Vocal same-sex marriage advocate (and Celebrity Apprentice contestant) George Takei is taking his campaign to change one mind at a time on gay rights to his former reality TV boss Donald Trump. After inviting Trump to lunch at New York restaurant Jean Georges over a conference call, he got a positive response and the two have now set a date.

Newt Gingrich‘s official stance on same-sex marriage is negative, not believing it the province of the government to change the definition of marriage, but yesterday he appeared to approve of at least one way to pass a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry. “I would vote no if it were on a referendum where I was but at least they’re doing it the right way,” he told reporters in Washington state yesterday, approving of the way same-sex unions have been put on the ballot several times there.

The issue of marriage equality continues to gain steam in the political media. A few weeks ago, former RNC Chairman Michael Steele got into a heated on-air debate with fellow MSNBC contributor John Heilemann over comparisons of marriage equality to the right of interracial couples to marry, and in part three of our exclusive interview, went into greater depth on the issue.

The latest battleground for same-sex marriage has become New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie is poised to veto a bill passed by the state’s legislature that would allow same sex couples to marry. Gov. Christie will be Piers Morgan‘s guest on his program tonight, where the host challenged the Governor on his decision, and asked whether he felt his position would become increasingly outdated as more states accepted same-sex marriage.

During a heated segment on Sunday’s CNN Newsroom with Don Lemon, a fiery exchange took place between LZ Granderson and Will Cain over the controversy swirling around Arizona Sheriff and former Mitt Romney State Campaign Co-chair Paul Babeu. Granderson observed there was hypocrisy on the part of the GOP as there “always seems as if the person who’s working for…an anti-gay politician for some reasons seems to have these gay ties.”

Arizona is currently in the midst of a very fiery sex scandal as Pinot County Sheriff Paul Babeu, a well-known anti-illegal immigrant proponent and Republican Congressional candidate, has been exposed as gay by a source telling the Phoenix New Times that he was Babeu’s ex-lover, and that Babeu threatened him with deportation several times when he refused to promise to keep the affair under wraps. Babeu responded by admitting in a press conference that he was gay, stepping down the Romney campaign, and denying the rumors that he threatened anyone with deportation.

Earlier today the news broke that CNN contributor Roland Martin will not be appearing on the network indefinitely for what GLAAD perceived to be a homophobic tweet. Despite his personal ideological bent, the reaction from the conservative media was a swift defense of the longtime CNN pundit. But the conservative reaction to Martin’s suspension is no surprise because the conservative movement has long abandoned the left/right divide for a new war front: that between individuals and the media elite.

On the heels (but not too closely on the heels) of Monday’s call by GLAAD that CNN analyst Roland Martin be fired for tweets he made during Sunday’s Super Bowl, the network has announced that Martin has been suspended. Martin initially explained the tweets, which GLAAD said encouraged violence against gay people, as tweaking soccer fans, but the network disagrees. In a statement released minutes ago, CNN says “Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive.

Former RNC chairman Michael Steele, for one, believes laws concerning gay marriage should be discussed and decided at a local level. Panelist John Heilemann then asked Steele what he thought about the fact that, at one point, local standards held that it was unacceptable for black men to marry white women. Steele rejected the comparison.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has called out columnist and CNN contributor Roland Martin for a Tweet he made during last night’s Super Bowl.

Univisión newsmagazine show Aqui y Ahora boasts a formidable ratings base and explores controversial political topics for an audience that sometimes uses the show as its only source of news. This weekend, the show tackled the topic of “gay reparative therapy,” interviewing subjects and providing expert opinion. Except the subjects they interviewed were “success” stories who were now heterosexual (or, in one case, a “failure”), and the “experts” were mostly “psychologists” who denied the existence of homosexuality.

This afternoon, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin sat down with Rev. O’Neal Dozier, an ultra-conservative pastor who has been named an honorary chairman for GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum‘s campaign in Florida.

Dozier holds several controversial views, including that homosexuality is “something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.”

