[news] Fall Out Boy is so gay. Iraq is so scary. And, Massachusetts is so referenduming.

There's a lot of gay in the news. Let's sum it up.

(1) Fall Out Boy (site) pissed off some mom for stating a positive opinion on gayness at one of their shows. How dare they talk between songs? Musicians, according to Mother Morals, are only supposed to sing. Says bassist, Pete Wentz, "I encourage fans of our band to grow up to become good people and to change the world. Unfortunately, I don't believe that treating other people as inhuman is acceptable. If that is offensive to you, I apologize, but we don't want you to be part of our fanbase. [Our show] is not a liberal homosexual rally, but at the same time, it will never be a Ku Klux Klan rally. We don't need to sell tickets that badly."

(2) Police forces in Iraq have allegedly "summarily executed" a 14-year-old boy for engaging in homosexual prostitution. And here I thought we had established a liberal democratic government there. Where'd they get the idea that killing gay kids was cool? Oh, Grand Ayatollah Sistani (wikipedia), via fatwa on his website, calling for the execution of gays in the "worst, most severe way." E-fatwas? I checked--he's not on myspace. But I did poke him on facebook. I hope he pokes me back.

(3) And, some folks in Massachusetts are pushing for a referendum to overturn the court decision that said gay marriage is legal under their constitution. It'll take them until about 2008 to get the intitiative through to the voters. The legal question right now is limited: apparently their constitution (possibly) bars constitutional amendment referenda specifically aimed at overturning court decisions. If so, that sounds like an odd provision to me--why should the court, but not the legislature, be immune from popular reversal? I wonder what their constitution says about Fall Out Boy.