EDGE Philadelphia

The elections, same-sex marriage and sex scandals involving prominent conservatives were among the top GLBT news stories of the year.

Who better than gay professionals in the nation’s news media to decide the year’s best stories, so CBS News surveyed members of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Here’s what we picked:


1. Mid-Term Elections

GLBT advocates were almost giddy over how voters spoke on Nov. 7. The results were better than even their fondest hopes. It was expected that Democrats would win control of the U.S. House, but when they also took over the Senate, you could practically hear GLBTs throughout the nation cheering.

At last there may be progress on legislation affecting members of the community that has languished in Congress for the last 12 years of Republican dominance. Gay rights activists are hopeful that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act will pass. The chances also are good that Congress will at least consider a bill to repeal of the ban on gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving openly in the military. Support to do away with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is growing among the public and lawmakers in both parties as the Pentagon finds it increasingly difficult to recruit enough men and women to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether President Bush would sign the measures if they reach his desk is the big question. Don’t look for any action right away. The Dems have other priorities, like what to do about the Iraq War, raising the minimum wage, and fixing the donut hole in the Medicare prescription drug plan.

2. Same-Sex Marriage

Massachusetts remains the only state where equal marriage is legal, but progress was made elsewhere. Ordered by the New Jersey Supreme Court to address inequalities, the state Legislature passed legislation creating civil unions in December and the governor signed it into law just last week. When the law goes into effect Feb. 19, the state will become the third, along with Vermont and Connecticut, offering civil unions to gay couples and the fifth allowing them some version of legal recognition.

The battle for equal marriage in Massachusetts isn’t quite over. Anti-marriage groups are still fighting to get an amendment on the 2008 ballot that, if passed, would end the right to marry. The state Legislature must okay any proposed voter initiatives to amend the constitution and thus far it hasn’t voted the measure up or down. Outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential Republican candidate for president in 2008, had asked the state Supreme Court to force a vote when the Legislature reconvenes Jan. 2, but in a decision announced Dec. 27, it refused to do so.

On Election Day, voters in seven states passed measures defining marriage as between a man and a woman, but GLBT activists celebrated one victory: Arizona voters rejected discrimination against same-sex couples.

3. Congressman Mark Foley

How ironic: Weeks before the mid-terms, the Florida Republican known as a crusader against child pornography got caught sending lascivious instant messages and e-mails to male Congressional pages. He abruptly resigned, then came out, went into rehab for alcohol problems, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Pundits believe the scandal caused conservatives to stay home in droves on Election Day, helping the Democrats to win Congress.

4. Reverend Ted Haggard

Hypocrisy personified: A prominent evangelist who preached against homosexuality and headed an organization of thousands of fundamentalist Christians was outed by a male hustler not long after the news cycle had finished with l’Affair Foley. Haggard also admitted to buying crystal meth, but says he never used it. Sounds like a former president who said he had smoked marijuana as a young man, but didn’t inhale. Coupled with the Foley problem, it was a one-two punch to conservatives.

5. 25th Anniversary of AIDS

A quarter century after the first cases were reported among American gay men, the pandemic continues to kill millions. Since 1981, HIV infections have grown unchecked, devastating parts of Africa and Asia and placing non-gays throughout the world at risk. Thanks to progress in drug therapy, testing positive for HIV is no longer a death sentence. Believing it’s no big deal, some younger gay men practice unsafe sex, not realizing that living with HIV/AIDS is no walk in the park.

6. Gay Year at the Oscars

Gay-themed movies won a slew of Academy Award nominations in what was deemed a record year. "Brokeback Mountain" won Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Score and Best Screenplay based on adapted material, but although it was the odds-on favorite for Best Picture lost to "Crash," a surprise that had GLBT movie fans disappointed for weeks. Philip Seymour Hoffmann received the Best Actor award for playing the flamboyantly gay writer in "Capote."


7. Gay Entertainers in the News:

Lance Bass Comes Out

The former member of the boy band ’N Sync came out in People magazine after he and boyfriend Reichen Lehmkuhl, a former Air Force captain and winner of the CBS reality show Amazing Race, were spotted at the A House, a Provincetown gay bar. Apparently not the marrying kind, the couple split in December, according to People’s web site.

Rosie Joins the View

The loudmouthed lesbian replaced Meredith Vieira on the women’s TV talk show and began offending celebrities like Kelly Ripa and the Donald. He wasn’t amused.

Boy George Sentenced to Cleanup Duty

Former lead singer with the Culture Club, a hot group in the 1980s, George O’Dowd became a gay pop icon, but battled a drug habit as he slid into obscurity. In October 2005 he was arrested for alleged cocaine possession in Manhattan. In June, when O’Dowd failed to appear in court, a judge issued an arrest warrant. Ultimately, Boy George was fined $1,000 and ordered to perform community service picking up trash for the New York City Sanitation Department, prompting jokes about picking up another kind of trash. After the media circus that resulted when he reported for duty, he was allowed to finish his sentence inside the Sanitation Department grounds.

George Michael

The openly gay singer continued to be tabloid fodder in 2006. Arrested three times for drug possession or DUI, he also exhibited questionable taste in men after he was caught emerging from the bushes of what one newspaper called "London’s notorious homosexual haunt" Hampstead Heath with an older, pot-bellied and jobless van driver.

8. Tourists Attacked in St. Maarten

Four French nationals were convicted and sentenced to up to six years in prison for beating two gay American tourists on the Dutch Caribbean island in a brutal attack that left one of the victims with brain damage.

9. Soulforce Protests Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

In what organizers dubbed Right to Serve, the Virginia-based gay rights group conducted a campaign to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military by staging protests around the nation. Their tactics included visiting recruiting offices and trying to enlist.

10. Gay Games/Out Games

GLBT athletes had to make a choice last summer when two competing organizations hosted international events within days of each other. Gay Games VII was in Chicago and World Outgames I took place in Montreal.