It's come to my attention that the number of LGBT readers of this blog can likely be counted on one hand. (If I'm wrong, how about some comments, brothers and sisters?!) This being the case, I'm imagining that many of you dear readers do not visit the many excellent online gay news sites or receive many LGBT related news emails--though I certainly could be wrong. Therefore, sometime on Thursday or Friday of each week, I hope to share a few new stories and/or give a gay take on a more widely distributed story, hence TWiG Life: This Week in Gay Life.

So here goes...

London
The House of Lords has overwhelmingly rejected an effort to repeal gay rights legislation in the UK. Anti-discrimination legislation, prohibiting discrimination in housing, restaurants, hotels, the workplace, etc., is rolling out over the U.K. (Northern Ireland now, the rest of the U.K. in April) and conservative Christian members of the House of Lords were attempting to veto the legislation in a vote this week. The rollback effort was defeated 199 to 68.

I can't help but wonder what are the chances, even with the new congress, that national legislation will be proposed and pass that will at long last protect LGBT folk from workplace discrimination in the land of the free?

Pittsburgh
Details are coming to light, as noted in a new story by the Presbyterian News Service, about the tragic suicide of 60 year old Rev. Brent J. Dugan. Dugan had learned that he had been betrayed by a man with whom he had been in a multi-year romantic and sexual relationship and was facing the prospect of a local news program exposing him as gay and in violation of Presbyterian Polity, and though the story had been quashed over fears that Dugan might do harm to himself, those fears were realized when he took an intentional overdose of aspirin and alcohol late last year.

His congregation, Community Presbyterian Church in Ben Avon, is understandably shocked and in mourning. That our polity would force people into lives of secrecy, shame and fear over who they love should cause us all to hang our heads in shame. The note he left made it clear that Rev. Dugan went to his grave believing that his attraction to men and the fact that he fell in love with the wrong man made him unlovable, indeed, unworthy of life. He had to learn that somewhere. Care to guess where?

Maryland
The Montgomery County school board has approved a sex education curriculum that actually talks about gays and lesbians. The revised curriculum (needed when conservatives successfully convinced a Bush appointee Federal judge to block a prior curriculum because, in toto, it asserted "that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle," to the exclusion of other views.) A similar lawsuit is expected this time.

Here's my favorite quote, apparently inaccurate, from holier than me Ruth Jabobs, a member of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum..."Absolutely nothing is allowed to be said that is negative about homosexuality." Like what? The curriculum includes discussion of the risks of unprotected sex AND of drug use and sex in all contexts. So what else would she like taught in the public schools? That it's an abomination before the Lord? Sorry, no can do. That it's intrinsically evil? Sorry, read the First Amendment. What do they want? Other than ignorant children, I mean.

Hollywood
Iconic actress and drag queen/Halloween favorite Yvonne de Carlo died this week at the age of 84. Lily Munster may not have been her best role (check out her scenery chewing in "The Ten Commandments") but it was certainly her most famous. She will also forever be remembered by those of us of a theatre queen ilk as the original Carlotta in Sondheim's Follies, meaning she was the first to sing, "I'm Still Here." RIP classy dame. (Have you ever thought about the gay subtext in 'The Munsters'?...That might be worth a blog entry all by itself.)

Chicago
Sunday evening NotShyChiRev practiced flirting during "Showtune Sundays," a raucous well-vodka-lubricated 300 strong sing-a-long at a world famous local watering hole. And I must say, flirting is still fun. :-)