Bert And Ernie Shouldn’t Get Married Some folks have gotten together a petition on Change.org calling on Sesame Street to
have Bert and Ernie get married or for the show to add a transgender character. I’m not sure I have an opinion on the latter, but I’m pretty firmly against the idea that New York’s two most famous roommates should tie the knot.
Rick Santorum: Religious People Should HaveRight To Discriminate Against Gays
Rick Santorum doubled down on his opposition to same-sex marriage during an appearance in Iowa this morning, arguing that the courts have established a “super-right” of “sexual liberty” that trumps religious freedom. Santorum was meeting with the Register editorial board this morning. He said same-sex marriage jeopardizes religious liberty because the government may threaten license-holder such as marriage counselors who don’t treat gay couples.
Pawlenty To Sign NOM’s Anti-Gay Marriage Pledge
Ten Things NPR Got Wrong Defending The Falsely Balanced Ex-Gay Story
Last evening, National Public Radio’s ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, responded to criticism about Alix Spiegel’s story on ex-gay therapy that aired Monday morning. The nine-minute piece, which profiled ex-gay Rich Wyler and ex-gay survivor Peterson Toscano, had two major flaws. First, itcreated a false balance by suggesting that ex-gay therapy may be legitimate and is still up for debate. Second, it omitted the fact that Wyler makes his entire living perpetuating the false ideas of ex-gay therapy. Rather than admit the mistakes of the piece and apologize for the potential harm done by it, Schumacher-Matos, Spiegel, Spiegel’s editor, and NPR’s senior vice president all defended the piece, making only very small concessions about how it was reported. In doing so, they continued propagating false ideas about ex-gay therapy and the false balance of their reporting. Here are 10 problems with NPR’s response.
‘Rise’ Welcomes Earth’s New Ape Overlords If proof were still needed that human beings are all but irrelevant to the Hollywood 
blockbuster, Rise of the Planet of the Apes provides it in spades. (And not just because one of its stars is Freida Pinto, an actress making a career of cardboard thespianism.) Constructed around the reliable premise that if you slather on the spectacle, audiences won’t notice the script’s idiocies — otherwise known as the Avatar effect — this so-called origin picture is no more than a narrative outline padded with moderately special effects, a teaser for the sequels that will surely follow.
Americans Support Bans On Food Allergens In Public Places If some foods really don’t agree with you or someone you live with, you’ve got plenty of company. In the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll, we asked people across the country about food allergies and intolerance. The bottom line: 1 in 5 households across the country has at least one person who is allergic or intolerant to at least one food. How do they know? Well, there are the obvious symptoms, such as itching, swelling of the tongue and wheezing in some cases. Nearly two-thirds of households — 64 percent — that reported a food issue said the allergy or intolerance had been diagnosed by a doctor.
A lesbian was allegedly kicked off a jury because of her orientation, and now lawyers are arguing to a federal appeals court that it should never happen again, the Los Angeles Timesreports.
Accidental Bear 