This week may have marked the slow demise of “don’t ask, don’t tell” -- albeit in rather unremarkable fashion.

In an interview that largely went unnoticed, Secretary Robert Gates told reporters traveling with him through Europe that Pentagon lawyers were evaluating whether there’s “flexibility in how we apply this law,” referring to the military’s gay ban. Gates said he’d had a conversation with the president about the policy last week.

It probably seemed somewhat ho-hum to the casual onlooker, and that’s just the way the White House wants it.

A Congressman for the Camp Pendleton area in Southern California is requesting that the Department of Defense investigate whether a gay sailor who was found dead on Tuesday was the target of a hate crime.

The Westboro Baptist Church clearly knows no boundaries.

Members of Fred Phelps's fundamentalist church are planning to picket the funeral of late pop icon Michael Jackson, according to the group's website. The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

A man who killed his lover by beating him to death with a fire extinguisher has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars.

According to Pink News Glenn Rycroft was found guilty of the killing yesterday by the United Kingdom’s Central Criminal Court. Rycroft, already a convicted conman, attempted to “fool” the jury into believing he was innocent, Judge Timothy Pontius said.

Bisexual reality TV star Tila Tequila -- who once dubbed herself the reason the California Supreme Court ruled to allow same-sex marriage throughout the state -- now has her sights set on overturning DADT.

NYC Gay Bashings Linked?: A third gay bashing on the Upper East Side in New York has the NYC Anti-Violence Project issuing a community alert. The attacks appear to have been committed by the same group of men.

New Whitney Houston: "The Voice" is back -- or is she -- with her big comeback track.  

DADT Repealed?: In Oakland Park, Florida at least... The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has been working to get local governments to support an act to eliminate "don't ask, don't tell." The Oakland Park City Commission passed the Military Readiness Enhancement Act unanimously.

The Washington, D.C. public school district restored nine LGBT-themed titles to its summer reading list for students after initially publishing a reading list that omitted the books, reports the School Library Journal.

Local librarians and the city’s gay and lesbian community objected when titles such as And Tango Makes Three (S & S, 2005) and The Geography Club (HarperCollins, 2003) failed to appear on the initial list, actually marked "final," that was posted to the district’s summer reading web site before the school year ended on June 15.

A new report on the non-HIV health and human service needs of LGBT people in New York state shows significant disparities compared to non-LGBT people, reflecting national trends exacerbated by lack of adequate data and homophobia.

The state-sponsored report, the first of its kind for New York, was prepared by researcher Somjen Frazer and published by the Empire State Pride Agenda. It is based on government data, interviews with 60 LGBT health and human services experts, and surveys of 3,500 LGBT New Yorkers.