Which celebs?

Oh, you might have heard of them – Julia Roberts, for instance. Scarlett Johansson. Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi. Robert De Niro. Gavin Newsom. RuPaul. Melissa Etheridge. And others.

Here are two:

On the left, Milo Ventimiglia; on the rights, Cheyenne Jackson.

The images, commissioned by the grassroots LGBT organization FAIR and the Hollywood networking organization HOMOtracker , will be autioned off online Nov. 10 to Dec. 9. Proceeds will benefit grassroots orgs fighting for marriage equality in California and across the country.

A kickoff event is Thursday, Nov. 12 in West Hollywood.

Said Shepard Fairey:

“I am proud to contribute the Defend Equality Love Unites image to the fight for marriage equality, and commend FAIR for putting this image to good use. This event, and the project behind it, are great examples of innovative advocacy and activism. This project gives a united platform for so many notable voices to bring greater awareness to this movement.”

When Cowell is “rude and mean,” DeGeneres said, she’ll tell him. But she said she’ll find a compassionate way to critique the contestants.

DeGeneres will join “American Idol” as the fourth judge when the show returns for its ninth season in January. The seat opened up when Paula Abdul resigned in the midst of a contract dispute.

DeGeneres, who signed a five-year deal with “Idol,” will continue with her daytime talk show.

It seems like there has been as much news about LGBT issues on TMZ as there has been in the New York Times. At least if you take the view that what happens in the entertainment industry is relevant to the political struggle for equality.

I happen to subscribe to that view.

I think that Shanna Moakler’s resignation over the ridiculous actions and offensive speech given by Carrie Prejean on Tuesday marks an important step towards equality. I also think that the announcement today that Wanda Sykes’s wife has given birth to twins presents an important opportunity to get the notion of loving, stable, LGBT families out into the American mainstream.

I was watching Ellen at the gym the other day (she makes me laugh while I run which somehow makes running seem not quite as bad as it really is). There was an adorable segment about her and Portia trying out a new game for the show. Portia cheats, Ellen falls over and they both end up cracking up on their back lawn.

The functional display of LGBT couples on television – like Ellen and Portia – is essential if we want popular culture to support the recognition of our relationships.

But Ellen and Portia are animal obsessed, fairly apolitical and childless. Ellen, especially, talks more about kittens than equal rights.

Wanda Sykes, on the other hand, has appeared in commercials supporting equality aimed at teenagers, often addresses LGBT issues in her comedy routines and gave a brilliantly political presentation at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Now she is the mother of twins, is in a stable relationship and is all over the entertainment news.

This is part of the struggle, and it’s publicity we need. Congratulations to Ms. Sykes and thanks for keeping the image of LGBT families in the mainstream media.

It seems that Americans share my view that Ellen Degeneres and Portia DeRossi would be amazing moms. Voters in an online poll run by parentdish.com selected the First Family of Lesbian America as the celebrities they would most want to trust their children with.

That parents selected a gay couple at all– much less one with no children of their own– shows remarkable progress.

So happy belated Mothers’ Day to all the mothers out there, particularly those mothers who’s families have been setting mind-changing examples for years.

(h/t JoeMyGod)

And now her wife Potria de Rossi has joined in. During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel last week meant to promote her new show “Better Off Ted,” de Rossi never really got around to talking about her career. What she did get around to talking about was life with Ellen, traveling with Ellen, and introducing a farcical PSA that she shot, apologizing to Yes on Prop 8 protesters who were inconvenienced by her marriage to Ellen:

The PSA is short, but sharp, and certainly gets Portia’s point across. Here’s hoping she keeps up her vocal activism during the rest of her “Better off Ted” press tour.

I’ve been feeling pretty cynical of late. Obama forms council on women and girls? I was tempted to dismiss it as ceremonial. The administration indicates it will sign on to the UN Declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality? Eh, what’s the actual impact of an inherently toothless declaration?

Real change, I’ve been considering, will only come when we’re able to change real minds and hearts.

It’s perhaps not entirely shocking, then, that my cynicism lifted briefly when I saw the clips of Ellen DeGeneres interviewing her wife Portia  de Rossi from Monday’s episode of The Ellen Degeneres Show. Ellen Tarlin at Slate wrote a post that partly explains why I feel so positive about Ellen’s interview:

“But what I am impressed by most is how forthright she is about her sexual orientation, despite the fact that she has a large, broad, national, daytime network audience that certainly must include more than just a few homophobes. And Ellen’s likability must do much to warm their hearts.

