Doyle Budget Includes Domestic Partner Benefits, Increased AIDS Service Funding
Historic 40% Increase In HIV/AIDS Services Funding Proposed
Madison -  Governor Jim Doyle has proposed offering group health insurance benefits to domestic partners of all state employees as part of his state budget proposal formally made to lawmakers February 13. The benefit package is broader than his 2005 proposal to offer domestic partner coverage to University of Wisconsin employees, later rejected by the then Republican-controlled legislature. . Democrats now control the Senate and the Republican majority in the Assembly has been narrowed.
  Doyle said in a February 9 press statement that such benefits have become commonplace in other states as well as for many of Wisconsin’s largest private employers. “They do it because it helps them recruit and retain employees who will add value to their businesses,” he said. “Including this benefit will help ensure that state government agencies and the University of Wisconsin System can continue to attract the best and brightest into public service.”
  The state’s only openly-gay Assembly member Mark Pocan (D-Madison) praised Doyle’s move. “I think it’s great that the governor is recognizing the state needs to be as competitive as private businesses in attracting and retaining the very best employees,” Pocan said. “And this is one of the best ways to show you appreciate an employee’s work.”
  As could be expected Republicans were opposed to the benefits expansion. Bob Delaporte, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch (R-West Salem) claimed the domestic partner proposal is was proof that the governor is “heading in completely the wrong direction.” Delaporte tied Doyle’s reported plan to increase taxes on hospitals in an attempt to get more federal Medicaid funding to the GOP response. “Assembly Republicans will not support the governor’s policies that drive up the cost of health care for everyone in Wisconsin,” Huebsch’s spokesman said. “By taxing the sick and forcing taxpayers to pick up the medical costs for the boyfriends and girlfriends of state employees, affordable health care will soon be out of reach for anyone in Wisconsin that isn’t getting their health care paid for by the government.”
  Megan Sapnar, a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking domestic partner benefits for state of Wisconsin employees, told the Associated Press that being able to cover her partner under the state’s health insurance program would make a tremendous difference in their lives. “We absolutely need these benefits,” Sapnar said.
  According to Sapnar, her partner currently pays roughly $2,000 a year for benefits that her colleagues can get for their spouses free of charge. “It doesn’t feel like the university is supporting all of our graduate students and staff and faculty equally,” she told the Capital Times.
 According to the ACLU’s Paul Cates, the lawsuit is on hold while the state Supreme Court decides whether to hear an appeal by state legislators who want to intervene in the lawsuit.
  The same day as Doyle’s budget message Fair Wisconsin announced that it had updated its list of public and private sector employees offering domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples.
  “Our report demonstrates that offering domestic partner benefits is a mainstream business practice,” Interim Executive Director Joshua Freker said. “Whether it’s Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, Edward Kraemer & Sons, Inc. in Plain, or Kimberly-Clark in Neenah, Wisconsin companies from diverse sectors understand there’s nothing controversial about trying to attract and retain the most talented and innovative workforce.”
  The Fair Wisconsin report listed 130 employers with a presence in Wisconsin offering domestic partner benefits. According to a similar study done by the Human Rights Campaign, over 9,000 employers including 265 of the Fortune 500 companies offer such benefits.
  Longtime Madison activist, UW employee and former Action Wisconsin president Dan Ross first began gathering benefit data in 1999 as a personal initiative. Though it has been unchanged for years, Ross’ richly detailed Domestic Partner Benefits in Wisconsin and the Midwest remains one of the most visited gay websites in Wisconsin, according to Alexa web tracking. Like Ross, Fair Wisconsin updated that list with information from employees, company human resource representatives, and from descriptions of company benefit programs in job listings and on corporate websites.
  On February 13 Fair Wisconsin also sent out an email to its list of over 50,000 marriage ban foes urging support for the governor’s domestic partner benefit proposal, directing recipients to the group’s link on the national Equality Federation grassroots support project. There activists can generate emails to the elected legislators in their voting districts. In addition to an equality with the private sector argument, the standardized message sent to lawmakers - which can be altered by the sender - argues that “a state employee who married his wife last week can share his health insurance with her, yet a gay couple together for over 30 years cannot.”
