1. Is the NFL blacklisting former New York Jets and Arizona Cardinals player and current free agent Kerry Rhodes because he's gay? Deadspin and their sources think that's exactly what's happening: "Free agent safety Kerry Rhodes was more or less outed by Media Takeout during the offseason (the pictures that MTO posted of him with another man appear to have been scrubbed from the site). He still hasn't found a job. This is fucked up, because Kerry Rhodes is good. In fact, by many metrics, he's very good." Rhodes, for the record, says he's not gay.
2. The tenaciously, pathetically anti-gay Family Research Council is calling on its minions to boycott Betty Crocker after the baked goods company donated wedding cake to three same-sex couples in Minnesota. Maybe this weekend we should stage a counter protest by partaking in some Super Moist this weekend?
3. The FIT Museum's latest show, "A Queer History of Fashion: From the Closet to the Catwalk," showing from tomorrow until January 4, 2014, features plenty of Levi's and leather and kilts and bustiers and 300-years worth of other sartorial creations inspired by, adopted by, or made by LGBT people. The New York Times reports: "Covering three centuries through 100 garments, 'Queer History of Fashion' identifies and chronicles the hidden-in-plain-sight presence of 'queers' (the curators' preferred term) -- from the flamboyant 18th-century personages known as mollies, to 20th-century avatars of butch lesbian elegance, gay clones, drag queens and marquee designers whose open-secret sexuality was long kept concealed."
4. Texas's refusal to grant a same-sex couple a divorce may be the spark in the next battle for marriage equality.
5. Two-time Olympic gold medal-winner Seth Wescott, an American snowboarder, said Russia's anti-gay laws threaten to create an "incredibly negatively-overshadowed Olympics." He also described homophobic discrimination as a "crime" and said that LGBT Olympians "should be able to be who they are and compete proudly." The 37-year-old went on, "They represent our country incredibly well and they don't need to be the object of that kind of criticism and negativity denounced Russia's homophobic laws."
6. Idris Elba and Naomie Harrie play Nelson and Winnie Mandela in the upcoming biopic about ANC leader Nelson's fight against apartheid, his imprisonment on Robben Island, and his eventual "Long Walk to Freedom" to the South African presidency.
