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GLAAD is breaking out the star power for its new “Amplify Your Voice” PSA campaign against LGBT bullying.

Chaz Bono, “Jersey Shore” star Vinny Guadagnino, Amy Poehler, Shaquille O’Neal, Rashida Jones, Tori Spelling and husband Dean, Dustin Lance Black and the cast of the teen drama “Pretty Little Liars” are among the stars who’ve filmed the public service announcements, which all tout the campaign slogan, “No matter who you are, you have the power to make a difference.”

The campaign stems from a partnership between Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the American Federation of Teachers.

The PSAs are being launched the week before October 20’s Spirit Day, the annual occasion when Americans are asked to wear purple to show support for lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender youth.

Weeks after the suicide of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer in western New York, school officials, police and lawmakers are grappling with ways to prevent the kind of schoolyard bullying being blamed for his death.

The openly gay teen’s parents Tim and Tracy Rodemeyer are calling for changes in how New York schools handle the kind of chronic harassment that drove their son to kill himself outside their suburban Buffalo home on September 19.

“It’s the only thing that’s keeping us going, to try and get the word out,” Tracy Rodemeyer told Reuters.

Already the move has resulted in proposed state legislation aimed at stopping online taunts, known as cyber-bullying.

It comes in the wake of neighboring New Jersey enacting the nation’s toughest anti-bullying law after the suicide last year of a gay Rutgers University student who was bullied.

At the start of this school year, New Jersey officials worried tight budgets might make it difficult to uphold the law, which requires a uniform response to each and every incidence of bullying, including corrective action plans and time frames for intervention.

In Buffalo, meanwhile, a painful reminder that little has changed came last week when a student at the school Rodemeyer attended was suspended for continued taunting of the teen even after his death.

This time the target was his 16-year-old sister at a school dance just hours after she attended a wake for her younger brother on September 22.

“It sickens me,” their father said of reports that some students chanted “better off dead” when dance organizers played a song in Rodemeyer’s honor by his favorite singer, Lady Gaga, who has memorialized him in her anti-bullying comments.

“Your mind just spins at 100 miles per hour. How can someone do that? I don’t understand how someone could be so cruel,” Tracy Rodemeyer said.

“Everybody has a story about bullying but never, never have I ever seen it where somebody would be happy that someone is dead from their actions.”

Superintendent Scott Martzloff posted a message on the district’s web site condemning the dance incident and saying a student believed to be responsible was suspended.

Police continue to investigate Rodemeyer’s death to determine if criminal charges should be brought against some of the teens accused of harassing him, officials said.

The high school freshman had talked to his mother about being gay for the first time about a year ago. In May, he contributed an online video to an international campaign called “It Gets Better,” designed to help young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people confirm their identity and survive the pitfalls of being different.

She said the teasing that followed Rodemeyer through grade school and into high school included taunts of “fag” and “girly girl” hurled at the boy who kept mostly female friends.

While his online message in May was one of hope, his mother said it is clear now that he put up a strong front to hide the deep hurt within.

School guidance counselors and social workers met with Rodemeyer over the years but none seemed to strive to help him, his father said. One counselor’s advice was simply to stop spending time with girls, he said.

One big problem is that harassment may seem endless for some teens, deepening their despair, said Dr. Stuart Green, of the New Jersey Coalition for Bullying Awareness, who helped draft the New Jersey anti-bullying legislation.

“In 12 years of taking phone calls from parents I’ve never once gotten a call where a parent was upset about something that happened yesterday. It’s months and years,” he said.

The proposed legislation in New York to make it easier to prosecute online bullying is aimed at creating a “chilling effect” to discourage the harassment, said Rich Azzopardi, spokesman for state Senator Jeffrey Klein, author of the bill.

“Years ago, drunken driving wasn’t viewed as a big deal, even though it has the potential to kill people. What we’re doing with bullying is changing people’s perception of it,” Azzopardi said.

For the Rodemeyers, that shift can’t come soon enough.

“We’re really supposed to be learning from our mistakes and this is the next biggest one,” Tracy Rodemeyer said.

The number of gay and bisexual characters on scripted broadcast network TV has dipped slightly this season to 19 out of nearly 650 roles, according to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

The 16th annual “Where We Are on TV” report released Wednesday by GLAAD found that 2.9 percent of actors appearing regularly on prime-time network drama and comedy series in the 2011-12 season will portray gay, lesbian or bisexual characters.

The 2008-09 season saw an increased representation of 2.6 percent.

Only five of the 19 gay and lesbian characters this season are nonwhite, GLAAD found.

Using information provided by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and CW, the group reviewed 91 scripted series announced to air this season.

Among broadcast series with gay and bisexual characters, GLAAD cited CBS’ “The Good Wife,” the CW’s “Ringer” and NBC’s “The Playboy Club.” Comedies include ABC’s “Modern Family” and Fox’s “Glee.”