  Doyle’s budget message also included a significant increase in funding for HIV/AIDS. As part of his “Growing Milwaukee” series of initiatives, Doyle included a $1 million AIDS initiative that was developed by ARCW to support the agency’s Medical Center and increase its capacity to provide health care for all HIV patients regardless of their ability to pay.  If passed, the AIDS initiative would increase the historic AIDS Life Care Services grant from $2.5 million to $3.5 million, a 40% increase in the annual grant that supports health and social service programs for all AIDS service organizations throughout the state. The Doyle proposal would be the largest
increase ever made during the 18 year history of the grant. Need for the increase funding became apparent with the stunning 9% increase in new HIV infections diagnosed in 2006, also announced the same day as Doyle’s budget message.

New Wisconsin HIV Cases Rose 9% In 2006
Madison - More Wisconsinites are getting the AIDS virus. The February 13 announcement by the state’s Department of Health and Family Services  said there were 408 new HIV cases last year, a 9% increase from 2005. More than half the new cases were in southeast Wisconsin, with over 200 in Milwaukee County alone. 
  Almost half the state’s new cases involve minorities. The new state report shows 49% of new HIV cases occurred among minorities, primarily African-Americans and Latinos.
  A significant portion of the new cases also occurred in people under the age of 25. The state report showed 11% of the 2005 cases in Wisconsin were diagnosed in adults between the ages of 20-24. That figure may underreport the number of young adults being infected during those four years. The largest age demographic for new diagnoses - 71% of all cases - begins at age 25.
  A recent report in the Madison blog Dane 101 noted that the city’s AIDS Network had “enrolled several HIV+ gay/bisexual men under the age of 25 within a short time period.” The blog also reported that many of the men had coinfections with other STD’s besides HIV, significant because individuals who are infected with STDs are at least two to five times more likely than uninfected individuals to acquire HIV if they are exposed to the virus through sexual contact. “In addition, if an HIV-infected individual is also infected with another STD,” Dane 101’s Shane Wealti wrote, “that person is more likely to transmit HIV through sexual contact than other HIV-infected persons.”
  More than 9,500 HIV cases have been recorded in the Badger State since the DHFS first began tracking cases of the disease in 1983. In Wisconsin, the total number of HIV/AIDS cases has levelled off since peaking in the early 90’s. However, two out of three HIV cases have thus far progressed to an AIDS diagnosis, which signifies significant compromise of the body’s immune system. Of the total AIDS cases, nearly three-fourths reportedly were infected through male-to-male sex.
  11% of AIDS diagnoses involved transmission through intravenous drug use, a figure much lower than the national average. Wisconsin is only one of two states nationally with comprehensive needle exchange programs.

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Anglican World Summit: Snub But No Schism
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania - As leaders of the world’s 77 million Anglicans gathered here amid fears of a split in the church over divergent views on gay bishops and same-sex unions, a spokesman said the opening day of discussions was characterized by “intense listening.” A day later, a public snub of the top U. S. prelate reminded the leaders just how deep the wounds in the church body are over gay issues.
  “There has been no talk of schism in the meeting at all,” said Australian Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, who briefed reporters after the closed-door sessions on February 15.
  Aspinall had told reporters that  the leaders spent much of the first day of the six day conference discussing the church’s troubled American wing, the Episcopal Church, whose presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is under pressure to reconsider her support for ordaining gays and blessing same-sex couples. Jefferts Schori, the first woman chosen to head the U.S. church, is attending the meeting, as are leaders of the communion’s 37 other national or regional churches.
  Despite the claims of  dialogue, seven African archbishops a day later publicly snubbed Schori by refusing to take communion with her. Seven conservative Anglican leaders refused  to take Communion with the head of the U.S. branch of the church, who supports ordaining gays and blessing same-sex unions, as the fellowship struggles to avert a split.
  “We are unable to come to the Holy Table with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church because to do so would be a violation of scriptural teaching and the traditional Anglican understanding,” the archbishops said in a posting on the Church of Nigeria website.
  The primates, or Anglican leaders, belong to a group known as the Global South - theologically conservative bishops from Africa and elsewhere who have joined forces to expand their influence within the communion and counter liberal-leaning Anglicans.
