When does this begin to count as an epidemic? There seems to be something seriously wrong with the GOP, when so many of its blatantly anti-gay members are getting caught with their pants down—with men.

The latest? It's turning into quite a scandal in the Pacific Northwest—Washington state representative Richard Curtis, who voted against domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples and opposed a gay rights bill that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation—apparently is the subject of an extortion plot with a gay male hustler. Monday, the story broke and Curtis was quoted as saying: "I am not gay. I have not had sex with a guy. It's been a rough week. Look, the rest of this will all come out."

Well, apparently it did. A recently-revealed police report states that Curtis contacted the authorities after the hustler—Cody Castagna—took his wallet and demanded an extra $800, on top of the $200 Curtis already paid. Castagna says the agreement was for $1000 originally, and that he was holding the wallet as collateral. (The police report confirms the $1000 agreement.) Curtis says the hustler threatened he would reveal the tryst to Curtis' wife and family.

Oh, but here's the clincher:

The police report contains an account of how Curtis allegedly donned women’s clothing, red stockings and a black sequined lingerie top before engaging in a sex act at the store. He continued to wear them throughout the night under his clothing.

and:

Castagna said Curtis told him that “his wife knew he liked men when they got married, but she was not into that, so he only did that when he was out of town,” the detective wrote in his report.

The police have seized video footage from the erotic bookstore where Curtis and Castagna met, as well as records that show someone in Curtis' hotel room ordered gay porn pay-per-view. Of course, this wouldn't have hit the press if Curtis hadn't talked to the authorities in the first place. D'oh!

On the eve of the cancelled Castro Halloween party in San Francisco this year, The New York Times wonders if gayborhoods are just plain over:

These are wrenching times for San Francisco’s historic gay village, with population shifts, booming development, and a waning sense of belonging that is also being felt in gay enclaves across the nation, from Key West, Fla., to West Hollywood, as they struggle to maintain cultural relevance in the face of gentrification.

According to a researcher, Gary J. Gates at UCLA, gay couples are moving toward cities not usually considered gay meccas: Fort Worth, El Paso, Louisville, Virginia Beach. The story explains that these neighborhoods are pricing out the normal gay joe—only super-affluent gay and straight couples can afford to live in the Castro, for example, which has a median home price of $870,000. Rather, in big cities like Los Angeles:

A new kind of gentrification is under way in which young gay waiters and school teachers move instead to Hollywood and other surrounding neighborhoods. “We often clamored for equality where gay and straight could coexist,” said Mayor John Duran of West Hollywood, who is gay. “But we weren’t prepared to give up our subculture to negotiate that exchange.”

Sounds like a story we reported on last month on the strange die-off of many gay bars across the country. Is our "subculture" becoming so mainstream we don't need these things anymore?

Vile, acid-spewing spawn of Satan, Ann Coulter, was spotted at West Hollywood's gay-owned Murano over the weekend, according to the Huffington Post [via Towleroad]. The recently-opened restaurant is co-owned by LA gay and lesbian nightlife impresarios Jeffrey Sanker (of White Party fame), and Robin Gans and Sandy Sachs (who own the Factory nightclub).

Ms. Coulter was spotted by Huffington Post columnist Rick Jacobs, who had this to say:

I could not tell if she was dining with people she hates or just demonstrating that she's a fraud who says whatever she must to sell books so that she can live the gay urban lifestyle. Based on her behavior last night, I am sure it is the latter, although based on her table mates, it could be both.

And when Jacobs and friends tried to talk to her:

I was therefore shocked that when we tried to engage her in conversation, she became embarrassed, turned away, nestling her head inside her long, blond hair, much as would an embarrassed school girl caught stealing the answers to an exam.

Ann Coulter recently made headlines for petty school-yard name calling, insisting at a conservative convention that presidential candidate John Edwards is a "faggot." But that's hardly the worst of her hateful rhetoric; she recently declared on a cable talk show that everyone in America should be Christian, and that she views Christians as "perfected Jews." Unbelievable.

Jacobs' last word:

How many adolescents in mid-America have heard Ms. Coulter saying they are "faggots," subhumans who should die, just so she could eat dinner at a gay-owned establishment and pay with blood money? How many lives have ended so that Ms. Coulter can giggle and guzzle in West Hollywood?