To our dear readers: Hothouse is alive and well, and just taking an extended leave from the daily blogging grind. Our deepest apologies for leaving you with no word of our whereabouts. We miss you and hope to return soon, but in the meantime, we leave you with this bit of news from the Brangelina front: Brad Pitt tells this month’s issue of Esquire that he and Angelina Jolie won’t get married until “everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.” Let’s see—a U-Haul-style courtship, good works the world over, a rabid embrace of babydom, and a shoutout to gay marriage. We’d like to congratulate Angelina for successfully turning Brad into a big old lesbian.

The world’s chewing over Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic meltdown, (Christopher Hitchens’ screed over at Slate was a particular favorite) so Good As You resurrected some moldy oldies from interviews Gibson gave in nineties, offering his thoughts on the gays. (Hint: in one he says, “…I do feel that gay people will burn in hell. Their way of life goes completely against God’s plan for procreation.”) Of course this was also the guy who once told The New Yorker that his sainted wife was going to hell because she was Protestant, not Catholic.

Looking back at Gibson’s ‘mo-centric missteps [Good As You]

From today’s Page Six:

Angelina Jolie loves to eat out—as long as a woman is serving her. When Jolie and two pals breezed into the Dakota restaurant at the Hollywood Roosevelt the other night, she oddly requested “a female server only” to bring her halibut and salad, our spy says. “The theory is she feels guys gawk at her too much, and this is one way of avoiding that.”

Yeah, the women never gawk.

The L Word Online has up a screen shot of the August Details magazine spread with Leisha Hailey, Sarah Shahi, Kate Moennig, Mia Kirshner, and Erin Daniels. In it, the ladies jump on a bed, attack each other with feather pillows, and squeal while clad in skimpy nightwear. Hot, right? There’s also a funny video of the actual photo shoot and a preview of the cation: “Because you tuned in for the hot girl-on-girl action and stayed for one of the smartest shows on television.” Huh. Smart is not really the word we’d use.

Our loyal correspondent, Katie Halper, on the front lines of the culture wars.

The tragic congressional defeat of the bill meant to defend the family, i.e. amend the constitution to ban gay marriage, makes me think of one of my favorite people ever. Mary Cheney. Mary just “came out” with her memoirs, Now It’s My Turn: A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life. Ever the martyr, Mary is doing her part to support an administration that is doing its part to warp the Constitution in the noble name of homophobia. And what is she getting in return? Nothing! Besides a mere advance of one million dollars from Simon and Schuster.

The book reveals a Mary who is so principled, that the president’s position on gay marriage gives her “a knot in the pit of my stomach.” It must be that debilitating pain from her stomach that prevents Cheney using her role as an out Republican to champion the cause of gay rights. The paralyzing knot must be what made her choose to “keep a low profile” i.e. not appear on stage with her dad, and at the same time, run her father’s 2004 campaign.
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Shakespeare’s Sister has an excellent post up about a recent, and largely unreported, trio of gay-bashing incidents in California and Maine. Her questions: At what point does this become an “epidemic?” And, better yet, when do we start blaming it on the rhetorical Republican gay-bashing that appears every year come election time? (Via Crooks and Liars)

Ani DiFranco announced she’s pregnant last week after accepting at award at the NOW convention in Albany. The poppa-to-be is Mike Napolitano who produced her upcoming album Reprieve.

Ani DiFranco announces pregnancy at NOW convention [AP]

Actress Kristanna Loken, most famous for playing a machine in Terminator 3 (and making out with Pink in a Monte Carlo nightclub) is set for 10 episodes next season. She’ll play a single mom who meets Shane at a PTA meeting (don’t ask, ’cause we don’t know.) More info at AfterEllen.

Much as we’re loath to write about the lady again, we were amazed by the follow-up to her “Clinton is gay” theory. This time, she showed up on Chris Matthews’ Hardball where he asked her about her recent on-air ramblings on human sexuality. Before she repeated her claims about the ex-prez, she joked, “I don’t know if he’s gay. But Al Gore—total fag.” Now Ann, some people in the world can joke about “fags” with impunity. You just don’t happen to be one of them.

Crooks and Liars has the video.

Oh, let us count the ways. Queerty links to a story from Meade, Kansas about a straight couple, J.R. and Robin Knight, who run a bed and breakfast and recently started flying a rainbow flag outside their home. That was all it took for the local gentry to hit the roof: a radio station pulled ads, a local preacher came by to lecture them, and some guy on the news compared it to a Nazi flag in a Jewish community. Buried in the news story was that most people in the town had no idea what the rainbow flag until the local paper so kindly pointed it out. The kicker? The couple claim they hadn’t even meant it to be a gay pride symbol. (The owner’s son had picked it up after a trip to the Wizard of Oz museum because it reminded him of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”) Now Knight’s pissed and refuses to take it down, saying, “Any gay or lesbian people that do stop by will be treated with the best service I can give you.” We can’t think of a better unintended consequence than creating a gay oasis in the town of Meade. C’mon. Gay people love bed-and-breakfasts, right? Lakeway Hotel. Operators are standing by.

Rainbow flag creates controversy [KBSD 6]