Fox leads the networks in gay representation, with eight regular characters out of a total of 117.

The number of gay and bisexual characters on cable networks has also fallen slightly, from 35 last season to 29 in the upcoming season.

As it did last year, HBO has the greatest number of gay and bisexual characters, with 11 regular and recurring characters. Showtime is close behind with 10.

The HBO drama “True Blood” remains among the most inclusive series on television, featuring six characters, tied with the Showtime series “Shameless,” the group found.

Some of TV’s most popular shows “weave story lines about gay and lesbian characters into the fabric of the show,” said GLAAD acting President Mike Thompson. “Americans expect to see the diversity of our country represented in their favorite programs, and that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”

Singer, activist and breast cancer survivor Melissa Etheridge received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame on Tuesday, an event she hopes can be an inspiration to anyone facing adversity or dreaming of a better life.

Etheridge, 50, who is known for her fusion of folk-blues rock in hits like “Come to My Window,” was greeted by hundreds of fans outside the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood as she unveiled her coveted star.

“Let my life be an inspiration to anyone, gay, straight, breast cancer, woman, mother, any human being who receives the inspiration from my story,” said Etheridge at the unveiling that took place in conjunction with the launch of a “Pinktober” campaign supporting breast cancer research.

“You can have a dream that you can grown up in a small Midwestern town and believe, and desire, and create a life and end up with a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard,” she said.

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres called paramedics on Monday after feeling pains and tightness in her chest, but jokingly brushed off the incident, saying she had a “baboon heart” and admitting she wasn’t sure what caused the discomfort.

“Everything is fine. I don’t know what it is but it’s fine,” DeGeneres told her TV audience, hours after getting checked out. Her remarks were taped on Monday and will be broadcast on Tuesday’s “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”.

Rumors over the health of the comedian flew around the Internet on Monday after celebrity website TMZ.com said that paramedics had been called to the studio near Los Angeles where DeGeneres tapes her show after she complained of chest pains. She was not hospitalized.

Controversial NBC show “Playboy Club” now has even more reason to generate buzz: One of its actors came out of the closet Monday.

Sean Maher, who plays a character of the same first name on the television drama, told Entertainment Weekly exclusively that he’s been keeping a big secret for the 14 years he has worked in Hollywood.

“I’ve never discussed it publicly,” Maher said of his sexuality. “I’ve never been asked about it publicly, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t paint a different picture.”

The father of two adopted children, who appeared in the 2002 program “Firefly,” resides with his partner of nearly nine years in southern California.

“It’s so liberating,” Maher told the publication. “It was interesting to be coming to have a conversation that I was always afraid to have … This is my coming out ball. I’ve been dying to do this.”

Maher comes forward about being gay at a time when highly publicized, popular TV shows like “Glee” feature, and often embrace, homosexuality, but even the 90s didn’t come with the same kind of representation. When Maher graduated from New York University in 1997 and relocated to the city of angels, he was advised to date women for his image.

Former “The L Word” star Leisha Hailey complained in a stream of Twitter messages on Monday that she and a girlfriend were kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight in a dispute over their kissing on a plane.

Hailey, 40, tweeted that a flight attendant had told her that Southwest “was a ‘family’ airline and kissing was not ok,” and that she and her companion were then “escorted off the plane for getting upset about the issue.”

“SouthwestAir endorses homophobic employees,” she tweeted. “Since when is showing affection toward someone you love illegal? I want to know what Southwest Airlines considers a ‘family.’”

She went on to tweet: “Boycott SouthwestAir if you are gay. They don’t like us.”

Hailey, who starred on Showtime network’s “The L Word” as Alice, a bisexual magazine writer and radio host, also demanded a public apology.

The airline issued a statement saying initial reports it received about the incident “indicate that we received several passenger complaints characterizing the behavior as excessive.”

“Our crew, responsible for the comfort of all customers on board, approached the passengers based solely on behavior and not gender,” the airline said. “The conversation escalated to a level that was better resolved on the ground, as opposed to in flight.”

The statement concluded: “We regret any circumstance where a passenger does not have a positive experience on Southwest and we are ready to work directly with the passengers involved to offer our heartfelt apologies for falling short of their expectation.”

An airline spokesman declined to comment beyond the prepared statement.

DC Comics is planning to debut a gay teen superhero in Teen Titans known as Bunker, a hero who possesses the power to create small brick-like force fields.

Teen Titan artist Brett Booth posted a description of the character (known as “The Wall” in the solicitation text) by series writer Scott Lobdell on his blog:

“His real name is Miguel Jose Barragan. He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar. He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested. To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment. He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life.”

News of DC Comics’ teen superhero, who will be introduced in November’s Issue 3, comes after the comic company said it would create “a more modern, diverse DC Universe” with the New 52.