Code words, secret societies, covert meetings, fake identities: these are tools that a certain set of cadets learn here at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

These cadets are not spies or moles. They are gay, and they exist largely in the shadows of this granite institution known for producing presidents and generals, where staying closeted is essential to avoid discharge under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“The most important thing I’ve learned here is how to be a good actor,” said one gay male cadet, who grew up in Philadelphia and is in his fourth year at the academy.

The resignation this month of Katherine Miller, a top cadet who blogged anonymously about her lesbianism, has turned a spotlight on the hidden gay culture here and revived debate on campus about “don’t ask, don’t tell,” at a time when Washington is also focused on the issue.

Ms. Miller, who wrote under the name “Private Second Class Citizen” about enduring gay slurs and faking a heterosexual dating history, is transferring to Yale University this fall and has become something of a media celebrity, appearing on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC and on ABC News.

Interviews with three gay cadets, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because revealing their identities could result in expulsion, as well as conversations with Ms. Miller and several gay alumni, painted a portrait of a vibrant, if tiny, gay underground at West Point. The hiding begins on Day 1: new cadets must sign a document acknowledging that revealing one’s homosexuality can lead to discharge, as can demonstrating “a propensity to engage in homosexual acts.”

In 1996, three female cadets resigned after West Point officials found a diary belonging to one of them that revealed their sexual orientation. In 2002, the academy discharged a cadet after his profile was discovered on a gay Web site. Ms. Miller, whose blog began in April but apparently eluded academy officials, said she quit voluntarily by submitting a letter revealing her lesbianism.

Asked about gay culture at West Point, Lt. Col. Brian Tribus, the academy’s director of public affairs, issued a statement saying that the school “will continue to apply the law as it is obligated to do,” but also noting that cadets must take military ethics classes that include “topics about unconditional positive respect for others.”

For more…visit the New York Times here.

Gay rights activists and a group of Roman Catholics in Mexico have yelled insults at each other during dueling demonstrations over same-sex marriage.

Some 200 gay rights activists waved rainbow flags and held signs reading “Thank God I’m gay” at a plaza next to the cathedral in Guadalajara on Sunday.

A similar number of protesters opposed to gay marriage prayed at the cathedral’s doors. One of them ripped up a sign held by a gay rights activist, prompting screaming by both sides.

It was the second confrontation in two days in Guadalajara, where Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez stirred controversy by suggesting Mexico’s Supreme Court was bribed to uphold a Mexico City law allowing adoptions by homosexual couples.

A survey of military spouses asks whether they would urge their husbands or wives to leave the armed services if the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is repealed, and whether they would attend social functions if openly gay service members appear with their partners.The Washington Post offers a copy of the survey shared by OutServe, a group of active duty gay and lesbian troops. The 44-question survey was sent to 150,000 military spouses Friday as part of the Pentagon’s review of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.Some sample questions:”How important a factor would a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell be to you in making decisions about your spouse’s future in the military?”"Would a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell affect your willingness to recommend military service to a family member or close friend?”"Assume Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you live in on-base housing. If a gay or lesbian Service member lived in your neighborhood with their partner, would you stay on-base or would you try to move out?”"Would the attendance of a gay or lesbian Service member with his or her partner affect how often you attend these types of military social events?”In a statement issued Saturday, Servicemembers United denounced the survey for carrying the same biases that tainted the survey of 400,000 troops in July.“This survey of military spouses contains many of the same insulting and derogatory assumptions and insinuations about gays and lesbians that ran throughout the last survey,” said Servicemembers United executive director Alexander Nicholson. “Answer choices suggest things like the Defense Department possibly distributing flyers in military neighborhoods if, as they say, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is repealed and that the ‘readiness’ of military families might somehow be impacted. Again we stress that neither the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nor anyone else would ever stand for such insulting questions being asked about any other minority group in the military in this day and age. The Pentagon’s senior leadership should seriously consider Servicemembers United’s offer to meet with them in person to talk about the insensitivity of these surveys and how the poor handling of these surveys might negatively impact implementation.”

A judge struck down California’s same-sex marriage ban as an unconstitutional violation of gay couples’ civil rights, but a pending appeal of the landmark ruling could prevent gay weddings from resuming in the state any time soon.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturned the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8 Wednesday, declaring that limiting marriage to a man and a woman serves no legitimate purpose and is an “artifact” rooted in “unfounded stereotypes and prejudices.”

“Rather than being different, same-sex and opposite-sex unions are, for all purposes relevant to California law, exactly the same,” Walker wrote in an unequivocal and strongly worded 136-page ruling. “The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.”

While the ruling affects only California, the appeal will go to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over nine Western states. The outcome there eventually could force the U.S. Supreme Court to confront the question of whether gays have a constitutional right to wed.

