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the article reports on Cuban politician Mariela Castro Espín. Homosexuality was a criminal offense in Cuba until 1979 and open displays of same-sex affection were dangerous. Mariela is the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro and the director of the government operated National Center for Sex Education. Espín is an advocate of gay rights and often works to help gay people that have been arrested on false charges such as loitering and prostitution as well as to help pass legislation like the resolution enabling transgender people to have sex-reassignment surgery for free in 2008.

The article profiles former Australian rugby player turned actor Ian Roberts. Roberts has appeared in several films including "Little Fish," "Superman Returns," and "Kiss Me Deadly: A Jacob Keane Assignment," which he just finished shooting in New Zealand. Roberts came out of the closet officially in 1995, and in the process became the only major international male athlete in team sports to come out while still playing at the elite level. He discusses how he maintains his physical fitness and why he became an actor.

The article profiles former Marine Eric Alva. Alva, the first soldier to be wounded in the Iraq War, is gay, and has become an activist for gays in the military. After losing a leg to a roadside bomb Alva was embraced as an American hero; he was photographed with U.S. President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the singer Sheryl Crow. Four years after his injury, Alva came out on "Good Morning America." He has testified before Congress in support of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a bill that would allow gays in the military. He has since appeared on a number of television programs and in front of gay rights groups. INSET: ABOUT THIS SPECIAL REPORT.

The article describes the kidnapping of Canadian peace activist James Loney by Iraqi insurgents. Loney knew he would be killed if his Iraqi captors found out he is gay. The night before he was due to leave Toronto, Ontario for Baghdad, his longtime partner, Dan Hunt, held him close in the darkness of their bedroom. Loney was making his third trip to Iraq as a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, an ecumenical Christian organization opposed to violence and dedicated to spreading peace. Loney and his fellow hostages were rescued on March 23, 2006 by allied forces.

This article presents a story by author Terry McMillan on discovering the homosexuality of her husband Jonathan Plummer. They were married in Maui, Hawaii in September 1988. On October 4, 2005 McMillan and Plummer's seven-year marriage was over. Mcmillan claims she had been planning to divorce him as early as May 2002, when she discovered that he had taken large sums of money from her checking account. Plummer chose to take their divorce to the media, granting interviews to reveal their dispute about his sexuality and their marriage.

This article discusses how Canadian children's network television series "Degrassi: The Next Generation" explores gay themes by having a major teen character come out--and fall in love with a classmate. Adamo Ruggiero and John Bregar discuss their roles as gay teenage boyfriends. The actors clearly share a rapport that transcends their roles, and they approach the show's theme with maturity and nonchalance. "Degrassi," from its earliest incarnation, has been unapologetically Canadian. Part of making the stories of the show involved tackling social issues that were relevant to the postmillennial adolescent experience, according to creator and producer Linda Schuyler. This meant, among other themes, gay themes.

This article focuses on a gay model Scott Merritt, chosen as the "30th-Anniversary Man," for the magazine "Playgirl." Merritt has been surprised by his selection by the magazine. Like many extraordinarily handsome men, especially those you first meet in magazines, he's slighter and somehow more accessible in person. In his photo spread in the June 2003 issue of the magazine, his eyes are the same vivid blue as in the photographs, but they have a new warmth and immediacy. Merritt looks exactly the way you'd want a centerfold to look off duty: hot enough to inspire fantasy but real enough to make you want to take him in your arms and kiss him with all the passion his printed image was crafted to evoke. Merritt had E-mailed his photograph in to the magazine, and when he was selected, he was flown to Miami and photographed. Even by Playgirl's standards, the resulting images were stunning: clean, elegant, classically masculine but not aggressively sexual. Contacted in New York, Playgirl editor in chief Michele Zipp acknowledges that Merritt's coming-out is a surprise. She didn't know he was gay, but she doesn't have a problem with a model being gay or coming out, and I don't know why anyone would.

In the motion picture 'Soldier's Girl,' actors Troy Garity and Lee Pace take on the real-life romance between military personnel Barry Winchell and transgendered entertainer Calpernia Addams, an affair that led to Winchell's brutal murder. Garity was powerfully affected by the story of Barry Winchell's short life and brutal death. While the explanations remain mostly speculative, the affair provoked Winchell's roommate Justin Fisher to what appeared to be an obsessive, jealousfury. The story featured in mass media worldwide, as much for theunprecedented savagery of the attack as for the other elements, the increasingly desperate failure of the Army's profoundly homophobic “don't ask, don't tell” policy, the prurient hint of forbidden sexual and romantic scandal. The film's script is the fruit of a long fascination with Winchell's life and death on the part of screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, who encountered the story in 2000 in one of the magazine articles detailing the murder and its aftermath. Pace seamlessly created the illusion that he was Addams, and he was rarely seen without the three hours' worth of prosthetics and makeup it took to turn him into a preoperative transsexual. Addams — who didn't consider Winchell gay and says Winchell didn't think of himself in those terms either — visited the sets of the film during the shooting.

The article presents an interview with the starcast of the television series 'Queer as Folks' Robert Gant and Peter Paige during shooting for the third season of the show. According to Paige and Gant, the show has made them reassess their goals and values. Characters played by Paige and Gant reveal the extremes of being feminine and masculine. The show has forced gays to confront vital issues such as HIV-positive and HIV-negative relationships, drug use, ageism, and fidelity. The show brings up the issue of caring for your health among gay and HIV infected men. Gant, following his contribution to the show, has become a part of Senior Action in a Gay Environment, a New York-based but nationally focused group of activists. The show has received a positive response from gay community.

