OUT has unveiled the cover of its OUT 100 edition. The December/January special double issue takes on an Old Hollywood theme and pays tribute to 100 actors, musicians, writers, fashion designers, politicians and social figures who have made significant strides in the gay community during 2008. OUT special awardees, both gay and straight, include Gus Van Sant (far left on cover) for his thrilling new cinema paean to Harvey Milk, the first high-profile out elected official, Cheyenne Jackson (far right on cover) for his stereotype-breaking performances, Katy Perry (seated on cover) for her unfiltered ode to sexual experimentation, and Sam Sparro (seated on cover), an exciting new musician who never considered the closet as an option. The other 2008 awardees include actors Ian McKellen (left middle picture below), one of our most visible, grandest advocates—and the most tireless, and Luke Macfarlane (top picture below), identical twins Dean and Dan Caten, founders and designers of Dsquared2, director Alan Ball (picture above) and as newsmaker of the Year, Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson (right middle picture below), the first out, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination.


Pictures by Greg Lotus, Roger Erickson and Lee Jenkins.

Sir Ian McKellen looks set to reprise his role as Gandalf in the long-awaited adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. When asked, in an email exchange with fans on his official website, if he will wear the wizard's robes again he said: "Yes I will, if Peter Jackson and I have anything to do with it, he being the producer and me being, on the whole a very lucky actor... Encouragingly, Peter and Fran Walsh have told me they couldn't imagine The Hobbit without their original Gandalf. Their confidence hasn't yet been confirmed by the director Guillermo del Toro but I am keeping my diary free for 2009!" A formal deal with McKellen has yet to be signed, but filming is set to begin next year. In the email exchange, a fan asks the 68-year-old actor about rumors of closeted homosexuality concerning his male co-stars, he answered: "This gossip is all news to me. Elijah, Dominic and Orlando introduced me to their girlfriends during shooting. I didn't ever meet Viggo's partner although his son visited a few times. It would seem that none of my friends can be accused of hypocrisy. Probably the fevered imagination of slashers is to blame. Hiding homosexuality is a long-tested shame in Hollywood and no doubt continues even in these days of gay marriage and gay civil partnerships. I agree that audiences are much less perturbed than producers allow, by a performer's sexuality. How else to explain the continuing popularity of George Michael, Elton John, Rupert Everett, Ellen de Generes and, excuse me, also the gay actor who played Gandalf?"

Source The guardian & McKellen.com

The British New Year Honours List for 2008 has now been released. This is the first Honours List recommended by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reflect and pay tribute to outstanding achievement and service across the entire community. Anyone can receive an award if they reach the required standard of merit or service, and honours list contain a wide variety of people from different backgrounds.
This year, among 834 selected candidates, Sir Ian Murray McKellen is to become Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to Drama and to Equality and Ms Kylie Ann Minogue is to become Ordinary Officers of the Civil Division of the said Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to Music. "I feel deeply touched to be acknowledged by the UK, my adopted home, in this way," she said from her family home in Melbourne. "This last year I have felt so much love and support from everyone as I took greater steps back into the public domain, and it is with absolute gratitude and joy that I say farewell to 2007 and look forward to what the New Year will bring." Sir Ian McKellen joins the exclusive Order of the Companions of Honour, which is restricted to just 65 members alongside the Queen. "I am honoured to join an order which includes such distinguished practitioners in the arts," the 68-year-old actor and gay rights campaigner said. "It is particularly pleasing that 'equality' is included in my citation."

