Neil Patrick Harris, gay panic, trans appointee?

By Project Q Atlanta | Jan 4, 2010 | 5:33 PM

Monday headlines: TV actors’ twitter war, ex-marine claims sexual assault led to stabbing, HIV travel ban lifted, and is Amanda Simspon actually Obama’s first trans appointment?

• Widely reported claim by NTCE that Obama made his first transgender appointment, former DNC delegate and failed 2005 Congressional candidate Amanda Simpson (top photo), is hard to confirm as true. It could be a direct hire by the Commerce Department, not an appointment.

• U.S. ban on HIV-positive immigrants ends Monday. Male Dutch couple lands in New York hours after the Bush law is lifted. President Obama calls the old rule “rooted in fear rather than fact.”

• Ex-marine likely to plead ‘gay panic’ in Christmas Day stabbing of an Indiana University professor. He admits the killing, but says the openly gay professor sexually assaulted him in front of his girlfriend and refused to “show remorse.”

• Neil Patrick Harris vs. John Barrowman (middle photo, r-l) results in Twitter war for votes in ‘Gay Man of the Decade.’ High standards: May the best television actor who has come out win.

• Houston’s lesbian mayor Annise Parker officially sworn in Saturday, public ceremony set for Monday, the same day Salt Lake City’s first gay councilman takes his oath of office. Read about Monday’s ceremony for Atlanta’s Alex Wan.

• Gay couple loses bail appeal after being arrested their gay wedding in Malawi. They say they have been beaten while in jail.

• ‘Southland’ star Kevin Alejandro (bottom photo) to play Lafayette’s boyfriend on ‘True Blood.’

• Trans woman wins case against a Belfast newspaper for using ‘tranny’ in the headline and ‘burly’ in the text of an article about her work at a rape center.

• New Jersey’s gay marriage bill is caught in a legislative trap, bouncing back and forth from House to Senate like a bowl-game football.

• ‘Bisexual’ penguin, formerly of the ‘gay penguins’ at the San Francisco Zoo, is fighting for his life with a serious illness. Apparently, the pair have been embroiled in a love triangle with a female of the species.