Out in the 562

OK breeder ladies - If you're thinking about wearing your best penis-ballon hat and shrieking at the gay boys during a bachelorette party at The Abbey Food & Bar in West Hollywood, think again.

Those days are history.

On Thursday, The Abbey issued a press release saying it is banning all bachelorette parties effective immediately.

The release says the "offensive heterosexual tradition flaunts marriage inequality in the face of gays and lesbians."

"Every Friday and Saturday night, we're flooded with requests from straight girls in penis hats who want to ogle our gogos, dance with the gays and celebrate their pending nuptials. They are completely unaware that the people around them are legally prohibited from getting married," Abbey founder David Cooley said in the statement.

"Over the past 22 years, The Abbey has been a place that accepts everyone, gay, straight, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and everything in between," he said. "We love our straight girlfriends and they are welcome here, just not for bachelorette parties."

The Abbey's bachelorette party ban comes on the heels of a gay marriage ban in North Carolina.

The Abbey encourages other gay-owned and operated establishments to institute their own bans as a sign of solidarity until Marriage is legal everywhere for everyone, the release says.

(The Abbey Food & Bar founder David Cooley, pouring a drink in April at the White Party in Palm Springs, just instituted a ban on bachelorette parties. Photo by Rolling-Blackouts)

MADRID -- A same-sex aquatic bird couple in Spain is adopting an egg to nurture.

The happy couple is Inca and Rayas, a pair of Gentoo penguins at Madrid's Faunia Park Zoo who have suffered from repeated heartache for a long time according to zookeeper Yolanda Martin, LGBTQNation reports.

The pair had carefully built and lovingly looked after six nests, but those nests remained empty.

Inca and Rayas watched the other penguin couples welcome their little chicks into the world, and finally, after zookeepers took pity on them and gave them an egg to raise. The presumed gay birds appear delighted to finally have the chance to enjoy "parenthood," Martin said.

(Inca sitting on his egg while Rayas keeps watch. Photo courtesy of Faunia Park Zoo.)

Adam Lambert trespassed into uncharted territory.

The 31-year-old singer-songwriter's "Trespassing" CD debuted this week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and made history - Lambert is the first openly LGBT vocalist to a have an album debut at No. 1 on that chart.

The disc sold 77,000 copies, Entertainment Weekly reports.

Clay Aiken topped that chart in 2003 with "Measure of a Man" selling 613,000 copies, but he didn't come out until 2008. Elton John and George Michael also charted albums atop the chart, but they, too, were still in the closet.

Lambert's "Trespassing" also dethroned "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood.

While Lambert's No.1 disc is a major achievement, his debut, "For Your Entertainment," sold 198,000 in its first week in November 2009.

"Trespassing" was released May 15 and is a collection of dance songs and ballads, including the equality anthem "Outlaws of Love."

In other Lambert news, the pop singer will play a concert in Costa Mesa at the Orange County Fair on July 19. Tickets are on sale.

(Adam Lambert performs onstage at 103.5 KTU's KTUphoria at PNC Bank Arts Center on May 20, 2012 in Holmdel City, New Jersey. Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images)

The war of words between Melissa Etheridge, a former Long Beach resident, and former wife Tammy Lynn Michaels might be over.

The former couple, who were together nine years and split in 2010, reportedly reached a financial and custody agreement, TMZ reports.

The women will share custody of 5-year-old twins - daughter Johnnie Roe and son Miller Steven - and Michaels will receive an unspecified partner and child support increase. She was receiving $23,000 per month, according to court records.

In separate court filings last month, Michaels, 37, claimed Etheridge, 50, taught their twins to treat her poorly, while the musician alleged Michaels is an "angry and vindictive" woman.





(Melissa Etheridge, left, and ex-girlfriend, Tammy Lynn Michaels, arrive at a June 26, 2007, film screening in Beverly Hills. Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

By Matt Moore
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA - Wedding bells will ring this summer for Marvel Comics' first openly gay hero, super speedster Northstar, and his longtime boyfriend.

The New York-based publisher said Tuesday that Canadian character Jean-Paul Beaubier will marry his beau, Kyle Jinadu, in the pages of "Astonishing X-Men" No. 51. That's due out June 20.

Northstar revealed he was gay in the pages of "Alpha Flight" No. 106 in 1992, one of Marvel Entertainment's first gay characters.

Ten years later, in 2002, gay characters Apollo and the Midnighter were married in the pages of "The Authority" published by DC's Wildstorm imprint.

Since then, numerous comic book heroes and villains have been written as gay, lesbian or transgender from DC Comics' Kate Kane, aka Batwoman, to Hulkling and Wiccan in the pages of "Young Avengers."

Comics, as a medium, have embraced gay, lesbian and transgender characters, including the introduction of Kevin Keller by Archie Comics. Comic strips have done likewise.

This month, cartoonist Tom Batiuk is writing about a gay couple trying to attend their high school prom in "Funky Winkerbean," a move that has divided the fictional community.

"As I sit in on the classes at my old high school, I see how the younger generation's attitude toward gays is more open and accepting than that of their predecessors," Batiuk said.

(In this image of the cover to "Astonishing X-Men" #51, Northstar, aka Jean-Paul Beaubier, marrys his beau, Kyle Jinadu. The issue will arrive June 20.)

(Stuart Milk, nephew of slain gay rights icon Harvey Milk, speaks at the ground breaking of the Harvey Milk Promenade Park. It's located at Third Street and The Promenade and scheduled to open January 2013. Councilman Robert Garcia, who spearheaded the effort to name the park after Milk, is also pictured. Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)



LONG BEACH - Local LGBT leaders broke ground Tuesday morning on the nation's first park named after slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

The Harvey Milk Promenade Park, located at Third Street and The Promenade, sits on an undeveloped silver of land - one-fifth of an acre - in the shadow of the an enclosed parking lot and a 40-foot Works Progress Administration beach mural.

