This afternoon, during a rocky 22 minute interview, SiriusXM’s Michelangelo Signorile challenged North Carolina state Sen. James Forrester (R) — the sponsor of the bill to add an amendment to the constitution outlawing same-sex marriage — on his recent claims that people in the gay “lifestyle” live shorter lifespans, exposing the lawmaker’s lack of knowledge and embarrassing him in the process. Forrester, a medical doctor, initially claimed that he learned that gay people live shorter lives from the Atlanta Center for Disease Control, but then began referring Signorile to a book by Fred Turek, a Christian activist who argues that gay people are embracing harmful, “illegitimate” and “changeable” behavior — on par with that of sociopaths, alcoholics, or even gay-bashers. Signorile pressured Forrester on the source and he eventually admitted, “I’m not an expert on everything there.”

The senator also couldn’t explain how same-sex marriage undermined the institution and even threatened to end the interview when Signorile asked if Forrester would be introducing legislation to ban divorce. “I can’t answer all these questions you have,” he conceded:

SIGNORILE: Why don’t you ban divorce, why not?

FORRESTER: That wasn’t my intent of the legislation.

SIGNORILE: Is divorce a good thing? I’ll ask you some yes or nos, how’s that? Divorce a good thing?

FORRESTER: I think I’m going to end this conversation right now because I see you’re completely negative, on the other side, trying to set me up.

Listen to the interview in two parts:

When ABC announced that Chaz Bono, son of Cher and Sonny Bono, would compete on “Dancing With the Stars,” Fox News’ “Medical A-Team” psychiatrist Keith Ablow launched into a hateful and ignorant crusade against the transgender activist, calling him a “very disordered person” and saying his presence on the popular show would poison young people’s gender identities. To her credit, Fox host Megyn Kelly thoroughly admonished and debunked Ablow on her show and during a segment with Fox headliner Bill O’Reilly. But this morning, the conservative network got mired in transphobia again when the crew of Fox & Friends appeared pained at the mere mention of Bono’s name. Bono had a disappointing performance in last night’s episode due to a knee injury, and the Fox morning crew couldn’t even bring themselves to discuss it, transcript via Gawker:

BRIAN KILMEADE: Steve, can you tell us more?

STEVE DOOCY: Uh, no, I can’t. [Laughs] Thank you very for that update.
GRETCHEN CARLSON: [Rubbing temples] Let’s talk about the Senate instead! That might take too long to explain to Steve, Brian, and the rest of the world.

KILMEADE: The one part of Chaz that hasn’t been operated on!

DOOCY: So far! [Laughter]

Watch it:

Four and a half months ago, Rick Welts, then the president and CEO of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, became the first openly gay senior executive in American professional sports. Welts, 58, left the Suns last month for personal reasons, saying he wanted to move to Northern California to be with his partner. But today, Welts officially joined the Bay Area-based Golden State Warriors, saying he was for the first time aligning his professional life with a personal life he had shielded from his co-workers for decades.

At his introductory press conference this afternoon, Welts was asked to list the positives and negatives he’s faced since coming out in mid-May. To his own surprise, Welts said, “nothing negative has happened,” and the reaction from players, coaches, fans, and other league executives has been nothing but positive:

WELTS: I can’t tell you anything negative because nothing negative has happened. … The reaction has been overwhelming, not only from the people I worked with, which I kind of expected, but … the hundreds of emails I got from people I don’t know – parents, kids, other people in our industry who are facing a similar situation. … I wouldn’t change anything about it. … I haven’t had one negative reaction. I was prepared for something totally different.

Welts’ decision was seemingly the first major step in a year that contained a marked transition in public expressions of support for gay rights in sports. Phoenix players were quick to offer support for Welts and gay marriage after he came out. Then, former Phoenix all-star and current NBA analyst Charles Barkley told the Washington Post he’d “rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play” and that, “as a black person,” he couldn’t support “discrimination in any form at all.” Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin appeared on the cover of Out! Magazine, in which he told the story of his gay older brother, and declared, “If anyone comes out in those top four major sports … I guarantee you I’ll give him 100 percent support.” Multiple Major League Baseball teams, meanwhile, recorded “It Gets Better” videos.

And while Welts insists his first goal is to build a winning basketball team (“What I’m about is running NBA basketball teams,” he said today), he acknowledged that he felt an “obligation” to bring the discussion about homosexuality into sports. “I think the whole object of what I’ve gone through this year is to elevate the quantity and quality of the discussion so we’re not afraid of the topic,” Welts said. “I think I’ve achieved a little bit of that. … There’s some kid out there who wonders whether or not they can follow their passion and be successful just because of who they are. … Who you are doesn’t prevent you from achieving what you want in life is a message I hope we can all send.”

