Tom Ford has branded as “disgusting” the ban on gay marriage in parts of the United States and elsewhere in the world.

The designer, who is openly gay, used a Venice press conference for his feature film debut “A Single Man” starring Colin Firth to criticize decisions like that in California in November banning same-sex marriage. He did, however, add that his movie, which is in competition at the Venice film festival was not about being gay at all, but about the human condition in general.

“It is, I have to say, quite disgusting that in America and in other countries you cannot have a civil union or something equivalent to marriage,” said the 48-year-old.

“I have someone I’ve lived together with for 23 years. Recently he was in hospital for something. I had to carry papers on me at all times that he had signed saying that I could visit him in his room and make medical decisions for him if anything happened. Our taxes, by the way: if I died tomorrow my estate would be completely taxed and then the remainder go to him whereas if we were a couple his life wouldn’t have to change and my entire estate would move to him. There are things that are wrong with our legal systems in a lot of countries.”

Now that Miss USA beauty pageant runner-up Carrie Prejean has been ousted as Miss California, what is next for the college student who became a poster woman for supporters of traditional marriage? It has been a tumultuous couple of months for Prejean, ever since her televised answer in response to a question about gay marriage, in which she said that she does not agree with it.

Miss California pageant officials say that the 22-year-old Prejean’s firing has nothing to do with her political stance on gay marriage (even though they disagree with it) and everything to do with her violating her contract and refusing to make appearances. For her part, Prejean told celebrity news website TMZ.com on Wednesday that her elimination by pageant officials was, indeed, political.

“They don’t agree with the stance that I took …” Prejean told TMZ. “They don’t like me. From day one they wanted me out and they got what they wanted.”

A spokeswoman for Prejean was not immediately available.

Gay rights advocates describe Prejean as simply a telegenic spokeswoman for discrimination. But she also has her supporters among conservatives, who call her public support for traditional marriage brave. As a result of the gay marriage controversy, her public profile has far outstripped that of Miss USA, Kristen Dalton of North Carolina. Will Prejean’s being stripped of her title by Miss California pageant organizers simply raise her profile more than if she had kept the sash?

Back in April, Prejean signed on with the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, to appear in a political television advertisement that re-broadcast her comment about gay marriage. But at the time, Prejean made it clear that her appearance in the TV spot did not mean she was a spokeswoman for the organization. Following her firing as Miss California, the National Organization for Marriage said that “Carrie will be free to define her own mission and message from now on.”

Does that mean that she will once again take to the airwaves to support traditional marriage? If so, will her views have a real effect on the national debate over gay marriage? Or will she just be another pretty face?

So Miss California Carrie Prejean gets to keep her crown.

While Prejean, 21, hit the headlines last month for her opposition to gay marriage, it was the emergence of topless photos of the beauty queen that threw her reign into doubt.

At a packed news conference in New York City on Tuesday, Miss USA pageant owner Donald Trump said he had viewed the photos, some of which he described as beautiful and others as risque, and deemed them acceptable.

Prejean said some of the photos — showing her topless but covering her breasts — were taken by a friend for applications for modeling agencies and not for publication. Others that showed her baring her breasts were taken on a windy cliff when she was not aware that she was being photographed, she said.

It was Prejean’s views on gay marriage, and the strident reaction to them, that threw her into the national spotlight in the midst of heated debates over same-sex weddings, which have recently been legalized in five U.S. states but banned in a California referendum in November.

Prejean expressed her opposition to gay marriage last month while answering a question from gay celebrity blogger and judge Perez Hilton at the Miss USA pageant where she came second. She said her answer cost her the Miss USA crown.

“I exercised my freedom of speech and I was punished for doing so. This should not happen in America. It undermines the constitutional rights for which my grandfather fought (in World War Two),” an emotional Prejean told reporters.

“I believe no one should be silenced if they are speaking from their heart. I am a model. I am a Christian,” she said, adding that she forgave everyone who had attacked her for her anti-gay marriage opinions.

Prejean also said she had received an enormous amount of support for her views.

