The accused killer of Edgard Mercado told a Manhattan jury that the 39-year-old gay man wanted to be strangled with a rope during sex and that the death was accidental. Comment

Testifying for the prosecution in the murder trial of Davawn Robinson, a forensic pathologist from the city medical examiner’s office told a Manhattan jury that the injuries on Edgard Mercado’s body showed he had been in a fight. Comment

In the run-up to the Russian parliamentary elections held this past weekend –– in which the country’s authoritarian strongman, Vladimir Putin, and his United Russia Party suffered large losses –– the Putin forces made crass appeals to homophobia by introducing a spate of anti-gay legislation to outlaw almost any expression of pro-homosexual sentiment. Comment

Out French filmmaker Céline Sciamma scored a hit in 2007 with her drama “Water Lilies” about female teenagers exploring their sexuality. Sciamma explores a different aspect of young female sexuality in her new film, “Tomboy,” a character study of a ten-year-old girl who spends a lot of time passing as a boy. Comment

In the mid-1970s I lived in San Francisco and worked in a restaurant in Marin County, across the Golden Gate Bridge, 14 miles from the city. I rode the bus. Sometimes, when I worked late and the buses had stopped running, I caught a ride to the freeway and hitchhiked from there. Comment

BY TRAV S.D. / Happy New Year! Notice the difference? Okay, there isn’t any — but that doesn’t mean we can’t all take a minute to breathe, get our bearings and collect ourselves before jumping back into the rat race. A little rest and recreation! While it’s too freezing to play Frisbee in the park, might I suggest what’s in a few Downtown theatres? Comment

John Medeiros, a Minneapolis writer who curates an LGBT reading series there, has written a letter on behalf of Minnesota’s lesbian and gay community to an anti-gay state senator apologizing for ruining her marriage. Comment

Roughly four dozen LGBT activists and allies turned out on November 19 to protest at Uganda House –– that nation’s permanent mission to the United Nations on Manhattan’s East 45th Street –– voicing their outrage about a draconian proposal to criminalize the promotion of same-sex conduct and impose the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality.” Comment

The coming out and coming-of age story gets a welcome new voice in Dee Rees’ very fine feature “Pariah,” based on her 2007 film short of the same name. Comment

“Pariah,” Dee Rees’ new film that chronicles the coming out and coming of age of a butch teenage lesbian, Alike, in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene, had a sneak preview for an LGBT audience at the BAM Rose Cinema on Deccember 21. Comment

Newt Gingrich, no stranger to anti-gay politics, has suddenly re-engaged in the war on marriage equality. Comment

Getting Ugly With Lysol Comment

In a move unprecedented in the 66 years since the United Nations was founded, the world body issued a human rights report on the conditions facing LGBT people around the globe. Comment

Brooklynites Matt Katz and Aaron Lafrenz got married at Borough Hall on July 24, the first day they could legally do so in New York State. On December 8, they received a letter on White House stationary in which President Barack Obama extended his congratulations on behalf of Michelle and himself. Comment

John Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, often comes across as the most reasonable one in the room during Republican presidential debates. A supporter of civil unions, his low poll numbers are typically attributed to his relatively moderate posture in facing a conservative GOP primary electorate and his less-than-electrifying personal style. Comment

We are entering a new presidential election year, and the mood in the country is sour. Among progressives, it has over and over been repeated that we are disappointed. Comment

All I want for Christmas is for our presidential candidates to be struck dumb for a week or two, maybe even through the Republican primary votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Imagine Newt and Mitt, Ron and Michele, their mouths opening and closing like fish. Getting all red-faced and frustrated when nothing comes out. And while I’m at it, let’s silence the pundits, too. And the screeching partisans indulging in bitterness and fury, sneering and hate. Comment

GIFT HORSE IN A GLASS HALF FULL Comment

AN OVERLY HARSH ASSESMENT Comment

“I’m not an expatriate,” Benjamin Anderson insisted as he and his husband-to-be, Mattia Lumaca, waited in the Manhattan City Clerk’s Office December 7 for an officiant to perform their wedding ceremony. “I’m 100-percent American. I am a patriot. I love my country and I love my husband, and I don’t want to give up either.” Comment