“This ruling, if allowed to stand, threatens not only Prop 8 in California but the laws in 45 other states that define marriage as one man and one woman,” said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which helped fund the 2008 campaign that led to the ban’s passage.

Currently, same-sex couples can legally wed only in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.

Protect Marriage, the coalition of religious and conservative groups that sponsored Proposition 8 — and wound up defending it in court after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown refused to — said it would immediately appeal the decision.

Walker, meanwhile, said he would consider waiting for the 9th Circuit to render its decision before he makes his opinion final and requires the state to stop enforcing the ban. The judge ordered both sides to submit written arguments by Friday on the issue.

Hundreds of same-sex marriage supporters celebrated the verdict at public gatherings in San Francisco, West Hollywood and New York City, while acknowledging they have watched court victories evaporate before. California voters passed Proposition 8 five months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions and an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples already had tied the knot.

Joe Briggs, 32, an actor who attended the West Hollywood gathering Wednesday night, said he was thrilled to hear about the ruling but was curbing his enthusiasm because of the legal fight still ahead.

“It’s a long process. Last time we were allowed to marry for like a day and then they took it away,” said Briggs, who wore a T-shirt with an image of Batman and Robin kissing. “But at the same time, we have a black president — so let’s just get on with it! It’s about equality.”

Walker’s decision came in a lawsuit filed by two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco that sought to invalidate Proposition 8 under the same constitutional principles that led to bans on interracial marriage being overturned.

The 13-day trial was the first in a federal court to examine if the U.S. Constitution prevents states from denying gays the right to wed.

Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson teamed up with David Boies to argue for the two couples, bringing together a pair of litigators best known as adversaries who respectively represented George W. Bush and Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election.

“We have other battles ahead of us, but with this decision carefully analyzing the evidence we are well on our way to victory,” Olson said Wednesday.

Reveling in their joint victory, Boies said he and Olson’s alliance would prove valuable if the Proposition 8 case, known as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, reaches the Supreme Court.

“Ted and I have a deal — He is going to get the 5 justices that were for him in Bush v. Gore and I’m going to get the 4 justices that were with me in Bush v. Gore,” he joked.

Standing in front of eight American flags at a news conference, the two couples behind the case beamed and choked up as they related their feelings of validation.

“Tomorrow will feel different because tomorrow I will have a sense of security I have not had,” said Sandy Stier, as her partner of 10 years, Kris Perry, stood at her side. “Because of this decision I will know we are treated the same under the law as everybody else.”

Defense lawyers argued at trial that the ban was necessary to safeguard the traditional understanding of marriage and to encourage responsible childbearing. But they called just two witnesses, compared to the 18 put on by the plaintiffs, claiming they did not need to present expert testimony because the U.S. Supreme Court had never recognized a right to same-sex marriage.

But in declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional, Walker accepted every argument advanced by the plaintiffs and methodically rejected every claim made by the defense. Preventing gays from marrying does nothing to strengthen heterosexual unions or serve any purpose that justifies its discriminatory effect, but harms children with same-sex parents and “the state’s interest in equality,” he wrote.

“To characterize plaintiffs objective as ‘the right to same-sex marriage’ would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy — namely, marriage,” Walker said. “Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages.”

Describing the defense case as “a rather limited factual presentation,” he also said its proponents offered little evidence that they were motivated by anything other than animus toward gays — beginning with their campaign to pass the ban, which included claims of wanting to protect children from learning about same-sex marriage in school.

“Proposition 8 played on the fear that exposure to homosexuality would turn children into homosexuals and that parents should dread having children who are not heterosexual,” Walker wrote.

The ruling puts Walker, a Republican appointed by President George H.W. Bush, at the forefront of the gay marriage debate and marks the second verdict in a federal gay marriage case to come down in less than a month.

In July, a District Court judge in Massachusetts decided in July that the state’s legally married gay and lesbian couples had been wrongly denied the federal financial benefits of marriage because of a law preventing the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex unions.