“For everyone out there listening, do not be silenced,” Prejean said. “Take this story of mine and apply it to your own life. I hope I inspired others to maintain compassion, civility respect and tolerance while staying true to your convictions.”

Should Miss California have kept her crown? What do you think about her views on gay marriage?

For Miss California, first there was the gay marriage controversy. Then it was the breast implant flap. Now it’s the “semi-nude” photo imbroglio. And that last one could be the one that causes the Miss California pageant organizers to strip Carrie Prejean of her sash.

Keith Lewis, co-director of the Miss California USA pageant, said in a statement on Wednesday that he was “absolutely stunned” to learn there were four photos circulating on the Internet of Prejean in her underwear with no top. Apparently, he believed there was only one photo out there. All the photos were taken long before Prejean became Miss California, and they are apparently taken in the style of a Victoria Secret advertising spread.

“This completely changes things for us,” Lewis said. “Yesterday, we thought she had explained things accurately. We need to revisit this issue with her.”

On Wednesday, business magnate Donald Trump, the owner of the Miss USA pageant, told Los Angeles radio station KISSFM that he planned to review the racy pictures of Prejean and that a decision could come on Wednesday or Thursday on whether to take away her sash.

A spokeswoman for Prejean was not immediately available.

The emergence of racy photos has created problems for other beauty pageant winners, including former Miss America Vanessa Williams, who in 1984 relinquinshed the crown because organizers of the pageant were upset over erotic photos of her circulating at the time. Of course, that’s all a distant memory for Williams, whose career as a singer, model and actress has thrived, and who these days enjoys a starring role on ABC comedy “Ugly Betty”

Prejean, a Christian college student, has many fans, especially among supporters of traditional marriage who have praised her for rejecting gay marriage during the question-and-answer segment of the Miss USA pageant last month. The Miss California pageant organizers have made no secret of their disappointment in those remarks. And all the while, the controversy has pitted conservative Christians against gay rights advocates.

Could being stripped of the Miss California sash only help Prejean’s profile? The verdict awaits.

In a sign of how controversial Miss California’s campaign against gay marriage has become, the organizers of the Miss California pageant say they have been targeted from both gay rights advocates and foes of same-sex unions, with the former slamming them for not denouncing their tiara-holder Carrie Prejean more forcefully and the latter targeting them for distancing themselves from the comments at all.

“We’ve gotten it from both sides,” the openly gay Keith Lewis, co-executive director of the Miss California pageant, told Reuters.

Organizers of the Miss California pageant are likely to have their phone ringing even more now, after Lewis went on CBS program “The Early Show” on Friday and said that before the Miss USA pageant, in which Prejean finished second, his group helped her get breast implants in an attempt to propel her to the Miss USA crown, as had been reported earlier this week.

“The Early Show” co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez asked Lewis, “Can you settle this once and for all? Did you pay for or help pay for Miss California’s breast implants?”

“We assisted when Carrie came to us and voiced the interest in having the procedure done, yes,” Lewis responded.

Lewis had previously told Reuters that his group only supported Prejean’s decision to have the surgery, and he would not say who paid for it.

Regardless of who paid, the fact that Lewis and model Shanna Moakler, co-executive director of Miss California, have talked about Prejean’s surgery on TV points to how much of a rift has emerged between them and Miss California, after she said in response to a question during the Miss USA pageant that she did not agree with gay marriage. The Miss California pageant organizers have also criticized Prejean’s comments in media statements, but they have stopped short of saying they would strip her of her Miss California crown.

Still, the rebuke that the 21-year-old Prejean has received from the pageant backers pales in comparison to what gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton said about her. It was Hilton, who as a judge at the Miss USA pageant, asked Prejean the question about gay marriage that has made her a hero to many conservatives, and the scorn of gay rights advocates. Afterward, he said in a video blog that if Prejean had been named Miss USA, he would have leapt on stage and ripped the tiara from her head. Those comments even prompted a Miami drag queen to denounce Hilton.

Hilton said he believes that Prejean will capitalize on the controversy, the way some celebrities he follows on his blog have done.