She routinely mentions her wife, Portia de Rossi, their recent marriage, and throws the details of their lives together into her jokes regularly.

Maybe I am naive, but I think this is how our country will finally change: When people who are anti-gay finally learn that someone they already know and love is gay, and they want every happiness for their loved one that they are entitled to. Or even better, when they are willing to let someone who they know is gay into their lives, despite their homosexuality.”

How many minds were changed after that interview aired? Maybe a few, but maybe none. How many minds are changed every year that Ellen spends hundreds of hours during hundreds of shows referencing her wife Portia, their wedding, their house, their pets? Countless.

I’m not sure the importance of Ellen being herself on national television every day can be overstated. The issue of gay marriage is, like a lot of issues important to the LGBT community, an emotional one for most Americans. People’s views are driven by fear, of course, but also by love.

Polls show time and again that the most important factor in predicting a person’s opinion on gay rights is if that person knows a gay person. That kind of personal interaction—which is really a feeling of investment—is more important than political affiliation, region, age, religion, or anything else.

In other words, no one wants to discriminate against the people they love.

For the millions of viewers who spend every afternoon inviting Ellen into their homes, her very matter-of-fact attitude toward her sexuality is immensely powerful and influential. The women and men that watch her show every day know about every aspect of her life, she’s as real to them as their friends or neighbors.  If they feel that connection with her, and are informed about the challenges she faces as a gay woman with unequal rights, they’ll be swayed. Slowly, perhaps, but eventually. After all, who could possibly vote to divorce Ellen?

So thanks, Ellen, for your courage, your commitment, and for sharing your beautiful family with the world.

[H/T Jezebel]

From Keith Olbermann’s surprisingly emotional take on gay marriage to the musical that made us laugh, 2008 was the year that gay news made good video.

Here are our picks for the gay videos that made the most impact this year.

As always, we welcome your additions in the comments.

1. Prop 8: The Musical!

This sly, star-studded response to Prop 8 – starring Jack Black as Jesus – made the economic case for gay marriage in such a funny, subversive way, you can’t help but sing along.

2. Keith Olbermann: Gay marriage is a question of love

Keith Olbermann stunned viewers with his six-minute rant on why the Prop 8 vote was wrong, saying, “Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option.”

Next page: Sally Kern…and Jon Stewart

Many celebrities grieved the passing of Proposition 8 in California this week. Some – such as Wanda Sykes, Rose McGowan and Lance Bass – attended a Wednesday protest criticizing the state’s gay marriage ban. Others – like Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna and Melissa Etheridge – vented their frustrations online, on TV, and onstage.

Blocks away from the Thursday rally of more than 2,000 gay-rights advocates outside the gates of a Mormon temple, several stars – including James Cromwell, Patricia Clarkson, Anjelica Huston and Sean Penn – said they supported the protesters while walking the red carpet at the BAFTA L.A. Brittania Awards at Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.

“I think it might be an idea to go out and join them shortly,” Penn said. “It was a shameful decision that was made.”

Etheridge, who exchanged vows with her longtime partner in a 2003 ceremony, declared in a blog entry posted Thursday on TheDailyBeast.com that she wouldn’t pay her taxes. The gay Oscar- and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter said that without the right to marry in California, she didn’t think she should have to pay taxes because “I am not a full citizen.”

“I don’t mean to get too personal here,” Etheridge wrote. “But there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes, too.”

DeGeneres, on her show and the show’s Web site, provided a brief message of support Friday for President-elect Obama and the gay-rights advocates protesting Proposition 8. The talk show host, who married actress Portia de Rossi in August, previously donated $100,000 against the ballot initiative and starred in a commercial lamenting the measure.

“So there was a demonstration here on Wednesday night,” DeGeneres told the audience, “and just before I walked out here, I was watching the news and there is a huge, huge, peaceful demonstration going on in the streets, and I say, good for you, and I support you, and if I weren’t here, I’d be out there with you.”

O’Donnell, who lives in New York, responded to comments and questions about her stance on the issue on her Web site. When one person said he understood why she didn’t come out against the proposition, O’Donnell responded: “I AM AGAINST PROP 8. DUH.” She also wrote she believes the estimated 18,000 gay marriages would be annulled “like mine was years ago.”

