Elton John is in a Los Angles hospital being treated for a serious respiratory infection, CNN reports.

The 65-year-old entertainer became ill last weekend in Las Vegas while performing his “Million Dollar Piano” show at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. John returned to Los Angeles to undergo testing at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Wednesday.

“Those tests resulted in the attending Cedars-Sinai physician recommending that Elton not perform any concerts for approximately seven days with complete rest and antibiotic treatment to cure his respiratory infection and prevent any damage,” a statement from the publicist says.

Cher & Rep. Mary Bono Mack Present Award To Chaz Bono At GLAAD Awards

The Advocate reports:

Facebook and Twitter are still buzzing after Chaz Bono’s mother and stepmother made sappearances at Saturday night’s GLAAD Media Awards in Downtown Los Angeles.
Cher, sporting a large afro, joined Republican California congresswoman Mary Bono Mack, the widow of Sonny Bono, in presenting the Stephen F. Kolzak Award to Chaz, who was honored for his contributions to transgender visibility and promotion of LGBT equality.
Also honored at the event, sponsored by LGBT supportive companies like Ketel One, Wells Fargo, and Delta Airlines, wasHunger Games and The Kids Are All Rright star Josh Hutcherson. The actor advocates for pro-LGBT efforts and spoke recently about having two uncles who passed away from AIDS-related complications. Read more about last night’s event here. 

Whitney Houston’s Death Caused by Accidental Drowning And Cocaine Use

The Los Angeles coroner, via USA Today, reports:

Whitney Houston’s death was caused by accidental drowning, cocaine ingestion and heart disease, according to a preliminary report issued today by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Marijuana, anti-anxiety drug Xanax, muscle relaxant Flexeril and over-the-counter allergy medication Benadryl were also found in the singer’s blood, but those substances did not contribute to her death, the report states. No trauma or foul play is suspected, and a final report is expected within two weeks.

CALIFORNIA: Gay-Bashing In Hollywood

Los Angeles Times reports:

Los Angeles police are investigating a possible hate crime against a gay man, who reported he was attacked early Sunday morning in Hollywood. Around 1:30 a.m., the man was approached by three assailants near the intersection of Cahuenga Boulevard and Yucca Street, said Sgt. Sal Ogaz of the Los Angeles Police Dept.’s Hollywood Division. One of the suspects asked the man whether he was gay and, when he said he was, the three attacked him, Ogaz said.

Police: Whitney Houston Was Found Under Water, Unconscious

USA: 70 Big-City Mayors Join Together To Advocate For Same-Sex Marriage

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The mayors of several big cities, including Chicago, New York, Boston and Los Angeles, are joining together to support same-sex marriage rights, a move that could put additional pressure on President Barack Obama to do the same. The effort is being organized by Freedom to Marry, an advocacy group that plans a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C.„ featuring mostly Democratic mayors and one Republican, Jerry Sanders of San Diego. Like others, Mr. Sanders has stated his views before, but organizers hope that their effort to join some 70 mayors together will give the issue a political boost.

“By joining the group, mayors hope to expand public and political support for ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage,” the mayors’ group said in a statement. The mayors planning to attend Friday’s news conference include Annise Parker of Houston, Thomas Menino of Boston, Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma, Wash. Michael Bloomberg of New York and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, Mr. Obama’s first White House chief of staff, have also joined the effort.

UPDATE: Freedom To Marry just released this impressive list. If your mayor does not appear on the list, send him/her this statement to join.

LOS ANGELES: Porn Producers Threaten To Leave The City After Condom Vote

The Advocate reports:

Some of the major players of Los Angeles’s adult film industry say they will take their productions out of town if the city council enforces the mandatory use of condoms on film sets.

Last week, the Los Angeles city council approved an ordinance sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AFH) that would deny film permits to productions that violated the already-on-the-books law requiring the use of condoms.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how in fact they do try to enforce [the law] and who’s going to fund it, and all of the time and effort they’re going to spend,” said Steven Hirsch, co-founder of adult entertainment company Vivid, who predicts that the new ordinance will cause producers to take their film shoots out of the city.

Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel, agreed. “The only thing that the city could potentially achieve is losing some film permit money and driving some productions away, but you can’t actually compel an industry to create a product that the market doesn’t want,” he said.

“Let’s make one thing clear,” said AHF spokesman Ged Kenslea, “Condom use on adult film sets is, and has been, the law in California under blood-borne pathogens regulations,” he said. “It is just a law that has not been uniformly enforced or followed. This film permit ordinance that the city council approved today provides another enforcement mechanism to make sure that adult film producers are complying with existing California law.”

The measure needs to be approved by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa before it can be put into effect.

Read more here.