“She’ll probably cash in on this and charge a lot of money to go on the lecture circuit, might possibly write a book and may possibly use that money to get even bigger breast implants than the ones she already has,” Hilton told Reuters.

Prejean announced this week that she will star in a TV ad campaign from the National Organization for Marriage, aimed at convincing voters in states where gay marriage could soon become legal that they should speak out against it. The ads will air in New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and elsewhere.

So in light of the flare-up over Prejean’s comments, it’s worth finding out who she is.

Raised about 10 miles from the coast in the largely conservative town of Vista, California, Prejean is a student at San Diego Christian College, an evangelical school, where she is studying special education, her spokeswoman Melany Ethridge said. For now, her plans are to continue with college, Ethridge said.

Ethridge said that Prejean was not available for an interview.

Last weekend, Prejean received a hero’s welcome when she returned to her mega-church, The Rock.

Lewis told Reuters that he has always known Prejean to be friendly to gays like himself, and that he believes she has more liberal views about gays apart from the gay marriage issue, which he disagrees with her about.

“I would be excited when people really start to flesh out how she feels about civil unions and about civil rights and about a lot of the other issues,” Lewis said.

Some good has come out of the controversy for Lewis. He said that more women than ever before are applying to try out for Miss California this year, with some wanting to promote gay marriage and others wanting to denounce it.

Given that beauty pageants often feature nothing but platitudes, maybe it’s a good thing that this year’s Miss USA has sparked a debate, instead of more empty calls for “world peace.”

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

 Singer Melissa Etheridge has been an outspoken advocate for gay and lesbian rights. But this week the openly lesbian singer had an encounter with a man who has received no love from the gay community, the Rev. Rick Warren. He opposes gay marriage and President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of Warren to give the inauguration invocation has put both men in the crosshairs of controversy. But despite all that, Etheridge wrote in an online blog post on Monday at the Huffington Post that, to her own surprise, she found out that Warren was … her fan.
 
Etheridge and Warren met because he was scheduled to give the keynote address at an inter-faith event organized by a Muslim advocacy group, and Etheridge was to perform there.
    
Etheridge confesses on her blog that at first she thought about canceling her appearance at the event, and then she talked to Warren on the phone. 
 
“He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn’t sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher,” Etheridge wrote.
 
She also reported that Warren said he struggled with Proposition 8, the ballot measure that California voters ultimately approved in November eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry. It’s because of Warren’s support for eliminating that right that he is under fire these days.
    
Etheridge is in a committed relationship with a woman and together the two are raising children. She has repeatedly criticized Proposition 8, going so far as to declare last month that she would not pay her California taxes because the state was not treating her like an equal citizen by denying her the right to marry her partner. But she has nothing but good things to say about Warren, who she described as a thoughtful man of the cloth.
    
“When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future,” she wrote.
    
Etheridge is not the first member of the gay and lesbian community to call for calm in the Warren controversy. But she is one of the most prominent lesbian figure to extend an olive branch to Warren. Will it succeed in calming tensions before the inauguration? We’ll see.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

For months now, Lindsay Lohan has been out in public with gal pal DJ Samantha Ronson, and speculation has swirled around whether the pair are involved in a love affair. Along the way, Lohan has made vague statements about the nature of their relationship that many celebrity watchers have taken as confirmation the two are more than just friends.
    
The most recent entry into the Lohan/Ronson guessing game is an interview Lohan gave to Harper’s Bazaar magazine in which The “Mean Girls” star was still guarded about their relationship.  Below is an excerpt from the interview in which she discusses the topic:

“…’I think it’s pretty obvious who I’m seeing,” Lindsay admits after much, much prodding. “I think it’s no shock to anyone that it’s been going on for quite some time. … She’s a wonderful person and I love her very much.”

“Has she previously been with a girl?  She laughs and says, ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Has she ever been embarrassed about being attracted to a woman? ‘No.’ Would she classify herself as bisexual? ‘Maybe. Yeah.’ Lesbian? ‘No.’ She goes on, ‘I don’t want to classify myself. First of all, you never know what’s going to happen — tomorrow, in a month, a year from now, five years from now. I appreciate people, and it doesn’t matter who they are, and I feel blessed to be able to feel comfortable enough with myself that I can say that.’  She sees herself getting married ‘eventually,’ but whether to a man or a woman, ‘I don’t know.’…” 

Lohan has dated men in the past, including reality star Calum Best and actor/singer Aaron Carter.

