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I wish I had the words to express how I was really feeling about the blow that the same-sex marriage movement took this past week when the New York Senate voted down same-sex marriage legislation.  The Democratic controlled Senate could not muster enough votes with the measure failing 38-24.  The New York Assembly has easily passed legislation legalizing same-sex marriage three times.  This is the first such vote in the Senate. Shame on them!

There is no doubt in my mind that marriage equality is clearly a civil rights issue, not a religious, moral or social one.  We who were born queer have every right to our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.  As citizens of the United States, we too are protected by our constitution and must be afforded every right and privilege that all heterosexuals receive.

For many years, I've listened to the arguments surrounding marriage equality, pro vs. con, strategy vs. strategy, legislative vs. courts vs. popular vote, "civil unions" vs. "marriage."  While I've come to appreciate the many efforts used to achieve marriage equality, I personally believe it is only through the courts that we will find our relief nationwide.

There is only one question that needs to be answered: Do we queers have a basic right to the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process?  This question can neither be answered by the vote of a people nor the decisions of legislators. It is a fundamental error to allow any form of popular vote for the purpose of awarding civil rights to any people.

The civil rights of the minority must be protected from the control of any majority. Our own history has proven that time and again.

This is the problem with the legislative or popular vote route--it affords an opportunity for a majority to rule against an individual's civil rights.  Don't get me wrong, legislators have their role in marriage equality but only to ensure it not to deny access to it.

Currently only five states allow same-sex marriage: Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, while 40 states have specific laws that ban same-sex marriage.

All eyes now turn to New Jersey as their legislative bodies consider replacing unequal civil unions with same-sex marriage legislation.  With the loss in New York, there is now concern that some New Jersey legislators sitting on the fence will feel more comfortable in rejecting marriage equality.

(It should be noted that it was through court relief that queers in New Jersey achieved civil unions.)

I support efforts to lobby legislators to advance and approve marriage equality but we can't rely on that alone. Take Pennsylvania as an example.  Realistically, we are a decade or more away from any honest marriage equality legislation in the Keystone State.

Ten years or more is far too long to have to wait.  Too many couples need and deserve immediate relief in order to protect themselves and their families from the shortcomings of discrimination and prejudice.

I am saddened and disappointed that same-sex marriage legislation has failed in my birth state of New York.  I am concerned for the future of marriage equality in my home state of New Jersey. And I am anxious for couples to begin to challenge marriage equality in the courts in my adoptive state of Pennsylvania.

That being said I am confident that the truth will rule the day and full equality will be achieved.  History takes time; but we just can't sit around and wait for it to happen.

Honestly, I'm not a crazed Michael Jackson fan but he was/is a phenomenon that's undeniable as a pop cultural force in and of our time. And he's not going away any time soon. In fact, he'll inevitably become an undying entertainment legend in the realm of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, John Lennon, among only a handful of others. Even all superstars don't enter the status of iconic. For many and varying reasons, good, bad and otherwise, Michael Jackson has already arrived there. He's like an excavation site, with lots to unearth, discover, interpret, even replete with some mysteries yet to be unfolded, some, perhaps, never to be completely understood.  Writer John Jeremiah Sullivan filed an interesting and painfully honest piece on Jackson, "Back in the Day," (GQ: Gentlemen's Quarterly, September 2009) in which he shares a number of insights and reveals many interesting and intriguing details and facts about Jackson recalling some of his past: "Nineteen seventy-nine, the year of 'Off the Wall' and his first nose job, marks an obscure crisis. Around the start of that year, they offer him the gay lead in the film version of 'A Chorus Line,' but he declines the role, explaining, 'I'm excited about it, but if I do it, people will link me with the part. Because of my voice, some people already think that I'm that way--homo--though I'm actually not at all."

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Sexy and 60 (her birthday was last month) Sigourney Weaver is experiencing a major comeback as she takes on the role of Dr. Grace Augustine in the much-anticipated megamovie, "Avatar," a sci-fi adventure from director James Cameron that costs $230 million and comes out on December 18. No stranger to big pictures or science fiction classics with her roles in "Alien" and "Aliens," Weaver is elated to assume what she calls "a joyous character," according to writer James Kaplan (Parade, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, November 29, 2009). An accomplished actress, Weaver did become concerned about being stereotyped. "For a long time, it was frustrating for me always to be cast in these serious, heroic roles," she admitted, "Because I'm not serious, I'm kind of a silly person. If there's a spider in the room, I'm running."  Well, what about the age thing?  "At 60, I feel--touch wood--one has all the wisdom that one's accumulated, the perspective that it's a joyous thing to work with other people. You have a different perspective as you get older that I think makes everything taste better and be more fun--you know you're only going to have this moment."

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Queer writer William J. Mann has done it again. He's just published another celebrity biography of a Hollywood goddess. He became celebrated for "Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn" a few years ago. Now he takes on someone even larger than Hepburn, perhaps larger than life itself, certainly, according to reviewer Frank Bruni (The New York Times Book Review, October 25, 2009), even larger than the person herself, in "How to be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood."  Bruni states that Mann "casts his biography in part as an investigation into the chemical formula behind her enduring command of the spotlight." Not surprisingly, Taylor was to "the glamour born." He writes: "Stardom didn't come to Taylor haphazardly or after decades of struggle; it was a matter of plotting and grooming by a mother intent on seeing her daughter's name in lights. Little Liz was among a whole subculture of Southern California children whose parents tucked them into the perverse bosom of the entertainment industry, though few flourished the way Liz did."