Source BBC News

At Sunday night's 59th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a gay milestone was marked before the first winner was even announced, reports Michael Jensen from After Elton. For the first time in Emmy history, three out gay actors were up for acting awards and two of those actors were nominated for their work playing recurring heterosexual roles. T.R Knight for Supporting Actor Drama Series (Grey's Anatomy), Neil Patrick Harris for Supporting Actor Comedy Series (How I Met Your Mother), and Sir Ian McKellen for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (Extras). They weren't the only gay men up for Emmys, other out gay men nominated for their work behind the camera included Silvio Horta and Marco Pennette as executive producers on Ugly Betty, Bryan Singer for executive producer on House, and Bryan Fuller as co-executive producer on Heroes. Rob Marshall, the Oscar-nominated director of Chicago, snagged the Emmy for Best Director in a Variety series for his Tony Bennett special.
Gay favorite Ugly Betty took home the Best Actress award for America Ferrera and Outstanding Director for Shephard. Another gay favorite, ABC's Brothers & Sisters featuring Matthew Rhys as the gay Kevin Walker, received two acting nominations, one for Sally Field as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama and one for Rachel Griffiths as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. Field hold the award while Griffiths lost to Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy. On the way to accept her award, Heigl hugged Grey's co-star Knight to whose defense she notably came during last years Isaiah Washington controversy. Read the full After Elton's article here...

Source After Elton

Sir Ian McKellen, who leads the Royal Shakespeare Company in King Lear and Chekhov's The Seagull at UCLA's Royce Hall, Oct. 19-28, confesses that part of his agenda as an openly gay famous person is ripping the page with Leviticus 20:13 out of the Bible whenever his hotel room comes Scripture-equipped. "It's the one thing I find difficult to defend but do go on doing," confesses the distinguished Shakespearean actor. The verse McKellen excises reads: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." The actor has campaigned for gay rights since coming out publicly on BBC radio in 1988.

Source Calendar Live

Gay rights group People Like Us had planned a picnic at the downtown Botanic Gardens on Thursday and a 5-kilometer (3.11-mile) run the following day as part of a series of activities marking gay and lesbian pride month. But the National Parks Board wrote to the events' organizer, Alex Au, to say the activities were not permitted by authorities, Au said. "The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a premier botanical institution. We do not want it to be used as a venue for interest groups to politicize their cause," a board spokesman said in an e-mailed response to questions. Au said the events were intended as social gatherings to commemorate the city-state's National Day, which falls on Thursday. "It was never meant to be political, and this testifies to the paranoia of the government," Au added. "They automatically assume that anything gay is a political challenge to them. It speaks volumes about the political climate in Singapore." The prohibition follows bans last week on a gay rights forum and an exhibition of photographs depicting same-sex kissing. Watch British actor Ian McKellen voicing his opinions during his July stay in Singapore performing Shakespeare's King Lear and Chekhov's The Seagull...


Source International Herald Tribune

British actor Sir Ian McKellen keeps fighting for Gay Rights. On Tuesday he urged tightly-governed Singapore to loosen up and repeal its archaic laws barring homosexual acts. "Just treat us with respect like we treat everybody else and the world will be a better place, I think," 68-year-old McKellen said in a live interview on the Class 95 radio station. "Coming to Singapore where unfortunately you've still got those dreadful laws that we British left behind... it's about time Singapore grew up, I think, and realised that gay people are here to stay." Homosexual acts are still outlawed in Singapore under laws dating back to British colonial days, despite the city-state's being one of Asia's most advanced economies.
McKellen was in Singapore as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's world tour to stage William Shakespeare's King Lear and Anton Chekhov's The Seagull at the Esplanade, Southeast Asia's most modern performing arts centre.

Source AFP / UK Yahoo News

Veteran English actor, Sir Ian Murray McKellen, who has campaigned for gay rights for nearly 20 years, said his parents had died by the time he was ready to "come out" and he deeply regrets not telling them he was homosexual. "I have a few regrets in my life but that is number one. My mother died when I was 12 and my father when I was 24. I knew by then of course. I was just getting round to it, thinking this was a conversation I had to have with my father. Then he died and I never told him."
Sir Ian, aged 67, has recently starred in X-Men, Lord of the Rings and the Da Vinci Code. He announced he was gay during a BBC radio interview in 1988. Watch a McKellen Tribute slideshow...


Source This is Lancashire