(Yes. You read right. It's a one-fifth of an acre. That's a tiny park. One might say it's only a bit bigger than a closet.)

Tuesday would have been Milk's 82nd birthday, and his nephew, Stuart Milk, attended the ceremony.

Robert Garcia, one of Long Beach's two openly gay City Council members, spearheaded naming the park after Milk. Some local gay leaders, most notably Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske, however, wanted the park named after a local LGBT person.

The park will include Equality Plaza - a tiny area honoring local LGBT leaders - but Garcia said Milk deserved the honor because he has been the nation's most visible proponent of gay rights.

"To us, in many ways, he's our Rosa Parks. He's our cesar Chavez," Garcia said in 2011.

The Long Beach Gay Pride Parade started with a roar Sunday morning.

Dozens of lesbian motorcyclists - including members of clubs Dykes on Bikes, the L Riders and Chrome Divas - led the pack of parade entries west along Ocean Boulevard in the 29th annual event.

Dawn Robonza, 55, of Long Beach, said she's been riding in the event for 15 years and loves showing her pride.

"Closets are for clothes. This parade brings the community together," said Robonza, a retired Army 1 st sergeant. "The parade also gives us a chance to show off our motorcycles."

Thousands of spectators lined Ocean between Lindero Avenue and Alamitos Avenue and cheered and celebrated the more than 100 entries.

The onlookers were as diverse as the colors of the rainbow. The crowds included families and individuals of all shapes, sizes, ages, ethnicities and sexual orientations.

Even four-legged friends of the gay community showed their pride. Numerous dogs wore rainbow-colored collars or scarves around their necks.

Parade participants ranged from fun and flamboyant with elaborate decorations, costumes and go-go dancers - such as Club Ripples, the Frat House and Party Bus - to modest, such as Parents and Friends of Gays and Lesbians (PFLAG), whose members walked the route.

One of the PFLAG marchers carried a signing that read, "Proud Asian dad of a gay kid."

(Dancers with Flaggers United show their colors as they perform along the route of the 2012 Long Beach Gay Pride Parade. (Sean Hiller / Staff Photographer)

By Pamela Hale-Burns Staff Writer

Diversity seemed to be an understatement as people of all shapes, sizes, colors, ethnicities and sexual orientation attended the annual Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride Celebration on Saturday.

Attendees of the event along Shoreline Drive had lots more to celebrate this year with President Barack Obama's statement this month supporting same-sex marriage.

"I think it's going to make black America go, `Hey let's stop,' because that's where a lot of the discrimination starts," said Neia Smith, who is black and is a deacon at Unity Fellowship of Christ Church of Los Angeles, where 80 percent of the membership is homosexual. "Once we start to accept each other as a whole, it will be so much easier to accept people who are gay."

The president's support will help end the ostracism often felt in the gay community, Smith said.

"Who I sleep with in my bedroom doesn't make me any different," said Smith, who celebrated 10 years of marriage to her wife this year. "I pay taxes, I have children, I go to work, I run a business, I support my home. I do everything like everybody else."

(Sy Iverson and Ranjit Bahadur take a spin on the dancefloor at the Long Beach Pride Festival Saturday. Photo by Tracey Roman / For the Press-Telegram )

It only took Dr. Robert L. Spitzer 11 years to admit he was wrong.

Spitzer, who turns 80 next week and is considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry, published a paper in 2001 concluding gay people who sought reparative or "conversion therapy" were cured of homosexuality.

Spitzer's conclusion was so shocking because in 1973 he helped the American Psychiatric Association abolish labeling homosexuality as a "disorder."

In the 2001 study - which numerous colleagues said was flawed and morally wrong - Spitzer asked former "conversion therapy" patients during telephone interviews about their sexual urges, feelings and behaviors after the therapy. He compared the scores on his questionnaire before and after therapy. (Really? Yes. This method doesn't sound very scientific to us either. Ed. - Out in the 562)  

"The majority of participants gave reports of change from a predominantly or exclusively homosexual orientation before therapy to a predominantly or exclusively heterosexual orientation in the past year," Spitzer concluded.

Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride waves the rainbow flag proud, operating the city's second-biggest party on the downtown waterfront.

The annual Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride Celebration and Long Beach Pride Parade are the 29-year- old organization's main endeavor. Away from the party, Long Beach Pride still has a gay old time, hosting fundraisers and making donations to various local groups.

Here's a look at what Pride does the other 363 days of the year.

In 2011, the organization:

• Donated $54,439.50 to 45 local organizations that volunteered at the Pride festival. Some of those groups included the AIDS Food Store of Long Beach, Beacon House, Long Beach AIDS Foundation, Toastmasters International, Imperial Court of Long Beach, St. Mary's C.A.R.E. Program and Long Beach Wave Runners.

• Donated $41,615.24 in Grants to AIDS Services Foundation Long Beach, Alliance for Housing & Healing, The Gay & Lesbian Center of Long Beach, Break The Cycle, Strength for the Journey, Minority AIDS Project, Wells House and South Coast Chorale.

• Donated $8,000 in scholarships to three college students.

• Donated $3.647.69 and sponsored several events, including two riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the AIDS Life Cycle, the mayor's reception for Long Beach Pride at the Long Beach Museum of Art and the annual carnival at Willard Elementary School.

• Hosted its annual toy drive, which was started in 1994, and collected more than 2,000 toys. The toys were distributed to needy kids and their families.