Well it's no secret that queers spend a lot of money on traveling each year but the industry hasn't always been so open nor has every destination been so welcoming.

The world travel industry finally seems to be coming out of the closet.

Curacao actively courts queers and launches their new website Gay Curacao.

After years of banning gay couples Sandals reversed their long standing homophobic policy banning gay couples from their resorts and now and now Sandals Resorts allows gay couples to holiday with their straight counterparts.

Orbitz launched a gay marketing campaign over a year ago along with a special Orbitz gay travel website.

The publisher of Out and Advocate has been more heavily marketing their gay travel magazine, Out Traveler this year.

Ernie and Bert are supposed to be gay, Jerry Falwell pointed his finger at Tinky Winky years ago, and there has been speculation about Spongebob for quite a while now so, why has speculation over Spongebob's sexuality erupted again?

Well it seems the American Family Association (AFA), a Christian group based in Mississippi, is up in arms over the latest Spongebob video "We Are Family".

Apparently the group is not really upset about the new video but mostly the video producer's website which contains a Tolerance Pledge. In a letter published on the AFA website the group charges,

The Website of the We Are Family Foundation (WAFF) www.warefamilyfoundation.org contains elements that promote the acceptance of homosexuality.

...AFA believes that parents should be aware that their children may be exposed to the presentation of homosexuality as a normal, natural and healthy lifestyle.

The WAFF's Tolerance Pledge states, "I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own" and that seems to have one intolerant Christian group up in arms.

While the Christian group seems bent on using the Bible to judge people and decide who and what is normal it’s important to note that many of the same arguments they are using against gays were used to persecute blacks during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

An underground language used by Queers in the in the UK in the 1950s before homosexuality was legal there, is making a comeback.

The BBC reports that the gay language Poloari is being used by the international staff at Madame Jo Jo's club in London to make communications easier. It's also being used in "Round the Horne" the hit stage revival of the BBC radio show from the 1960s.

Polari is a mix of Italian, Spanish, Yiddish, Romany, and Cockney. Author and Scholar Paul Baker 's website contains information on his Polari book.

The president used to be much more sympathetic to queers, according to a college friend from George W. Bush's Yale days

In an op-ed piece that appeared in several publications including the LA Times, Baltimore Sun and Houston Chronicle Lanny J. Davis described a much more compassionate Bush.

...someone we all believed to be gay walked by, although the word we used in those days was "queer." Someone, I'm sorry to say, snidely used that word as he walked by.

George heard it and, most uncharacteristically, snapped: "Shut up." Then he said, in words I can remember almost verbatim: "Why don't you try walking in his shoes for a while and see how it feels before you make a comment like that?"

Davis continued his commentary wondering "why Bush chose to exploit the gay marriage issue in his campaign and speculated that it's what politics does to a person.

Military plans from 1994 indicate that the US Air Force sought funding from the Defense Department to create a gay bomb according to the BBC.

The plan described a "love bomb" that would contain an aphrodisiac designed to incite homosexual behavior among soldiers. It seems the military was nearly in the sex business as it aimed to encourage gay sex among enemy soldiers in hopes of demoralizing them.

While the very ideas of a gay love bomb wreaks of rampant homoeroticism the plan's description of the weapon as "distasteful but completely non-lethal" also reveals the ever-present homophobia in the US military.

Had the gay love bomb been developed gays in the military wouldn’t have had to worry about the military ban on gays, they could just claim it was a friendly fire accident.