There’s a reason why same-sex couples end up spending an average of $12,300 more over the course of a lifetime in tax prep fees: it’s more complicated! To help guide gay couples through the murk and mire, NYT Bucks Blog has a comprehensive guide to pitfalls and considerations to keep in mind when filling out those forms. Gay rights may divide our country, but nobody likes doing taxes.
Tax Tips for Same-Sex Couples [NYT Bucks Blog]
A new ThinkB4YouSpeak school-focused ad campaign is out to stamp out the hurtful practice of referring to things as “gay” in a negative way.
An online miscreant named Weev is taking credit for this weekend’s fiasco where reams of GLBT books were removed from Amazon sales ranking, sparking a massive online riot. Weev, pictured, says he organized an army of off-shore computer users to make a bunch of fake Amazon accounts and flag all the gay and lesbian books they could as inappropriate. Also, he got several friends with high-trafficked websites to embed an iframe code that made their visitors automatically send the flags without their knowledge. If true, this recent post by a formerly profligate troller provides insight. However, no one can verify Wee’s claims as Amazon appears to have deactivated all the ways he used to ply his prank. It’s hard to trust a professional liar like Weev, even the idea’s plausibility doesn’t speak well for Amazon.
Teresa, the reader who was banned from XBOX Live for self-identifying as a lesbian, caused quite a stir on the internet. Joystiq managed to get a statement out of Microsoft regarding the issue. Microsoft says they do not allow expressions of sexuality of any kind in GamerTags or in profiles, and that they take harassment “very seriously.”
Teresa says that she was harassed by other players and later suspended from XBOX Live because she identified herself as a lesbian in her profile. When she appealed to Microsoft, she says they told her that other gamers found her sexual orientation “offensive.”
Reader Richard would like to use his full name as his gamer tag, but XBOX has decided that “Gaywood” is offensive. Here’s his letter:
Washington, D.C. is actually a pretty gay-friendly place—hell, even a few closeted types seem to find a way to make a living there. (Just a few.) But in early October a gay couple was thrown out of a Rite-Aid a few blocks away from the city’s traditional gay neighborhood for allegedly hugging each other in the store. According to them, while they were shopping, one of them hugged the other one from behind, and the store manager ran up and shouted, “Get out! Get out!” A few seconds later, the security guard told them they had to leave, although he said he didn’t know the reason why. The manager, Denny Getachew, won’t comment, and Rite Aid spokesperson told the local gay magazine, “We are looking into this matter, and we will take disciplinary action if need be.”
CHANELL: “And she asks me what is this? And I’m like, I don’t know what that thing does. So she gave it to me, and it was a homosexual orgy… that they had videotaped for an hour and 44 minutes.”
Chanell Martin bought her 12-year old daughter a Zune from Walmart, pre-loaded with gay porn.
In the latest round of cosmetic tweaks to make itself appear less evil, Walmart has affixed itself with a strap-on dildo and railed a few poppers… in the form of hiring a gay-marketing firm, joining the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and initiated talks with activist groups about giving domestic-partnership bennies to employees.
A customer complained to Macy’s about their removal of gay mannequins from Boston window displays in response to a campaign by an anti-gay religious group.
We’ve received a late-breaking report that a Wal-Mart in Englewood, CO is stocking Brokeback Mountain next to The Chronicles of Narnia and the Sesame Street learning series.
According to an anonymous source, Wal-Mart expects to get a large number of customer complaints about Brokeback Mountain, set to be released tomorrow.
The trunk humpers over at Treehugger have the scoop on Japan’s pastry-phobia and one intrepid patisserie’s response to it. Apparently, Japanese men feel that their manhood is called into question when publically eating flouncy, sugary cakes. The solution? Make the pastries look like fast food, including hamburgers and french fries.
Like most gay aerobic instructors/writers of musical theater, Joel Derfner doesn’t need any damn receipts for his batteries. Duane Reed, as it turns out, doesn’t need want his pink slips in return.
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