Why the interest?  In the gay community, Lohan being “out” is a big deal, if in fact she is a lesbian. (Apparently, from reading above, she doesn’t consider herself one). Hollywood now has many gay and lesbian stars who live their lives out of the closet, but the gay community in entertainment is still waiting for major talent to come out. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres is, for now, perhaps the biggest name to do so.

 So the rumors of a Madonna-orchestrated Britney and Justin reunion were true… kinda.  The former teen sweethearts both performed with the Material Girl during her Thursday night concert in L.A.’s Dodger Stadium, but not together.

In fact, there was at least an hour between their respective appearances, so it’s anybody’s guess whether they even ran into each other backstage.

Brit was first to emerge, joining Madonna early in the night to sing the the last few bars of “Human Nature.” The two women embraced at the end of the performance to wild screams from the crowd, at which point Britney promptly marched offstage. Truth be told, Britney’s performance was so short that if you had blinked you might have missed it.

JT, on the other hand, at least hung out for an entire song. He joined Madonna for “4 Minutes,” a song from her latest album that he co-wrote and produced.

Both Britney and Justin elicited big roars from the audience, but the biggest screams of the night came when the massive screens at the back of the stage flashed images of President-elect Barack Obama. Madonna told the audience that Obama’s victory was a big reason to celebrate, but she also expressed her disappointment that California voters, at the same time, had approved a ban on same-sex marriages.

“If we got an African American in the White House, then we can have gay marriages,” Madonna told the crowd.

Comedian Ellen DeGeneres said she was “saddened beyond belief” at the decision by voters to ban the newly-won rights of gays and lesbians to marry in California.

But singer Melissa Etheridge sounds downright angry.

Etheridge,  47,  who did not get to marry her partner Tammy Lynn Michaels before the Nov 4 ballot,   suggested in a blog post that she would no longer pay her California state taxes because, as a lesbian, she did not now enjoy the same rights as as other Californians.

“Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen,” Etheridge wrote.

DeGeneres and her longtime partner, actress Portia de Rossi, were among the roughly 18,000 gay or lesbian couples who married in California in the five-month honeymoon between same sex marriage becoming legal and then being banned in a ballot initiative known as Proposition 8.

The popular chat show host married de Rossi in August in the most high-profile same sex marriage since such unions were declared legal in California in May.

“I was saddened beyond belief. Here we just had a giant step toward equality and then on the very next day, we took a giant step away,” DeGeneres wrote on her website

“I believe one day a ‘ban on gay marriage’ will sound totally ridiculous. In the meantime, I will continue to speak out for equality for all of us,” she added.

California authorities say marriages of gays and lesbians between June and November will remain legal. Hundreds of gay rights activists held street protests in Los Angeles and San Francisco after the Prop 8 vote and have filed several lawsuits in a bid to overturn the decision.

Brad Pitt has donated $100,000 to fight California voters’ attempt to eliminate the rights of gay couples to marry.

Pitt’s donation to the No on Prop 8  campaign is the largest single donation so far by a celebrity to the bid to defeat the anti-gay marriage California ballot measure in November, organizers said.

“Because no one has the right to deny another their life even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another, and because discrimination has no place in America,  my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,” Pitt said in a statement.

The California Supreme Court struck down a ban on marriage in May but state voters will decide in a voter referendum in November whether to abolish those new rights.

Chad Griffin, political strategist for the No on 8 campaign, said he hoped Pitt’s contribution would encourage other celebrities to put their hands in their pockets. “The entertainment industry should view this contribution as a challenge,” Griffin said.

Many lesbian and gay couples marrying in Califronia have asked friends and relatives to donate to the campaign instead of buying wedding gifts.

Chat show host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi married in Beverly Hills in August and former “Star Trek” crew member George Takei married his long time partner Brad Altman in September.