By Gary Barlow

The girl can’t help it

Fort Lauderdale these days is like a movie in which the main character keeps stubbornly going down a path so stupid that you just want to throw stuff at the screen to try to get him to stop.

The Florida city’s tourism board is almost at the point of throwing heavy objects at the city’s mayor, Jim Naugle, who won’t stop talking about gays having sex in public bathrooms, even though the police and everybody else there say there’s nothing to back up those remarks.

Last week the tourism officials begged Naugle to shut up, citing fears that his self-described “crusade” against gays is hurting Fort Lauderdale’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry.

Sorry, but no way, said the mayor.

“One of the things my dad taught me is…it’s about doing what’s right,” Naugle told the board.

In the last three months, Naugle has raved on numerous occasions about gay sex in bathrooms, called gays “unhappy,” said gays are spreading AIDS in Fort Lauderdale and complained that the local gay library is pornographic.

Thank God nobody’s told him about how gays are behind global warming and higher gas prices.

Mr. Russian President 2007

Maybe Fort Lauderdale’s mayor should take a hint from a more successful politician about giving the people what they really want—a little skin.

That’s what Russian President Vladimir Putin did recently, stripping off his shirt for reporters and photographers to show off his very muscular physique.

“Be Like Putin,” screamed the headline in Pravda Aug. 22 as it ran front-page pics of the half-naked 54-year-old Russian leader. The pics showed Putin in Siberia on vacation with Prince Albert of Monaco and set chatrooms and websites abuzz in Russia. There was also a shirtless photo of the prince, who’s evidently not been spending as much time in the gym as Putin. Nevertheless, one website compared the vacation to “Brokeback Mountain,” which may be stretching things a bit.

Anyway, who knows—Putin is scheduled to step down as president next year, so maybe he’s looking for a new career as a model or, um, you know, actor. “President Daddy,” maybe? “War and Piece?”

The pink dollar sweepstakes

Speaking of politicians, the Washington Blade last week took a look at where the big gay money’s going in this year’s presidential campaign and the trend toward Hillary Clinton is overwhelming.

In fact, of the leading big-time gay and lesbian donors identified by the Blade, half are backing Clinton and have given her almost five times as much cash as Barack Obama’s major gay and lesbian donors have coughed up.

Breaking it down further, the Blade found that Clinton’s raised $6,300 from members of the Human Rights Campaign’s board, compared to $4,850 for John Edwards and just $1,000 for Obama. Former HRC leader Elizabeth Birch and her partner, Hilary Rosen, have given Clinton almost $10,000 and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s C. Dixon Osburn has also chipped in, giving Clinton $2,300. And every donation from a board member of National Stonewall Democrats has gone to Clinton.

On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani’s the top pick of gay donors, raising twice as much as John McCain but still trailing Clinton by a long, long ways.

re-defining tradition

A Pennsylvania history professor has uncovered evidence from medieval Europe that should send the “traditional marriage” crowd into a tizzy.

Professor Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University said he’s found legal contracts and papers dating back 600 years in France that amount to partnership contracts between men who lived together. The contracts were called “affrerements,” roughly translated as “brotherments,” and gave the men joint custody over each other’s assets.

Furthermore, the contracts were sworn before a notary and witnesses and contained provisions that the two men would share “un pain, un vin, et une bourse,” (one bread, one wine and one purse). Tulchin said he’s found similar contracts all around Mediterranean Europe.

“Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize,” Tulchin wrote in the September issue of the Journal of Modern History.

So I guess this means that all the people who rave on about wanting to support “traditional marriage” should now be on our side, right? Unless, of course, they’re motivated by some other tradition, that is…