Beyond Creepy

(Via - Newsweek)

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"The chance to be part of a whole new experiment in online and print journalism, in the Daily Beast and Newsweek adventure, is just too fascinating and exciting a challenge to pass up. And to work with media legends, Barry Diller and Tina Brown, and with the extraordinary businessmen Sidney Harman and Stephen Colvin, is the opportunity of a lifetime." - Andrew Sullivan, announcing that his blog is leaving its four-year home at The Atlantic.

Newsweek Profiles Brian Brown

Saying he would "make a good politician" and calling him "extremely polished," Newsweek has published a glowing puff piece on NOM's Brian Brown which opens with a description of the hate mail Brown says he's received.

Brian Brown’s hate mail is divided into two categories: messages that go straight to the police and those he dumps into a growing computer file labeled OPPOSITION. One riled caller threatened to hang him from a tree “and burn you while your children watch”; someone else sent an e-mail offering to “donate” a pipe bomb to his office. The majority, however, simply vent frustration at Brown, who has emerged as the nation’s fiercest crusader against gay marriage. A big reason for their frustration is that Brown is succeeding.

The piece goes on to note NOM's burgeoning coffers.

Using direct-mail campaigns, donor outreach, and bus tours around the country, he spreads NOM’s message that preserving “traditional marriage” is necessary to protect families and ensure religious freedom. “We believe the marriage issue is the last frontier in the fight,” he says. “We have to hold the line there.” Although NOM operates with a skeleton staff, its budget has ballooned from $500,000 in 2007, when Brown cofounded the group, to more than $13 million today. With that war chest, it was able to pour some $5 million into 100 races in the recent elections.

The article also notes that Brown is a former Quaker, but is now a converted Catholic who is home schooling his six children. His wife is currently pregnant with their seventh child.

Newsweek Sells For $1

The Washington Post has sold Newsweek to electronics billionaire Sidney Harman for $1 in return for his pledge to assume the struggling title's liabilities and retain most of its staff.

Newsweek has struggled through the recession more than most weekly news magazines, losing nearly $30 million last year alone. It was earning that much a year as recently as 2007. And the longer it remained on the market, the less tenable its financial situation became. It has been an expensive product for the Post Company to produce, with its various international editions and separate back-office positions that were specific to the magazine. Instead of sharing a general counsel and accounting staff with the Post Company, for example, Newsweek has its own employees in those positions. The magazine’s top editors and managers redesigned it last year in hopes of attracting more readers and advertisers. But the updated magazine, which contained more commentary and analysis on the news of the week, failed to catch on.

Harman, who is 91, is married to Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA).

Sean Hayes Addresses Newsweek Article Claiming He Can't Play Straight

HomoQuotable - Alan Cumming

"It is my contention that Ramin Seetodeh is not happy with himself. He has particular shame about being gay. He sees gayness, particularly open and unabashed gayness, or effeminacy, as a reminder of what he does not like about himself. And so he attacks it. His own shame translates into his paralysis when thinking of others who might have his own curse and yet be able to function fully and happily within the rest of the world: a child chasing his friends around a playground in high heels; an actor who he knows is publicly gay but feels he needs to re-out to make himself feel better about his own self-loathing and lack of acceptance of his most basic needs and happiness. As someone who is a only a decade or so immigrant to these shores, I have noticed that shame is one of America's biggest exports, imbibed more domestically than overseas, and Mr Seetodeh could easily manage its Gay division." - Alan Cumming, responding to the continuing controversy over Newsweek's "gays can't play straight" article.

GLAAD Demands Apology From Newsweek Over "Gay Actors Can't Play Straight" Flap

GLAAD is asking the editors of Newsweek for an apology after running a column by openly gay writer Ramin Setoodeh in which he claimed that gay actors cannot convincingly play straight characters. The creator of the hit Fox show Glee has also called for a boycott of Newsweek.

"An actor's personal life should not be a factor in their believability in a role," said Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "That would be tantamount to audiences not buying Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl as lovers in their upcoming film 'Killers' because the two are happily married to different people in real life." GLAAD spokesman Rich Ferraro said the magazine has not offered the apology sought by the group, but that the topic was discussed with Barrios and Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Milk," during a Q&A with Newsweek on Wednesday. He said he believed that discussion would be published in the next issue.

Some Hollywood stars blasted the magazine and writer Ramin Setoodeh for an April 26 story that said it was OK for straight actors to play gay roles, but "it's rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse." In the story, Setoodeh criticized Sean Hayes' latest leading-man performance on Broadway, writing that the openly gay actor "comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is." Ryan Murphy, creator of the hit Fox series "Glee," called for a boycott of the magazine until it apologizes to its gay readers, Hayes and "and other brave out actors who were cruelly singled out in this damaging, needlessly cruel and mind-blowingly bigoted piece."

Numerous openly gay actors and their supporters have publicly blasted Newsweek and Setoodeh since the story was published.

Joy Behar Takes On Author Of "Gays Can't Play Straight" Newsweek Article

With Dan Savage, Amanda Bearse, and the author himself.

Friendly Voices - Kristin Chenoweth

"As someone who’s been proudly advocating for equal rights and supporting GLBT causes for as long as I can remember, I know how much it means to young people struggling with their sexuality to see out & proud actors like Sean Hayes, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Cynthia Nixon succeeding in their work without having to keep their sexuality a secret.

"No one needs to see a bigoted, factually inaccurate article that tells people who deviate from heterosexual norms that they can’t be open about who they are and still achieve their dreams. I am told on good authority that Mr. Setoodeh is a gay man himself and I would hope, as the author of this article, he would at least understand that. I encourage Newsweek to embrace stories which promote acceptance, love, unity and singing and dancing for all!" - Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth, responding to Ramin Setoodah's Newsweek article titled Straight Jacket, in which he claims that gay actors cannot convincingly play straight roles.

Chenoweth is currently starring in Broadway's Promises, Promises opposite Sean Hayes, whom Setoodah describes as "the pink elephant in the room."