LOS ANGELES: City Council Adopts Condom Requirement For Porn

Joe.My.God. reports:

The Los Angeles City Council has approved a measure requiring the use of condoms in all porn productions. Via press release from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation:

In an historic move, during today’s City Council meeting, the Los Angeles City Council adopted the proposed ordinance, ‘City of Los Angeles Safer Sex In The Adult Film Industry Act,’ a ballot initiative that has recently qualified to be placed on the June 5, 2012 election despite legal action by Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich to block the measure from appearing before City voters on the ballot. The ballot measure would condition the issuance of City film permits to adult film producers to condom use in the subsequent adult films shot and produced in Los Angeles.

Today’s news probably makes the ballot measure moot. The LA City Attorney had filed a suit against the referendum, arguing that the state is the supreme authority in workplace safety.

LOS ANGELES: Elderly Marriage Activist Dies Waiting For Prop 8 To Be Overturned

Joe.My.God. reports:

Ed Watson, above left, has died at the age of 78. Watson made national news this year when he expressed his hope that he would be allowed to marry before Alzheimer’s Disease robbed him of the ability to recognize Derence, his partner of 40 years.

Gay rights activists lamented Watson’s death as a reminder of the harm inflicted on same-sex couples throughout the state because they are denied the right to marry. “It’s ironic that he died on the eve of appeals about peripheral issues around a case that should have been settled more than a year ago,” said Richard Jacobs, chairman and founder of the gay rights advocacy group Courage Campaign, as he was en route to San Francisco for a hearing before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “None of this will matter to Ed or Derence.”

Here’s the clip the couple made in March.

West Hollywood: Christian Activist Heckles Obama, Calls Him The Anti-Christ

The Advocate reports:

President Obama was serenaded by the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Choir and heckled by a religious protester all in the same night. 

“Jesus Christ is God, Barack Obama is the antichrist!” screamed the man as he was hauled away from the event, according to a pool report.

But that didn’t stop the campaign fundraiser at the House of Blues from continuing. Gay actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson of ABC’s Modern Family played host for the event and introduced the president to the West Hollywood crowd. 

“The end of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ is the signature achievement of our time,” Ferguson reportedly told the fired up audience before Obama arrived to make his case for a jobs bill while promising more work to be done.

Also in attendance were California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom and West Hollywood mayor John Duran.

According to Joe Jervis, Pastor David Serrano is also known for disrupting local government meetings with screams about the apocalypse and God’s Vengeful Earthquakes.

Picture Caption: The protester is escorted away.

Tomlin-Narrated Bullying Doc Screening In LA

The Advocate reports:

A documentary on LGBT bullying in America’s schools, narrated by Lily Tomlin and featuring the mother of a teen who killed himself, will screen next month at Hollywood’s Sunset Gower Studios. 

Teach Your Children Wellexplores the issue of bullying and violence against LGBT children. Wendy Walsh, the California mother of 13-year-old Seth, who committed suicide in 2010 as a result of bullying, appears in the film. 

Tomlin says she got involved with the documentary because she personally saw the effects of bullying.

“I had a brother who was the object of tremendous harassment and intolerance, and he really suffered as a teenager, because of it,” Tomlin said in a release. “I’m proud to be a part of this film. I hope it will educate people to, as the title says, ‘teach your children well,’ and maybe eradicate this kind of prejudice.”

Teach Your Children Well will screen at the Sunset Gower Studios October 16 as part of Kat Kramer’s Films That Change the World, a series that highlights socially relevant films. The movie will then screen in November at the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival. Click here for more information on the movie.  

The Advocate reports:

A federal bankruptcy court in Los Angeles ruled Monday that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional in relation to a case involving a gay couple who filed for bankruptcy in February.
The ruling was signed by 20 of the 25 judges in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.
Metro Weekly reports that Gene Balas and Carlos Morales, who were legally married in California in 2008, filed for bankruptcy protection under Title 11 of the U.S. Code. The couple had been struggling financially after dealing with serious illnesses and unemployment. The United States Trustee moved to dismiss this case, citing DOMA.
Under the direction of President Obama, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the day before Balas and Morales’s bankruptcy filing that it would no longer defend DOMA in court. While the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group has decided to defend DOMA in court on the government’s behalf, it did not intervene in this case.
“In the court’s final analysis, the government’s only basis for supporting DOMA comes down to an apparent belief that the moral views of the majority may properly be enacted as the law of the land in regard to state-sanctioned same-sex marriage in disregard of the personal status and living conditions of a significant segment of our pluralistic society,” the court wrote. “Such a view is not consistent with the evidence or the law as embodied in the Fifth Amendment with respect to the thoughts expressed in this decision. The court has no doubt about its conclusion: the Debtors have made their case persuasively that DOMA deprives them of the equal protection of the law to which they are entitled.”

These are the maps that show the racial breakdown of America’s biggest  cities.

• Red : White,
• Blue is Black,
• Green is Asian,
• Orange is Hispanic,
• Gray is Other,
• And each dot represents 25 people

Diversity, Isn’t it beautiful?

Note: Thanks to my friend Joji for sharing.