::: Will 67-year-old pop icon Elton John be able to perform a private concert in Egypt that is scheduled for May 16? No, says the head of the Egyptian Musician Union, Mounir al-Wasimi, who says he is “coordinating” with security bodies in Egypt to ban John’s performance, Hindustan Times reports. “How do we allow a gay, who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Eissa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom,” rhetorically asked Al-Wasimi. He claimed to the press that the union he leads is the only body “authorized to allow performances by foreign singers in Egypt”. Al-Wasimi said he’s particularly incensed about a February interview John had with US news magazine Parade. In the interview, John was quoted to say that Jesus was a “super-intelligent gay man” who “understood human problems”, ABC News (Australia) reports. He also criticized Arab nations for their intolerance of LGBT people. “I don’t know what makes people so cruel,” he was quoted to say. “Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead.”

  Country music singer Chely Wright on Access Hollywood

   ::: The rumors swirled last week on celebrity sites: A “major” celebrity was prepared to come out this week. The celebrity turns out to be Chely Wright, a Country singer who hasn’t released an album in five years, but won an Academy of Country Music and a Country Music award when her career was going strong a decade ago. She tells People, for their exclusive coming out story, “Nothing in my life has been more magical than the moment I decided to come out.” The issue of People that will include the full story hits the stands Friday, but in a web preview, the magazine’s website quotes Wright as saying, “I hid everything for my music.” She explained, “There had never, ever been a country music artist who had acknowledged his or her homosexuality. I wasn’t going to be the first.” But she’s nonetheless become the first mainstream country artist to come out, although a famous Christian rock singer came out last month. In a separate interview with Access Hollywood, Wright said she felt she was living a lie, USA Today reports. She said that fellow country music artist Brad Paisley, with whom she was often seen in public, did not know she is gay. “When I realized he was wanting forever with me…I could see the damage I was doing to him, and I cut him off completely, cold turkey,” she told Access Hollywood according to USA Today.

  Wearing his trademark eyeliner, Adam Lambert performed “Music Again” and “Fever” at last night GLAAD Media Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. “I may just have to swish it up a bit. :),” he said via Twitter prior to the show. image by screen-cap from fan video

The Fox series Glee took home the award for best comedy and Tom Ford’s A Single Man was awarded as ‘outstanding wide-release film’ at the second installment of the 21st annual GLAAD Media Awards last night.

Another Fox series, the Wanda Sykes Show, was also honored when Sykes was given the previously-announced Stephen F. Kolzak Award, which is presented to an LGBT media professional for promoting equal rights.

“I want to thank the Fox network for allowing me to do the show I’m doing,” Sykes said in her acceptance speech. “It's like Rupert Murdoch buying back all the hate—like I'm saving him from going to hell,” she joked, according to Reuters.

The award for Sykes was presented by Mississippi teenager Constance McMillen, who received sustained applause when she was introduced, Reuters reports. McMillen made headlines when her high school principal canceled the school prom because McMillen wanted to attend with her girlfriend. “I really should give this award to you,” Sykes said to McMillen, “but I’m not going to do that because it means a lot to me.”

Logo’s RuPaul's Drag Race was named outstanding reality program at Saturday’s show.

GLAAD  operates its annual entertainment-industry awards as a mini-series. Last night’s event was held in Los Angeles at Hyatt Regent Century Plaza Hotel. The first of three episodes of the awards ceremony was held last month in New York, where ABC’s Brothers and Sisters was honored as ‘best drama series’. The third installment of the awards series will be presented June 5 in San Francisco.

[See a fan video of Adam Lambert’s energetic performances of “Music Again” and “Fever” at the end of this post.]

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  Jennifer Knapp in 2001 publicity shot

Jennifer Knapp, who had a successful career in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a Christian folk-rock musician, has been reborn again, Reuters reports.

As she releases Letting Go, her first new album in seven years, Knapp has proudly proclaimed in an interview with Reuters that she is lesbian.

The 36-year-old Kansas native, who dated men during her college days, is braced for a backlash from religious fans who faithfully shot down whispered rumors about her sexuality over the years. On the other hand, she said in a recent interview with Reuters, “I’m definitely getting a lot more friendly winks from the girls (at her concerts) than I have in the past!”

The backlash came quickly after Reuters published its interview. A website called “Everyday Christian” opines:

She does not expect her work to share space with a representation of Jesus Christ and rightly so.

For the true Christian, the one who believes what is written in Romans 1, prayers should be lifted for Jennifer Knapp and all others who find themselves trapped in the deception of perverted Christianity.

The new album will be marketed to a more mainstream audience, Reuters reports.

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  Tom Kirdahy and Terrance McNally via BroadwayWorld

It’s been a busy spring for noted American playwright Terrance McNally. He topped it off by getting married Tuesday in a private ceremony in DC to his long-time partner Tom Kirdahy.

Also in DC, McNally is being honored this week with a festival at Kennedy Center featuring three plays that display his love of opera, performed by some of the leading names in US theater, including Tyne Daly, John Glover, and Malcolm Gets.

“I am the first living playwright that the Kennedy Center has chosen to do three of his plays. That's quite an honor,” McNally told Reuters last week.

But in New York, a revival of McNally’s play Lips Together, Teeth Apart was postponed for the spring season after Megan Mullaly quit the production “because of frustration with the inexperience of a co-star”, Patrick Healy reports for New York Times.

On Monday, McNally presented DC’s top theater award to fellow playwright and former partner Edward Albee. “McNally and Albee traded quips about their eight-year intimate relationship, while praising each other as dramatists,” the Examiner reports.

After watching the Kennedy Center performances of three of his plays, a theater critic described McNally as a “national treasure”. That came only two weeks after a Texas university president had denounced one of McNally’s plays as having “no artistic or redeeming quality in the work”.

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So… Ricky Martin is gay. As countless US celebrity blogs pointed out yesterday in generally snarky posts, there’s nothing all that surprising about the official announcement on Twitter and on Martin’s website (which is down for “maintenance” at the moment) that he is a “fortunate homosexual”.

“I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am,” the singer said in both Spanish and English-language Twitter posts. The statement was later confirmed by a representative for the singer, People reports.

He expanded on the announcement in a website post.

[People reprints the entire statement from Martin’s website]

Most US blog posts interpreted the big news to be that there could still be someone out there who thought that Martin might not be gay.

But there’s another level to the announcement that’s only rarely captured in the US (and UK) blogs: Martin is little more than a three-hit wonder from the 90s in the US, but he is still a significant celebrity in Latin music. To date, he has reportedly sold more than 60 million albums worldwide, E! Online reports.

A comment from someone who calls himself ‘Tony’ at the Entertainment Weekly site explains why his announcement is a big deal for most of Martin’s fans:

[H]e might not be relevant in the States right now, but he has always been here in Puerto Rico, loved and respected by many. Here we have a culture that is way less tolerant than of gays and lesbians than what we see in the States. So coming out of the closet, a person like him here in Puerto Rico is a big thing… He is the only famous Puerto Rican I can think of who has come out of the closet.

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