The former talk show host, who lives with partner Kelli Carpenter and their four children, publicly wed Carpenter in San Francisco in 2004, two weeks after Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The licenses were later voided by the California Supreme Court.

Also ranting online was celebrity disc jockey Samantha Ronson. Lindsay Lohan’s gal pal blogged Thursday that she was shocked that California voters approved an animal-rights initiative but that ballot measures about gay marriage and adoption in California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas were shot down.

“I guess people care more about farm animals than they do their fellow man, that’s really sad to me,” Ronson wrote on her MySpace blog. “Yes, I am glad that the chickens will have more room and better conditions as they wait to die, but I just think it’s frightening that people show more compassion for tomorrow’s dinner than for the chef.”

Other celebs used time in the spotlight to decry the decision. Madonna took a moment during her concert at Dodger Stadium to declare to the audience that she was sad “because African-Americans are equal finally, but gay marriage is not.”

Singer Christina Aguilera also spoke out against the ban.

“I think it’s discrimination,” Aguilera said in a Thursday interview with MTV News. “I don’t understand how people can be so closed-minded and so judgmental. We chose an African-American president who means so much in a time in history of great change and open-mindedness. Why is this any different? It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

For one celebrity, voting on the ballot measure itself didn’t make sense. In a rambling message posted on her MySpace blog Friday, former Hole frontwoman Courtney Love wrote that the language on the California ballot “was confusing and people were voting yes when they meant no or something.”

I’m all prepared to eat crow on this one (some of you think I should do that every time I type a word but let’s deal with that later), but from written reports Barack Obama made a surprise appearance “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” yesterday (it will air today).

The host and guest talked about dancing—apparently when Mrs. Obama spoke to Ellen last month she talked a little smack about her husband’s hoofing skills—what his daughters were going to wear for Halloween, and the help Obama would offer to get actor George Clooney to appear on Ellen’s show.

Now I haven’t seen a clip and all of the articles I’ve read about the Obama/Ellen conversation could be incomplete; however, Prop 8 didn’t come up. Not once. So even when talking to a friendly audience, Obama keeps quiet on an election issue that a large number of gays and lesbians see as critical. Like I said yesterday, Obama will not say a mumbling word on Prop 8 proving what has been noted before. He is no better, or worse, than your standard Democratic pol willing to put gay issues on the back burner.

They also announced that more than 2,200 faith leaders from across the country have signed an open letter to religious leaders calling for the recognition of same-sex marriage.

Among those taking part in the event organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, were the Rev. Bishop Mark Holmerud of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the Rev. Rick Schlosser, Executive Director of the California Council of Churches; the Rev. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister of the Northern California Nevada Conference, United Church of Christ; the Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, Episcopal Bishop of California; and the Rev. Lindi Ramsden, Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry.

The presence of the high profile clergy was meant to dispel attempts by evangelical Christians, the Roman Catholic Church and Mormons that people of faith support the proposed amendment.

On Friday, a group of Mormons who support gay marriage delivered protest letters and bundles of carnations to church headquarters in Salt Lake City in an appeal to end the church’s support of the ballot initiative in California.

The group, called Sign for Something, disagrees with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ opposition to gay marriage and its efforts to boost Mormon involvement before the Nov. 4 election.

In 2004 Newsom began allowing marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples in San Francisco. The state took the mayor to court arguing he had overstepped his authority and the California Supreme Court agreed. As a result the more than 8,000 marriages that had been performed were declared void.

The ruling, however, did not directly address the issue of the constitutionality of the state ban on same-sex marriage and LGBT civil rights activists began a separate court action challenging the prohibition.

In May, the court court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to wed violated the California constitution.

Conservative groups began collecting enough signatures for the ballot measure. Recent polling suggests voters are closely divided over the amendment.

Both sides in the ballot measure have collected millions of dollars to fund media campaigns.

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has bought $100,000 of television airtime to urge Californians to vote against the proposed amendment.

DeGeneres married her long time partner, actress Portia de Rossi, in August.

“Hi, I’m Ellen DeGeneres. I got to do something this year I never thought I’d ever be able to do: I got married. It was the happiest day of my life. There are people out there raising millions of dollars to try and take that right away from me,” DeGeneres says in the commercials to be aired throughout California..

“You’ve seen their ads on TV. They’re twisting the truth, and they’re trying to scare you. I believe in fairness. I believe in compassion. I believe in equality for all people. Proposition 8 does not. Please, please, vote no on Prop. 8,” she says in the spot.