Will there ever be a news cycle without a “Gov. Chris Christie yelling at people” story ever again? Not anytime in the near future, apparently. The Governor, who is currently pushing a ballot referendum on same-sex marriage in the state, took a moment today to discuss allegations that his comparison of the issue to those of race in the middle of the past century, which he found extremely offensive. Explaining that, unlike the LGBT community, a ballot referendum on civil rights “wasn’t an option,” Christie berated one state legislator who compared his stance to that of George Wallace as “numb nuts.”

Today, The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) announced its nominees for the 23rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards, which seek to “serve as a benchmark for the media industry and complement GLAAD’s work to bring LGBT images and stories to Americans.” This year’s list of 151 nominees includes 35 Spanish-language stars, shows and films.

There was a time in Massachusetts politics where Mitt Romney promised voters he would be to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay issues. That was many years ago, however– back when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a new policy– and today, Rachel Maddow reported yesterday, Romney appears to face a strange dilemma. While the national Republican party advocates social conservatism and a repeal of gay marriage laws in the states that have them, Republican voters appear to be far more comfortable on the socially liberal side of the scale than anywhere else.

Lately, GOP leading lights Sarah Palin and former Sen. Rick Santorum have taken up the conservative pastime of hiding their anti-gay politics behind the lie that their views mirror those of President Obama. At today’s White House briefing, Metro Weekly‘s Chris Geidner and I tried to get Press Secretary Jay Carney to put some daylight between the President and Santorum on the issue of marriage equality, and while he defended President Obama’s overall record on LGBT issues, Carney was mum on marriage.

By almost all measures starting sometime last year, Rick Santorum outdid himself in Iowa last night coming in at a very close (eight votes!) second place to Mitt Romney. But as his star rises, so do the concerns of those that remember statements he made when he was a longshot for the position or not even running. On today’s Studio B, Shepard Smith brought up one of Santorum’s most controversial comments.

Ed Schultz‘s program yesterday, like many of Ed Schultz’s programs, featured a heavy-handed segment bashing a Republican candidate for having extremist exclusionary views on LGBT Americans and their place under the law. The segment was par for the course, but preceded by an exceptionally good and thorough interview with a presidential candidate– one that, while alone was a great bit of journalism, cluttered the contextual frame of the segment before it: a positive interview with Rick Santorum, who received no such scrutiny on his “family values.”

Yesterday, a gay robot somehow managed to free himself from the set of Bravo’s The A List and gain access to a Michele Bachmann rally in Iowa.

When Navy ships return home, tradition holds that one lucky raffle winner is selected to be the first to kiss a loved one upon disembarking. But when the USS Oak Hill came home to Virginia Beach today, there was one teeny (history-making) change.

A lesbian mom named Amy took some time during a Troy, Michigan council meeting to introduce Mayor Janice Daniels to her family. Daniels, you may recall, recently found herself at the center of a protest calling for her resignation because, over the summer, she had written a Facebook update stating that “I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.”

Fine, guys. I’ll say it: Ann Coulter needs a sitcom. I’m thinking a single camera show, following Ann around as she does whatever she does all day (watch Bill Maher on mute, go to 80s night at Pyramid, floss), all in a sort of “heightened reality” mode. Because, truly, Ann Coulter is the Larry David [...]

When you think A List: Dallas, Bravo’s show following very well-manicured gay Texan men doing whatever it is that very well-manicured Texan gay men do (have lunch with GOP pundits), you automatically think Ann Coulter, right? Well, the gay icon made a recent appearance on the show, sharing a bit of lunch and conversation with [...]

On Wednesday, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly tackled the controversy and discussion surrounding GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann‘s recent talk with the eight-year-old son of lesbian parents. O’Reilly echoed the assessment of others (including our own Jon Bershad) who felt the little boy’s mother was essentially using her son to make a political point. He invited gay activist Sally Kohn onto the program to discuss it further.

Addressing international diplomats in Geneva today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likened gay rights to women’s rights and the struggle for racial equality. While she recognized that the U.S.’s own track record with gay rights is “far from perfect,” Clinton criticized nations that criminalize gay behavior or that tolerate violence or prejudice against the LGBT community, noting that it should “never be a crime” to be gay.