Tuesday night roundup.

* Just posted to MetaFilter for the first time in a long time: Tomorrow, Obama will extend federal employee benefits to same-sex partners. But is it too little, too late to mend the growing rift between Obama and gay rights advocates, especially after last week's controversial (to say the least) DOMA brief? From my perspective it's a very small first step in the right direction, but very small—until the Lieberman-Baldwin Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act passes Congress it won't even cover health benefits.

* Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles.

* Alex Pareene's new blog reports that everyone is trying to kill you.

* Let UNC tell you how old your body is. More here and here.

* Busted-up Pokémon.

The Supreme Court turned down a challenge to Don't Ask Don't Tell today, a decision Ben Smith called "a win for an administration that's promised gay and lesbian allies it will end "don't ask, don't tell" on its own timetable." That's an interesting way to put it. To me a "win" on DADT would be more like, you know, Obama actually abolishing it. See also. What on Earth is the holdup here?

UPDATE: Bioware has now apologized.

Homosexuality does not exist in the Star Wars universe, according to Bioware, the developers of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the new Star Wars MMO...

Would-be players were discussing in the MMO's forums how the game might handle future gay and lesbian relationships - and Bioware freaked out, shutting down those discussion threads and banning the words "gay," "lesbian" and "homosexual." Says community manager Sean Dahlberg:

As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars.

Thread closed.

Come now, Sean, aren't we being just a bit naive?

I'm not going to lie. It wasn't easy choosing an accompanying photo for this post.









Given that companies like Bioware are (one assumes) actually trying to make money with their products, it's continually surprising that they degrade and undervalue the importance of slash in fan communities. Why haven't more creators tried to (literally) capitalize on this interest? Aside from J.K. Rowling (who generally stuck to heterosexual coupling, the notable case of Dumbledore excepted) and Smallville (which for years injected a heavy slash subtext into the relationship of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor), SF franchises largely remain terrified of open acknowledgment of their own queerness, much less embracing fans' noncanonical slash repurposing of the work.

I'm telling you, there's money to be made here.

A judge on Tuesday ruled that a strict Florida law that blocks gay people from adopting children is unconstitutional, declaring there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting. Yes, yes, yes. No moral reason, no practical reason, no good reason, no reason, period.

The California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved gay marriage ban Thursday in a ruling that would make the nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings. Great news; only forty-eight to go.