $65 at the time of publication and receive two free copies of the anthology.

About:

Where is queer culture as we approach four decades after Stonewall? What are the stories, ideas and theories, values and fantasies that presently shape your life? Queer: Four Decades After Stonewall seeks to represent the many facets of queer culture today and tie them together to present the world we live in now. Pieces on how those who identify as queer define the term are also welcome.

We are especially interested in pieces on the following topics (but will accept submissions outside of them):

• Religion and Spirituality
• Legal Marriage
• Sex, Gender and Identity
• Erotica

For questions or more information contact Maria Angeline at queerbook@dailydoseofqueer.com.

We will be announcing the author selections here on DDOQ by Friday, September 16, 2005.

How shocking – a psychiatrist who is also a member of the Catholic Medical Association says the American Psychiatric Association “has ignored evidence that homosexual behaviour is a manifestation of a psychiatric disorder.” One wouldn’t think he would place current views on homosexuality held by the Catholic church above science. No. Never.

In an interview with the Rome-based Zenit news service, Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons a psychiatrist and member of the Catholic Medical Association, said that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has ignored evidence that homosexual behaviour is a manifestation of a psychiatric disorder. In their recent call for the legalization of homosexual marriage, the APA has revealed a political bias that is of no service to homosexuals, said Fitzgibbons the primary author of the Catholic Medical Association’s document ‘Homosexuality and Hope.’

Fitzgibbons, the co-author of a book on forgiveness published by the APA, said the APA has also chosen to ignore the potential impact on children in those “marriages.” It is being increasingly proven that children have a critical psychological need for a stable family life with a mother and a father, which the homosexual lifestyle cannot provide.

More shocking news: Jerry Falwell endorses ‘reparative therapy’ for gay kids

I wasn’t aware that sexual orientation is now stated along with size on shirts. It must be, since there’s talk of “lesbian cross-dressers” (read Is she or isn’t she?) walking around wearing straight clothes. What morons.

Others say that gay-girl mod has spurred a new crop of lesbians who cross-dress, that is, dress like straight women, and now nobody can tell who is and who isn’t a lesbian.

What else ya got for me? This:

*Hotter Than July! to host transgender summit July 29
*Victory for gender defiance
*Student’s ‘gay panic’ murder defense falls flat
*Sexual orientation cited in lawsuit against Ledyard

Remember Ethereal? Well, Etherealvox.com has got a great new look and I didn’t want you to miss it.

Don’t forget to shop while you’re there!