This is a good story to end the work week on. Yeah I know it’s not gay news related, but if you get prissy your heart is colder than those yahoos at Westboro Baptist “Church.” Please go get some help. Like today. Remember Damon Weaver? The precocious kid reporter from Florida who was looking for an interview with President Obama? Well he got it last night.

Weaver, Pahokee’s favorite son, sat down for 10 minutes  with Obama in the White House Diplomatic Room. The interview ranged from the serious (give Weaver props for asking about bullying and violence in our schools) to the silly. Damon would like french fries served at every school lunch (not too outlandish really).

This morning the 11 year old boy will be hitting the morning shows on CNN and MSNBC. And I hear talk of him holding a press conference on the South Lawn.

Don’t want to be too cynical (yeah I do) but this feel good story comes at a perfect time for the White House. Obama will be in Montana today  for a town hall meeting on health insurance and if it gets hot, the White House can just point to Damon and the press will lose its mind. This kid is catnip. Remember during the inauguration festivities when  ABC News’ Diane Sawyer almost adopted him?

For the prissy ones already banging at the keyboard about how their grand  gay day has been ruined forevah, here is something you’ll like. While Damon was all respectful to his interviewee, a former president was taken to the woodshed for DADT and DOMA. Blogger Lane Hudson, who exposed Mark Foley for the creep he is, was listening to Bill Clinton at the Netroots Nation conference and had enough. Hudson  stood up and interrupted the Big Dog, and gave him grief for DADT and DOMA.

Two things stand out: apparently some in the audience booed Hudson and some old lady told him to leave. Progressives really hate it when you bring up stuff they don’t want to deal with. Second, part of Clinton’s response is instructive.

“You wanna talk about ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn’t deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting some support in the congress. Now, that’s the truth.”

For six months I’ve been reading how President Obama hasn’t done squat for the gay community. Heck I’ve written some the stuff myself. All fair. All fair. Yet presidential leadership does not operate in a vacuum. It would be nice if politicians did the right thing, but it’s naive to think a president is going to put his/her toe in something without cover. Even Damon knows that! What did Franklin D.  Roosevelt say?

“I agree with you, I want to do it; now make me do it.”

RIP Les Paul.

ABC today published a lengthy story about how minorities are swaying the gay marriage vote in California. Its tag line: “Minorities, often social conservatives, could support California gay marriage ban.”

Well, I believe the individuals who testified to their own experiences in the Black, Latino and Chinese communities in the article, but I am hesitant to write off minorities as enemies of the LGBT people.

ABC quotes a Christian leader in the Latino community who insists that the Hispanic people support “traditional” marriage. It quotes an ad written in Chinese that mentions the evils of gay marriage (using very similar language as the English ads aimed at promoting Proposition 8). It quotes, extensively, a gay minister who left his church in the eighties rather than coming out to his congregation.

This does not exactly look like a convincing case for the dangers of minority voters.

The truth is that older people, on average, are less likely to support gay marriage. Change is hard, harder for those who have been around a bit longer than most of us, and many of that generation are going to oppose a fundamental shift in what constitutes marriage.

That means that your grandparents, whether you are white or Black, will be less likely to embrace your marriage to your partner than your best friend or your siblings.

It’s not a foolproof test, but it holds true more often than not.

I believe that young people of all races are ready to accept equal rights. The ABC story mentioned this, but talked about young people as separate from minority communities.

In reality is it minority youth, as much as any of us, who are shifting the expectations of the community and many of the minority voters who come out to punch their ballot for Barack Obama will also be individuals who support equal rights for LGBT people.

I hope that the ABC story does not affect the way we see minority voters in the next election. The struggle for gay rights really does extend across racial communities.  I offer my solidarity to all those individuals who work to make their own families, friends and city more accepting as a whole.

Newlywed Portia de Rossi, 35, will be returning to prime time television early next year in Better Off Ted, one of five pilots picked up by ABC for its midseason lineup.

The satirical office comedy revolves around a successful but morally conscious man, Ted (played by Jay Harrington), who runs a research and development department at a morally questionable corporation, Veridian Technologies. Here’s how the press release describes it:

No achievement is too far fetched and no invention too unorthodox for Veridian. Need a suicidal turkey? Done. Need a metal that is hard as steel but bounces — and is edible? Done and done. Ted loves his seemingly perfect job; he loves his superhuman boss, Veronica, and colleagues Lem, Phil and Linda, but he’s starting to take a closer look at the company’s extremely questionable practices … especially when they try to cryogenically freeze one of Ted’s scientists for testing purposes.

De Rossi plays "superhuman boss" Veronica.

The comedy also stars Andrea Anders, Jonathan Slavin, and Malcolm Barrett. ABC has yet to announce when the series will debut on its 2008-2009 schedule.

De Rossi, who married Ellen DeGeneres last week, made her first cinematic appearance in the movie Sirens (1994). But it was her role as icy lawyer Nelle Porter on Ally McBeal from 1998-2002 that catapulted her to fame. She went on to co-star in the low-rated but critically acclaimed Fox comedy Arrested Development from 2003-2006, and she most recently guest-starred as a lesbian on the FX drama Nip/Tuck.

(New York City) The union between the gay characters Kevin and Scotty in the season finale of ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” helped the network win the highest praise Sunday from an advocacy group that pushes for more visibility of such characters on television.

It was the first wedding ceremony of two gay or lesbian characters in a prime-time scripted series, said the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. ABC has had other historic moments, including introducing a gay character to “Soap” in 1977, having a gay teen in “My So-Called Life” and Ellen DeGeneres coming out on “Ellen” as well as in real life.

ABC ranked highest among the broadcast networks in hours where gay and lesbian characters were portrayed, with FX topping the 10 cable networks monitored, GLAAD said.

ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Corp. and FX by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

“We know that programming to lesbian and gay viewers is good business and these are two networks that realize the social and economic benefits of including images of our community in their programming,” said Damon Romine, GLAAD’s director of entertainment media.

FX was praised for “Nip/Tuck,” which GLAAD said had one gay, lesbian or bisexual character in every episode. “Rescue Me” had a minor storyline with a gay couple having a commitment ceremony and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” had a transgender character.

Fox, also owned by News Corp., and NBC both had “failing” grades from GLAAD. While GLAAD was pleased by the inclusion of gay characters on “House” and the games “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” the group didn’t like a “New Amsterdam” episode where two lesbian characters fell in love with a straight man.

GLAAD is pushing NBC to include more gay characters, particularly after the prominent lesbian doctor Kerry Weaver left “ER.”