According to news reports, the White House asked Sen. Carl Levin to postpone his hearings on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell until next month. The rumor is that in tomorrow’s State of the Union, President Obama is going to ask  Congress to repeal the policy.

How this will be received by gays and lesbians  is a hard guess. Considering the heat Obama has received here and other places, I’m assuming  many will  not care because they have already made plans for this year’s election and 2012. But if he does ask for the repeal of DADT, and gets it done in a year, then he will be able to take back that term “fierce advocate.”

That’s a lot of ifs, but as I’ve said multiple times the LGBT relationship with the White House should mirror how Frederick Douglass treated Abraham Lincoln. Douglass was public about all of his disagreements with the first Illinois president, but being critical did not mean lack of praise. When Lincoln stepped up to the plate, the abolitionist always gave him the appropriate support.

Why do anything on DADT now?  Simple. Obama needs his base back in his corner, and this is a way to do it. Some of you want him to do “the right thing.”  If you are looking for someone to do stuff because it’s altruistic, please go back to watching Lifetime movies. This is chess, not checkers. As long as a pol does something I agree with, the reasons matter little.

Want to see what you missed? Re-live it, below.

We’ll be doing the same thing Wednesday, beginning about 8:30 PST. Join us with your thoughts, your rants and your questions.

Leftist Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the Democratic Revolution Party is widely expected to sign the measure into law. The bill calls for changing the definition of marriage in the city’s civil code. Marriage is currently defined as the union of a man and a woman. The new definition will be “the free uniting of two people.” The change would allow same-sex couples to adopt children, apply for bank loans together, inherit wealth and be included in the insurance policies of their spouse, rights they were denied under civil unions allowed in the city.

“We are so happy,” said Temistocles Villanueva, a 23-year-old film student who celebrated by passionately kissing his boyfriend outside the city’s assembly.

Only seven countries allow gay marriages: Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. U.S. states that permit same-sex marriage are Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Argentina’s capital became the first Latin American city to legalize same-sex civil unions in 2002 for gay and lesbian couples. Four other Argentine cities later did the same, and as did Mexico City in 2007 and some Mexican and Brazilian states. Uruguay alone has legalized civil unions nationwide. Buenos Aires lawmakers introduced a bill for legalizing gay marriage in the national Congress in October but it has stalled without a vote, and officials in the South American city have blocked same-sex wedding because of conflicting judicial rulings.

Many people in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America remain opposed to gay marriage, and the dominate Roman Catholic Church has announced its opposition. City lawmaker Victor Romo, a member of the mayor’s leftist party, called it a historic day.

“For centuries unjust laws banned marriage between blacks and whites or Indians and Europeans,” he said. “Today all barriers have disappeared.”

Lately, my partner has been complaining that this isn’t working for her anymore and that we should be going to each other’s families together – like married straight couples do. This is creating a lot of anxiety for me, as I don’t know how my family will respond. We each like each other’s families, but in mine we sort of have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. They know but we don’t talk about it.

Should I keep things the way they are or  bring her home and risk a family uproar?

Homo for the Holidays

Dear Homo for the Holidays,

Each year as the holidays start to approach, I always ask the couples I’m counseling (both gay/lesbian and straight) what they plan to do. Most straight couples say they are going to one of the partner’s parents’ places, or are celebrating in their own home, where families and friends will visit and blend together.

Gay and lesbian couples, however, often have different scenarios. Many times, they decide to go separately to their own respective families, just as you and your partner do.

I wonder why you haven’t done what many couples do—take turns going to each other’s families each year, so you can spend the holidays together. Although some couples prefer to separate because they do not like the partner’s family, this doesn’t sound like the case with you and your partner.

I will tell you, I am biased and believe that it strengthens relationships to spend holidays together.

It does harm to the relationship in subtle ways by not going together as a family unit. The message you are giving to yourselves as a couple and to your families is that you are not “really” a couple and that you could operate as singles at will without being affected. Imagine heterosexually married relatives doing the same. They might want to -  as they might not like or enjoy the other’s family  – but they do it because they are a unit.

I wonder if you have internalized homophobia and if this is an expression of that. Even though your parents accept that you are lesbian are you out about it? Do you talk about your partner as a partner? Do you receive invitations and gifts as partners or do things come separately? What has caused you to continue a holiday tradition as a single and not allow it to evolve as a couple? Some lesbians and gays feel it is confrontational and might be reflective of their going from child to adult within their family.

No matter what, if you separate only on holidays, your refusal to declare your relationship verbally and behaviorally would inevitably affect your relationship. Not identifying overtly as a couple minimizes the attachment to one’s partner and keeps it from growing into a healthy adult relationship. This wears away at the closeness and connection you have with your partner in subtle and covert ways. Over time I have seen couples having intimacy issues by not joining together for things that our heterosexual counterparts do, such as holidays and special events like weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

Being with our family and our partner brings with it a special familial feeling and closeness that you cannot achieve on your own as a couple. In the end, I hope you decide to sit down with your family one-on-one and tell them that you are a lesbian and that you will be celebrating the holidays with your partner present from now on, which means that you will spend one year with one family, and the next year with the other family or go to both each year—whatever works for you.

The only time I do not advise this is if someone is concerned about or knows they will suffer negative consequences for doing so, such as physical violence, cutoffs from the family or some other verbal or emotional abuse. Those are harder decisions and people have to decide for themselves if it is worth it to do or not.

In your case, your family sounds like they might be open to this conversation and your partner is pressuring you to do it anyway. I am in agreement with your partner and know it is the right thing to do.

BE HOMO for the holidays!

Joe Kort, MA, MSW, is a psychotherapist and Board Certified Sexologist who specializes in gay affirmative therapy, relationship therapy, sex therapy and sexual addiction. He is the author of 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love, and  Gay Affirmative Therapy for the Straight Clinician.  He provides workshops for gays and lesbians as well as trainings for straight clinicians around the country. His website is www.joekort.com.

Nineteen-year-old, Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado’s body was found burned, decapitated and dismembered on Nov. 14 in Cayey, a city only a few miles away from his hometown in Caguas.

According to an iReport by Christopher Pagan, “He was a very well known person in the gay community of Puerto Rico, and very loved.”

Pagan said, “Never in the history of Puerto Rico has a murder been classified as a hate crime. Even though we have to follow federal mandates and laws, many of the laws in which are passed in the USA such as Obama’s new bill, do not always directly get practiced in Puerto Rico.”

Pagan also noted the public remarks from a police investigator for the case that ‘people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen’.

Towleroad translated gay activist Pedro Julio Serrano’s response:

“It is inconceivable that the investigating officer suggests that the victim deserved his fate, like a woman deserves rape for wearing a short skirt. We demand condemnation of this investigator and demand that Superintendent Figueroa Sancha replace him with someone capable of investigating this case without prejudice.”

According to Pagan, the story has only made local headlines and deserves international coverage.