  “This deliberate action is a poignant reminder of the brokenness of the Anglican Communion,” according to the statement from the group.
  Schori is not the first Episcopal leader with whom conservative archbishops have refused to share Communion. At a 2005 summit in Northern Ireland, more than a dozen archbishops would not attend daily Eucharist with then-Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.
  Divisions among liberal and traditional church members in the United States and abroad have been growing for years, but a crisis point was reached in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Jefferts Schori’s selection last year to lead the U.S. church has further exacerbated the tensions with conservative Anglicans who are opposed to women serving as priests.
  But in a report to the conference here, a committee of senior Anglicans, including the church’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, said the U.S. church recently had taken some key steps to address concerns about the contentious issues it faces. The committee has been monitoring the U.S. response to a 2004 Anglican commission report, which called for a moratorium by the Americans on consecrating gay bishops and blessing same-sex unions.
  The panel found that the Episcopal Church was taking the commission’s recommendations “extremely seriously” and had complied with its requests for a moratorium on consecrating gay bishops. It also said the U.S. church had responded adequately to a request that it express regret over the strained relations with other Anglicans after Robinson’s elevation.
  But the panel said it was not clear whether the U.S. church had complied with a request that priests refrain from blessing same-sex unions, saying the widely varying practices within the church mean the question “needs to be addressed urgently” by Episcopal leaders.
  A spokeswoman at the Manhattan headquarters of the Episcopal Church called the tone of the report encouraging. “I think it’s very positive that they saw past some of the rhetoric and looked at what the church is doing,” the Rev. Jan Nunley said. “It’s clear that there’s still work that has to be done and conversations that need to continue, but it’s very encouraging that they’re dealing with us squarely.”
  However a statement by a group representing conservative Episcopalians criticized the report for minimizing or ignoring evidence that the church had not complied with the requests for change. The leaders meeting at a seaside resort here were scheduled to discuss the report more fully in their sessions over the weekend.

New Jersey Honors Out-Of-State Gay Marriages
Trenton - Gay couples who are married in Massachusetts, Canada or other places around the world where same-sex marriage is allowed  have all the rights of married people in New Jersey as of February 19.  Same sex couples married in Massachusetts, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa and Spain will be recognized as civil union partners, as will couples who have entered into civil unions in Vermont and Connecticut. Domestic partners in California - where domestic partnership works much like a New Jersey civil union - will be considered as civil unions, not marriages.
  Civil unions, which also became available in New Jersey that date, grant all the benefits of marriage, but not the title. The state Attorney General’s Office announced its decision the Friday before the ruling took effect.
  Attorney General Stuart Rabner’s decision was included in his opinion for the state Department of Health and Senior Services, which is responsible for registering civil unions. “In the nick of time before next week, the attorney general has given peace of mind to a lot of families,” David S. Buckel, the director of the Marriage Law Project for Lambda Legal told the Associated Press February 16
  Other gay rights activists noted that not recognizing marriages from elsewhere is unfair and possibly discriminatory. “New Jersey should not be in the business of stripping individuals and couples of rights they already lawfully obtained,” Ed Barocas, the legal director of the New Jersey American Civil Liberties Union said.
  Couples who have domestic partnerships with lesser obligations and benefits than marriage, such as those in Maine and Washington, D.C., are now considered domestic partners in New Jersey, where they are offered only a handful of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.
  Steven Goldstein, the executive director of Garden State Equality, said he expected that litigation would be filed over the issue.

$75.8 Million Increase in Ryan White Passes Congress
Washington, DC -  The United States Senate has passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2007 that included an increase of $75.8 million to Title II of the Ryan White CARE Act.  The House of Representatives had passed the same continuing resolution on January 31.  The legislation went to the President for his signature February 15.
  “We applaud the Senate for approving this critically needed new funding for the Ryan White CARE Act,” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said.  “The CARE Act is nothing short of a lifeline for over half a million Americans with HIV/AIDS, and we are optimistic that this new funding is just the first of many efforts by the new Congressional leadership to adequately fund this vital program.  After six years of cuts and flat-funding, each title of the CARE Act must receive increases as the new Congress begins the 2008 appropriations cycle.”