U.S. district chief judge Vaughn R. Walker will issue a written decision on the federal challenge to California’s Proposition 8 on Wednesday afternoon, nearly seven months after the landmark trial began in a San Francisco courtroom.According to the court, a decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger will be filed between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Pacific time on Wednesday.The decision will be available soon after on the court’s website, available here.Advocate.com will have updates on the decision, its implications, and reactions from legal observers throughout the day.Perhaps already preparing for a pro-gay marriage decision, attorneys defending Prop. 8 filed papers Tuesday night requesting a stay on Walker’s decision pending appeal. Gay marriage opponents have previously said that they expect Walker to strike down Prop. 8. “Judge Walker has convinced me that he will rule for same-sex marriage, probably on the grounds that it’s a fundamental right and that it’s gender discrimination,” National Organization for Marriage president Maggie Gallagher told The Advocate in June.High-profile attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies argued for the repeal of Proposition 8, representing two same-sex California couples in the suit who were denied marriage licenses.The ballot initiative, passed with 52% of the vote, overturned a California supreme court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage from June to November 2008.During closing arguments in June, Olson, the former solicitor general under President George W. Bush whose decision to challenge Prop. 8 in federal court confounded many conservatives, said the evidence presented proved that denying same-sex couples marriage rights causes “grave, permanent, irreparable, and totally unnecessary harm.”"We have improved the institution of marriage when we allowed interracial couples to get married. We have improved the institution of marriage when we allowed women to be equal partners in the martial relationship … And we will improve the institution of marriage … when we eliminate this terrible stigma,” Olson said.Regardless of how Walker decides, legal observers expect that the case will be appealed to the ninth circuit court of appeals, a process that will “surely take more than a year,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean of the University of California-Irvine School of Law.Multiple post-decision rallies are expected in California and elsewhere in the country, including:Los Angeles: 6 p.m. | West Hollywood Park | 647 N. San Vicente Blvd.San Francisco: 5 p.m. | Castro & Market

San Diego: MARCH: 6 p.m. @ 6th and University avenues | RALLY: 7 p.m., LGBT Community Center, 3909 Centre StreetLong Beach: 6 p.m. | Bixby Park, Junipero & Cherry Avenue at Broadway StreetSacramento: 6 p.m. | Party in the parking lot behind McMartin Realty at K and 21st Streets, for dancing and celebration with music and bands. (If Prop 8 is somehow upheld we will march to the capitol in protest.)New York City: New York City Supreme Court 60 Centre St. New York, NY 7pm - 9pmBoston: 6:00pm @ Copley Square, outside Copley T stop on Boylston StreetDenver: Colorado Responds- Prop 8 Decision Day Rally Lincoln Ave between Colfax and 14th 6:00pm - 7:00pmRex Wockner has a complete list of events on his blog.

A Canadian gay rights organization is filing a complaint against a French-language sports network after two commentators made homophobic comments regarding U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir.

The Quebec Council of Gays and Lesbians is demanding an apology from sportscasters Claude Mailhot and Alain Goldberg of the RDS network, who said Weir’s flamboyant style “sets a bad example” for young boys, according to the Canadian Press.  

Though the pair offered an on-air apology for their comments, Steve Foster,  president of the council, said it was not enough. They apologized only for mocking his appearance and not for statements regarding his masculinity or saying he should compete as a woman.

For more on this story, visit the Advocate.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday denounced as “odious” a proposed anti-gay law in Uganda that has drawn international condemnation.

“We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are — whether it’s here in the United States or … more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda,” Obama told the National Prayer Breakfast.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking before Obama at the annual bipartisan gathering of religious and political leaders, also criticized the draft law being considered by Uganda’s parliament.

Clinton said she recently called Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and expressed the “strongest concerns” about the proposed legislation. The call was made on December 20, a State Department official said.

The East African country has faced intense pressure from Western governments and human rights groups over the draft legislation, which was presented as a private members’ bill last year.

It would prohibit sexual relations between people of the same sex as well as the recognition of homosexual relations as an acceptable lifestyle, Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said last month.

Pillay said the draft law would breach international standards and it “proposes draconian punishments for people alleged to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered — namely life imprisonment, or in some cases, the death penalty.”

It could lead to a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone failing to report within 24 hours the identities of any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person, she added.

Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo has said a revised law would probably limit the maximum penalty for those convicted to life in prison rather than execution.

Obama, who won strong backing from homosexual voters in the 2008 presidential election, has promised to fight on their behalf.

In his State of the Union address last week, he said he would seek the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that permits gays to serve in uniform as long as they hide their sexual orientation.

Scottish movie star Ewan McGregor isn’t shy when it comes to kissing on film — especially if the person he’s kissing happens to be another guy.

“I like kissing boys on screen,” McGregor tells Our magazine of smooching Jim Carrey in the upcoming “I Love You Phillip Morris.” “As a straight guy, it’s quite an interesting proposition. Anything on a film set that takes you by surprise like that, that gets your blood up, is good.”

The film, in which McGregor and Carrey play lovers, was initially supposed to be released last year, but according to McGregor, the studio executives behind the “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” were scared that Carrey’s portrayal of a gay man would confuse their audience.

“There was talk that Disney fended off the release (of ‘Morris’) until after ‘A Christmas Carol’ came out,” the Scot said. “They didn’t want kids thinking (Carrey’s) Ebenezer Scrooge was a bender.”

“I Love You Phillip Morris,” which was a sensation at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Utah, will finally hit theaters on March 26.

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