ThinkProgress filed this report from an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) recently signed an anti-bullying law that advocates have heralded as the nation’s toughest and a major step forward in the fight to prevent students from being bullied for any number of reasons, including their sexual orientation. Anti-bullying laws have taken shape in response to high-profile suicides of LGBT students in several states, including one at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Social conservatives, however, have traditionally opposed such measures. With the Republican establishment eying Christie as a potential candidate for president in 2012, ThinkProgress asked Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, how he thought social conservatives would react to Christie and his signing of the anti-bullying legislation. While Perkins said there were other issues that would affect Christie’s popularity with social conservatives more, he suggested that their opposition to such laws could be a hang-up for Christie were he to run for president. At the same time, Perkins attempted to strike a moderate, anti-bullying tone on the issue:

PERKINS: When it comes to anti-bullying, I think you’ll find in evangelicals, Protestants, Catholics, a strong desire to make our schools a safe place for all children. And no child should go to school and be bullied for any reason, whether it’s their religious conviction, whether it is their looks, whether it’s the fact that they’re overweight, or if they are of a particular sexual orientation. What is of concern, when it comes to so-called anti-bullying legislation is that it is used to advance a particular view of sexual orientation and leads to the bullying by teachers and administrators of other students, and that’s where there’s a problem. And so it depends on the actual legislation.

Watch it:

But social conservatives have long opposed anti-bullying legislation. In 2009, the FRC wrote that anti-bullying laws would lead to “paid agents of the state forcing kids to regurgitate the approved liberal line on homosexuality,” asking, “Is there a better definition of bullying than this?” At other times, it has said the laws would “make children hide their Christianity or religion in the closet” while the government “promotes harmful and sinful sexual practices among our youth.” And FRC has even argued that telling LGBT youth that they are wrong to lead their life as they are isn’t bullying.

It’s not “bullying” to tell the truth in love–which is that homosexual conduct is harmful to the people who engage in it and to society at large. The most compassionate thing we can do for people struggling with this lifestyle is to debunk the lie that they’re born “gay” and can never change. Instead we should assure them that change is possible for those who seek it.

Fox News reported today that Christie has again decided not to run for president. But with a stance like that, it’s no wonder Perkins feels Christie, who did the right thing by signing a law to prevent harmful bullying and discrimination in his state, would have had “a hard time” winning the support of social conservatives had he actually decided to run.

Seemingly unsatisfied with the diverse pool of candidates, Republicans continue to call for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to join the presidential race. But after months of signing marriage pledges and booing gay soldiers, it’s surprising the base would be interested in a candidate who has reasonably moderate views on LGBT issues. His record is brief, but not nearly as anti-gay as contenders like Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Michele Bachmann:

- Christie signed into law the New Jersey’s LGBT-inclusive “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights,” the nation’s toughest law on bullying, which requires extensive training of teachers and staff, safety teams that involve parents, and thorough investigations of all allegations of bullying.

- Christie has said that, contrary to the teachings of his religion, he believes that gay people are “born this way,” and he doesn’t “look upon someone who’s homosexual as a sinner.”

- Though he opposes full marriage equality, he supports the civil unions that New Jersey currently offers.

Aside from the question Rick Santorum got last week on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, LGBT issues have been relatively absent from recent debates. Perhaps enthusiasm for Christie’s candidacy suggests Republicans are looking to abandon the discriminatory perspectives of social conservatives. On the other hand, maybe they just haven’t investigated his complete record yet.

During a preseason hockey game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers last night, Flyers winger Wayne Simmonds was caught on camera calling Rangers winger Sean Avery a “f*cking faggot.” The incident occurred when Avery skated past Simmonds near the Flyers bench, prompting the latter to hurl the insult. The two players had gotten in a minor scuffle earlier in the first period.

Watch video of the incident:

The epithet, while obviously unfortunate when used against anyone, is particularly jarring because of Avery’s tireless activism on behalf of LGBT causes. During the height of the New York state marriage equality debate, Avery recorded a video urging state lawmakers to pass the bill. “I treat everyone the way I expect to be treated,” Avery said in the video, “and that applies to marriage.” He even used his celebrity as a New York Ranger to lobby lawmakers on marriage equality.

ThinkProgress readers will remember Wayne Simmonds as the player who was himself discriminated against just last week. One of a small handful of minorities in the NHL, Simmonds had a banana thrown at him during a preseason game, causing a major uproar in the media. Yet the Flyer’s homophobic slur last night will likely dissipate much of the sympathy Simmonds received following his own encounter with bigotry.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan compared the “threat” posed to marriage by gays and lesbians to that of polygamy, adultery, and forced marriage during a forum on marriage in Poughkeepsie, New York last night, and insisted that he was not “anti-gay”:

DOLAN: While some defending marriage may have sadly and regrettably sunk into gay bashing, the groups represented here this beautiful evening were scrupulously fervent in their insistant that this was pro-marriage, not anti-gay. If you look at our pedigree of the faiths represented here this evening, you’ll note that we’ve been cogent in our defense of marriage against a lot of things — frivolous divorce, polygamy, adultery, forced marriages, cohabitation, just to mention a few contemporary threats to marriage. In our fight against divorce, we were not spiteful to those divorced. In our opposition to polygamy, we were not anti its practitioners. In our worries about adultery, we were not prejudiced against adulterers. And in our recent efforts we weren’t anti-gay, but pro-marriage.

Watch it:

Dolan has a long history of declaring his “love” for the gay community while insulting gay people and working to deny them equal protections. The archbishop led the religious opposition to New York’s civil same-sex marriage law, during which he compared extending marriage to gays and lesbians to communist dictatorships, incest and argued that it would be “perilous” and “detrimental for the common good.” “You don’t redefine marriage — a given — just to accommodate people’s lifestyle,” Dolan said in an interview with the National Catholic Register in late June.