  Last December, a carefully crafted compromise bill to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act was passed and signed into law by the president. The ability of the compromise bill to succeed was predicated upon an increase of $70 million to the Title II base of the program in fiscal year 2007.  The Human Rights Campaign actively lobbied for Congress to appropriate this funding in the 2007 continuing resolution.

Former NBA Superstar Amaechi’s Coming Out Saga Includes Book,
Spokesmodel Job And Plenty Of Controversy
London - He scored the first points in NBA basketball in the new millennium. And now 36 year old former NBA center John Amaechi has become the first in professional basketball and the the sixth male player in one of the four primary U.S. pro sports - which also include baseball, football, and hockey - to publicly come out of the closet as gay.
  Amaechi joined the ranks of men like Esera Tuaolo, David Kopay, and Roy Simmons in his announcement February here 8. Though he retired from from the NBA in 2004, he remains active in British professional basketball.  However, like his fellow play for pay jocks, Amaechi waited until after her retired to make his revelation.
  Amaechi declared his sexuality as part of a press conference announcing the February 14 publication of his autobiography, “Man in the Middle.” In the book he reveals his introduction to sports and many of the hardships he endured as a closeted gay man throughout his time with the professional teams that he played with.
  As might be expected, controversy began immediately following the announcement on both sides of the Atlantic. Some players, such as Shavlik Randolph and Steven Hunter of the Philadelphia Sixers, stated publicly that they were okay with gay players in the NBA in general, “as long as you don’t bring your gayness on me.”
Others, like former Retired Warriors and Miami Heat guard Tim Hardaway said that he hated gay people.
  “You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people,” he said while a guest on Sports Talk 790 The Ticket in Miami February 14. “I’m homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”
  Hardaway bragged that if he did find out that a teammate was gay, Hardaway said he would ask for the player to be removed from the team.
  But, as typical when the reactive hue and cry became a full fledged din, less than a news cycle later Hardaway claimed he regretted the remarks. “Yes, I regret it. I’m sorry,” he said during a telephone interview with Miami Fox affiliate WSVN.  “I shouldn’t have said I hate gay people or anything like that,” he said. “That was my mistake.”
  That didn’t sit well with the suddenly publicly-tolerant NBA brass. The NBA banished Tim Hardaway from an All-Star weekend February 17-18 in Las Vegas because of the anti-gay remarks.
  Hardaway, who played in five All-Star games during the 1990s, had already been in Las Vegas to make a series of public appearances this week on behalf of the league. But after Hardaway’s radio interview, commissioner David Stern stepped in.
  “We removed him from representing us because we didn’t think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us,” Stern told reporters February 15 at the opening of a fan festival at a Las Vegas casino, part of the NBA’s All-Star weekend.
  However, the same day Hardaway spewed his hate speech, Amaechi’s former Orlando Magic coach Doc Rivers told the Washington Blade that he had heard whispers about John Amaechi’s sexuality when they were both in Orlando. But the only thing that the former Magic coach care about was Amaechi was a good scorer, a decent rebounder, a little bit of a defensive liability and “a fantastic kid.”
  “He’s better than a good kid; he’s a fantastic kid,” Rivers said. “John Amaechi, when I was coaching him, was a great kid. He did as much charity work as anybody in our city, and he’s still doing it. That’s what I wish we focused on. Unfortunately, we’re talking about his sexual orientation, which I couldn’t care a flying flip about.”
  Rivers was a rookie head coach when he took over the Magic in 1999-00, a team that finished .500 despite starting four undrafted players. Amaechi was one of them, and Rivers subsequently was chosen as the NBA’s coach of the year. Merit wins out over man-on-man love every time.
  Now that he’s come out, Amaechi’s future career is assured: as an equal rights spokesmodel, of course. Just days after his press conference, the Human Rights Campaign crowed that Amaechi would serve as a national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign’s Coming Out Project, a program designed to help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people come out and live openly.
  “John is making history this week, becoming the first NBA player to ever come out and talk about his life and experiences as an athlete and a gay man,” HRC President Joe Solmonese said. “In sharing his story, our great hope is that John will pave the way for more LGBT and straight athletes to openly support fairness and respect on and off the playing field.”
