http://chicagoboystown.com

Showtime's new reality series "The Real L Word" focuses on six real (well, semi-real) Los Angeles lipstick lesbians. Now there's an adorable online webisode featuring a young woman who didn't make the cut: 23-year-old Natalie. In the webisode, Natalie shares "things you should know upfront": she kisses her dog, her cat is crazy, and there's 20 year difference in age between her and her partner. They talk about how they met,...

Country music star Chely Wright says coming out lesbian has allowed her to "come together." Sunday's Chicago Gay Pride Parade will feature the 39-year-old singer-songwriter as grand marshal. Wright came out gay in an interview with People magazine in May. In that interview, Wright called her coming out "magical" and revealed that she once believed she could alter her sexual orientation by praying it away. Wright, who releas...

Utah State Rep. Christine Johnson is leaving Utah and the state legislature after a very dramatic year. Johnson made waves in conservative Utah earlier this year when she revealed that she was carrying a baby as a surrogate mom for a gay couple. She has since had the baby boy and he's happily at home with his two dads. Johnson is moving to South Carolina to be the executive director of South Carolina Equality. Her teenage daughter is moving t...

Six gay activists were arrested Saturday attempting to hold an unsanctioned gay pride rally in St. Petersburg, Russia. About 30 gay rights activists gathered in a public courtyard within the city's State Hermitage Museum and chanted "Homophobia the shame of the country" and "Marriage rights without compromises." Police quickly swooped in to collar six people, who offered little resistance. The demonstration comes after St. ...

The Chicago Cubs have made the bold decision to enlist "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks to represent the team at the 41st annual Chicago Pride Parade this Sunday at Noon. The Cubbies will have a float decked out in a brick-and-ivy motif like Wrigley Field's outfield wall. Wrigley Field is located in Lakeview and shares the same neighborhood as Boystown, Chicago's LGBT neighborhood. This will be the first time the team has participated in the Ch...

Chicago Pride Fest, a two-day prelude to Sunday's 41st annual Chicago Pride Parade, kicked off Friday afternoon on a near perfect Summer afternoon in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. Now in it's eighth year, the street fest will showcase a large assortment of vendors, arts, food and an eclectic line-up of entertainment on two stages, including one dedicated to some of Chicago's favorite performers in the LGBT community. Organizers of Pride Fest...

Ronnie Kroell, a finalist from season one of Bravo's Make Me a Supermodel and cover model for the June issue of Playgirl magazine, returned to celebrate Pride weekend in his hometown of Chicago. The 27-year-old Chicago native returned to an energetic crowd of friends and fans as he hosted the ChicagoPride.com 8th anniversary party at Roscoe's, 3356 N. Halsted. "It's so nice to be home and working with my friends at ChicagoPride.com," ...

A federal judge has ruled that an anti-gay Wisconsin evangelist will be allowed to hand out bibles and anti-gay literature during Minneapolis' huge LGBT Pride Fest this weekend. Brian Johnson had been a fixture at Twin Cities Pride Fest for years, until last summer, when he was denied a permit for a booth. He showed up anyway and was arrested. This year, Pride Fest attorneys attempted to get an emergency restraining order against him. Since t...

A judge is expected to rule Friday on whether an anti-gay evangelist from Wisconsin can hand out bibles during the Twin Cities Pride celebration in Minneapolis on Saturday. The organizers of the event, the third largest LGBT pride celebration in the country, denied Brian Johnson a vendor's permit. Johnson has a long history with the Twin Cities Pride festival. For years, he had a vendor's permit and handed out anti-gay literature and bibles. ...

The new issue of the Village Voice is "The Queer Issue" and the coverboys are Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Vinny Guadagino from "Jersey Shore." The headline below their picture reads: "The Guido Ideal: MTV's surprise hit accents the real situation/Jersey shore on the down low." The thing is, the men of "Jersey Shore" are (ostensibly) straight and they were apparently n...

A 10-year-old boy whose campaign for equal rights has garnered national attention will be the Grand Marshal of Northwest Arkansas' Pride Parade. Last year, Will Phillips decided he just couldn't stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance at school, because our country does not yet offer "liberty and justice for all." "It's wrong for anyone to be treated differently just because of the way they are born," he said. "I'm a pers...

Cheers, laughter and applause greeted President Obama as he talked about gay rights with an agreeable crowd during a White House reception in honor of LGBT Pride Month. "We've got a lot of hard work that we still have to do, but we can already point to extraordinary progress that we've made over the past year on behalf of Americans who are gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender," said President Obama. The crowd was loaded with prom...

The Chicago Blackhawks are bringing the Stanley Cup to the 41st annual Chicago Pride Parade on Sunday, June 27th. The National Hockey League champions have accepted an invitation from the Chicago Gay Hockey Association to be part of the gay Pride Parade. Brent Sopel, a Blackhawks defenseman, and his family will carry the Stanley Cup before a huge crowd. "I'm honored to do it," Sopel told the Chicago Sun-Times' Michael Sneed. The ...

Organizers of Chicago Pride Fest have announced the addition of a third entertainment stage to be located on Waveland Avenue between Halsted and Broadway. The all-new DJ entertainment stage, sponsored by Scarlet, will feature Scarlet's DJ lineup including CrossFader Kings' Matt Roan, DJ Katy, DJ Nick Phoenix, DJ dolo, Michigan's DJ Jimmy B, Madison's Tony R and more. DJ's will be pumping tunes from 4 to 10 on Friday night and 1 to 10 on Saturd...

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee says he opposes gay marriage, in part, because of the "ick factor," and that God created marriage for straight people. A just published The New Yorker profile on the former Baptist minister and 2012 presidential hopeful includes many of his greatest hits on why he's opposed to being gay, giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry, and children being raised by gay couples. The piece rejects...

In his annual Father's Day proclamation on Sunday, President Barack Obama praised biological fathers, father-figures and to families with two gay fathers. "Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step father, a grandfather, or caring guardian," Obama said. President Obama's nod to gay families in yesterday's remarks commemorating Father's Day, is the fir...

Tuesday is going to be quite a day at the White House, as President Obama welcomes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists to a special reception in honor of Pride month. One of the guests will be 18-year-old Constance McMillen of Mississippi, who made headlines earlier this year when school officials refused to let her take her girlfriend to the prom. She eventually transferred to a different school. "I'll never get my sen...

Set your DVR: on Sunday night at 10pm, Showtime will introduce the world's first lesbian reality show, "The Real L Word." The show follows six lipstick lesbians around Los Angeles as they go about their lives. They were clearly chosen by the same agents who cast every show, with backgrounds and issues meant to cause drama and trouble. The cast includes Rose (a Latina real estate advisor), Mikey (a workaholic marketing director), Nikki...

President Obama supports lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the military, but he will veto a bill that has a DADT repeal inside it, if he doesn't like the rest of the legislation. On FOX News Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Obama is not going to pay for C-17 cargo plane or new engines for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, no matter what other bait is in the bill. "It would be a very serious mistake to believe that ...

Ronnie Kroell, a finalist from season one of Bravo's Make Me a Supermodel and cover model for the June issue of Playgirl magazine, will return home to Chicago to celebrate Pride. The 27-year-old Chicago native is returning to host the 8th anniversary party for ChicagoPride.com on Thursday, June 24th from 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. at Roscoe's, 3356 N. Halsted. "I am going to have an incredible time with my friends as we celebrate and support the wo...