Presents information from a conversation with 'Queer As Folk's' Gale Harold in the United States. Ambivalence toward the fame achieved for playing the character of Brian Kinney; Story of the casting in the show; Observation of the presence of homophobia in the community.

Details the conversation with out gay actor Peter Paige who plays Emmett in the American television program 'Queer As Folk.' Difference between the actor and the character; Insight on the depiction of gays by Emmett; Personal background; Impact of the character on Paige's career.

The article offers information on the book Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, a biography of U.S. actress Katharine Hepburn by William J. Mann. According to the author, he would consider transgender a better way to understand Hepburn than anything else. His biography explores with unprecedented frankness the star's fluid sexuality and gender identification. Mann sheds new light on Hepburn's complex relationships with gay or closeted bisexual men, including her legendary love, Spencer Tracy, who, Mann reveals, was at least bisexual in terms of his sexual attractions and interactions.

This article features actress Jennifer Tilly. When Universal Pictures received out gay director Don Mancini's first draft of Seed of Chucky, the sequel to his 1998 blockbuster, Bride of Chucky, its response was less than euphoric. The phenomenal success of Bride of Chucky is generally attributed to Tilly. Tilly's character in the film died a spectacular death in Bride, when Chucky knocked the TV set into Tiffany's bathtub as she watched Bride of Frankenstein before sending her soul into the bride doll of the movie's title. The introduction of Tilly's character as the doll Tiffany revitalized the then-decade-old Child's Play franchise with the general public. It also struck a surprising note with gay audiences, who have been badly served by the horror genre, with its rigid formula of male aggressor, female victim, and no gender ambiguity. When the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival gave her an award two years ago, she watched Bride with a gay audience that laughed in all the right places. Getting love from the gay crowd is nothing new for Tilly. Her roles tend to be almost exaggerated caricatures of femininity in a way that gay audiences have historically embraced and celebrated. Bride of Chucky had a very prominent gay sensibility. Seed of Chucky goes even further because of Glen, Chucky's gender-confused child. In this latest outing, Tilly not only reprises her role as the voice of Chucky's bride doll, she also plays herself--Jennifer Tilly--making a film about the murderous dolls of urban legend. She soon finds herself stalked, not only by Chucky and his bride but also by their sexually ambiguous son, Glen. For her part, Tilly finds it thought-provoking to play the mother--however plasticized--of a gender-dysphoric child.

Profiles actor Garret Dillahunt of the showtime series Leap Years in the United States. Career background; Views on sex on television; Roles played.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Open Book," by Austin Bunn in the May 20, 2008 issue.

The article describes the experience of Dan Hunt, a gay man, after his partner James Loney, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, was kidnapped in November 2005 in Iraq. Hunt could not talk about it for fear of identifying Loney as gay to his radical Islamic captors, who might kill him because of it. Loney was held captive for four months before getting rescued and brought back to Canada on March 26, 2006. He stated that he was still finding it painful to speak publicly about his experience in captivity.

This article focuses on Clive Barker, an author of horror fiction, and his book Visions of Heaven and Hell. According to Barker, part of his education in understanding the paradoxical heavenly and hellish visions came from William Blake, who gave a devil who was smart and full of wise perversities. Barker also references the homoerotic work of the 19th-century French artist M.G. Darré. His works were full of beautiful naked bodies writhing and suffering. Visions of Heaven and Hell serves as a visual memoir.

Presents the author's discussion of the passage of a legislative bill in 2005 that supports same-sex marriage in Canada. Changes in the definition of marriage; Efforts done by Christian politicians to oppose such bill; Information on same-sex marriage as family values.

This article features screenwriter Ron Nyswaner and his memoir Blue Days, Black Nights. Nyswaner is one of Hollywood's top screenwriters, with credits including 1993's Philadelphia, for which he received an Oscar nomination, and Soldier's Girl, Showtime's 2003 Peabody Award-winning drama on the murder of Pfc. Barry Winchell. Out and upstanding on the job, he has long been viewed by gay artists as a symbol of success. But his story's not that simple. For a wrenching period, Nyswaner discloses, he was also what drug addicts call a garbagehead. He functioned in Hollywood with nary a professional ripple to hint at his personal turmoil. Even as Nyswaner was living the days and nights of his addiction, the storyteller in him knew he would write about it. He was determined from the start to tell his story using his own name. In addition to being frank about his addiction to cocaine and crystal meth, Nyswaner honestly relates his consuming need to find the personal completion of romantic love and how the two needs, entwined, nearly strangled him. The book rejects sentiment and self-pity in favor of a thrill ride that transmits the highs as vividly as the horrifying lows. Nyswaner said that he got through the catharsis in therapy and then he set out to write a really entertaining book.

The article focuses on the television career of actor Daniel Petronijevic. This year he's surrounded by football players. The rugged 22-year-old actor will be breaking ground as about-to-be-outed gay football player Thad Guerwitcz on ESPN's first-ever dramatic series, "Playmakers." "When [the producers] approached me on [Thad's gay storyline] I was skeptical," Petronijevic says candidly. "I didn't know if I had enough faith in my own abilities as an actor to do it justice." According to executive producer Orly Adelson, there was never any thought that he couldn't handle it.

The article presents an interview with Queer as Folk executive producers Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman about their television series 'Queer as Folk.' The theme of the show according to the executive producers has been the trajectory of transformation of boys to men. The television series showcases the first HIV-negative & HIV-positive relationship on television. According to Cowen and Lipman, their responsibility is towards the story that they are showcasing. There has been positive response from both straight and gay community members to the program.