  “John is going to give a new face and a thoughtful, heartfelt voice to openly gay athletes in this country,”Human Rights Campaign Coming Out Project Director Mark Shields added. “Young athletes - LGBT and straight - will now have a new role model to help show them the importance of competing openly, honestly and respectfully.”
  Some gay pundits looked askew at the seemingly sudden announcement. “HRC either has the reflexes of a cock hungry john or they knew about former NBA player turned author John Amaechi’s book/coming-out way before any of us, because they organized this shit right quick,” one editor at the gay blog Queerty wrote. “We’re sure Amaechi’s revelations will give some jocko-homos the courage to come out, but we have to point out that Amaechi didn’t come out until after he made money playing professional basketball.”
  The point, of course, is that despite all the celebrity and political coming out stories in the last two decades, not a single active major player in U. S. professional sports has come out publicly. Though the American public now may collectively shrug “ho-hum” at gays in the military or openly-gay actors making hetero hootchie kootchie on their TV and theatre screens, they apparently still have trouble with gay jocks handling balls or pucking around in their arenas and playing fields.
  Or at least that’s what the billionaire sports establishment seems to think, if you read the gallons of ink spilled over sports columns about Amaechi’s recent coming out party. It’s gotta be the shower thing:  its always the slippery soap, not the slippery slope that scares the macho mind set.

HIV Co-Discoverer Gallo: AIDS Denialists Are “Beyond Stupid”
Melbourne - The man jointly credited with discovering HIV has blasted the Supreme Court of South Australia for wasting time hearing a case that questions the existence of the killer virus.
  Robert Gallo, the American scientist who established the link between HIV and AIDS in 1984, appeared for the prosecution yesterday in the application for an appeal by an HIV-positive man convicted of exposing three women to the virus. “I can’t believe that it occupies the time of the court - it is that absurd,” Professor Gallo said.
  Defense witnesses - medical physicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and emergency doctor Val Turner - have testified that the science behind HIV is flawed, that the virus has not been purified, that tests for it are indirect and unreliable, and that it is not sexually transmitted or the cause of AIDS.
  They appeared for Andre Chad Parenzee, 36, who was convicted in February 2006 on three counts of endangering life.
  Professor Gallo said he had reviewed much of the defense testimony and rejected it as “misunderstanding” at best, and “misrepresentation” of HIV and AIDS research, at worst. He called on numerous medical fields and his vast research experience to describe HIV, its first laboratory isolation in the 1980s, its attack on the immune system, and the success of treatments and blood screening.
  Professor Gallo’s testimony was a coup for prosecutors, who have fought Parenzee’s application in more than three weeks of hearings since March last year.
  Professor Gallo gave evidence by satellite, appearing in the corner of an office at his research institute in Baltimore, Maryland, about 9 PM Baltimore time. He described the defense testimony as “beyond stupid”, “sad”, “deeply nonsensical” and “extremely wrong”. Gallo also suggested the defense witnesses, members of the HIV dissident study circle the Perth Group, were using the case as “a ploy” to advance their theories.
  He lost patience with defense lawyer Kevin Borick’s “provocative” questioning of the accuracy of HIV tests. “You are driving me nuts with this ... for God’s sake,” he said.
  Claiming “no one knows more about HIV testing than me”, he said his work had contributed to the cleansing of HIV from Australia’s donor blood supply in the late 1980s. “I don’t expect a thank you but I don’t expect to be provoked to that degree,” he said.
  Since 1996, Professor Gallo has led the Institute for Human Virology, which employs more than 100 scientists researching chronic viruses, including HIV. He was the most-cited scientist between 1980 and 1995. In the past 20 years he has been rated third in the world in “impact factor”, which measures scientists’ influence outside their field.
  Gallo also has 27 honorary degrees and has twice won the Albert Lasker Award in Medicine, the most recognized award for biomedical science in the US.

Paper Claims Russian Soldiers Sold As Gay Sex Slaves
Scandal Breaks As City Leaders Nix Pride March Again
Moscow - Young Russian conscripts reportedly are being routinely forced by senior officers to work as male prostitutes and turn over the cash to their superiors.
  The Gazeta newspaper, quoting some of the soldiers and the human rights group Union of the Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, reports that the soldiers were from the army base in St. Petersburg. According to the paper, one client was a former general in the FSB, Russia’s intelligence agency.
  The rights group told the paper that clients would arrive at base late at night and the soldiers would be forced by officers to get into the cars. They often would not return until morning. One of the soldiers told the Gazeta said the officers would use violence and torture to force the men into prostitution.
  “The officers would beat us on the arms and legs. We were sent out to the park to earn money ... I was tortured with electric shocks,” he claimed.
  The paper said that officers at base passed a client list on to successors and that the practice had been going on for some time. The soldiers were allegedly paid the Russian equivalent of $50 for each “trick” with most of the money going back to the officers.
  Russia’s military has been faced with a crash crunch since the fall of communism, and soldiers regularly complain they have not been paid. Many in the military have moonlighted to make ends meet.
  Last year a 19 year old conscript was so badly beaten and tortured by his superiors that his genitals and legs had to be amputated and in another case a deputy commander in Siberia rented out his troops to local businesses for a commission.
  Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Ivanov, considered a potential successor to president Vladimir Putin has promised an investigation, according to the paper.
  The sex scandal report came as civic leaders in Moscow again banned a gay pride march there. In announcing the ban on February 16 a senior city has official equated homosexuality with alcoholism, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
  The city’s mayor had previously said the event would not be held. “There is the hard line of the city authorities and the position of our main faith, the Russian Orthodox Church ... of the inadmissibility of such an event in Moscow,” RIA-Novosti quoted the head of the city’s international relations department, Georgy Muradov, as saying.
  Russian gay activists have pledged to hold a march in May. London Mayor Ken Livingstone said last month that he strongly opposed a ban, and RIA-Novosti quoted Muradov as saying Luzhkov expects to face criticism over the issue at an upcoming two-day meeting with the mayors of London, Paris and Berlin February 27-8.

Hallmark Releases “Happy Coming Out” Cards
Kansas City - Hallmark Cards has brought out a new line of cards – with some suitable for situations LGBT people can relate to.
  The company, which has built its $4.2 billion empire on sentiments for life’s happier times, is hoping the new range will speak to those and other situations that the company says have either been ignored by greeting card companies or received only a smattering of attention from niche players.
  Company spokeswoman Rachel Bolton told Business Week magazine that two cards in the new series could be sent to gay people who have disclosed their sexuality.
  The cards feature slogans like “Be You”, “This is who I am” or feature a rainbow, or other symbol of gay pride – though they don’t directly refer to the coming out process, according to the card maker.
  A 176-card collection, called Journeys, went on sale on February 15 at Hallmark’s 3,800 Gold Crown stores in the US.
  The collection also includes cards tackling cancer diagnoses, quitting smoking, caring for an aged parent, miscarriage, anniversaries of loss, loved ones in the military and traumatic loss, such as someone dying in an accident or homicide.
  Among the sample sentiments: for illness, “Cancer is a villain who doesn’t play fair ... but it can’t dim your spirit, and it can’t silence prayer;” for eating disorders, “All I want is for you to be healthy -- healthy and happy with yourself. Please take it one day at a time until you are;” and for depression, “When the world gets heavy, remember, I’m here to help carry it with you.”
  Others cards are more happy and even humorous, celebrating a year being cancer-free, nearing the end of chemotherapy or general encouragement for teenagers. There are even a few birthday cards encouraging the recipient to celebrate even though they’ve had a rough year.
  Cynthia Musick, the editorial director who oversaw Journeys, said the cards’ writing provides more personal messages of support, encouragement and hope, for which the company’s research showed there was a demand.

Surprise! Madonna Loves Gay Men!
Washington, DC -  Pop icon Madonna would rather spend time with gay men than anyone else, for they are the only people who don’t find strong women intimidating. In a recent interview with Sirius Satellite Radio’s OutQ channel, the Material Girl insisted that gay men made the best companions for ‘tough’ women.
  “Gay men are perfect men for girls who are tough,” Madonna said.
  As for why Madge seems to think so, well it seems that that’s because they happen to be in touch with their feelings. Another thing that tips the scales in the favor of gay men, is that always pay attention to the details.
  “They’re not threatened by strong women, and they’re usually very in touch with their feelings and pay attention to details. I’ve always had an affinity with gay men!” Madonna added.

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