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Leish Hailey was not laughing yesterday at Lambert Field.

​Update 3 p.m. Leisha Hailey and her girlfriend, Camila Grey, released a statement today saying that they "were not making out" or creating any spectacle. "It was one modest kiss." The couple plans to file a formal complaint with the airplane.

Original story follows...

Leisha Hailey, star of Showtime's lesbian drama "The L Word," has declared war on Southwest Airlines.

The actress says she was on a flight from Baltimore to St. Louis yesterday when a Southwest flight attendant scolded her about kissing her girlfriend. Around 2 p.m. Monday, Hailey tweeted that she was "discriminated against" when the flight attendant told her that Southwest was a "family airline." Hailey is now using Twitter to urge gays to boycott Southwest Airlines.

Hailey was escorted off the plane when it landed in St. Louis. It's unclear where the flight was headed after St. Louis.

Meanwhile, the airline has also entered the fray via Twitter, saying in a statement that several passengers complained about Hailey and her g'friend engaging in excessive behavior.
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Use your brain--don't smoke and get tested!

​This Sunday, take proactive steps to guard your health while you look deep within the human instrument. We mean that literally -- there's going to be a health fair at the St. Louis Science Center, and included in your admission ticket is the Body Worlds and the Brain exhibit.

From noon to four on the 25th, $7.50 and a coupon from the September issue of The Vital VOICE gets you in to Vital Health, the LGBT Health Fair, which is in the EXPLORADOME lobby. (Without the coupon it's a cool $20, so go find one for sure.)

Lots of groups will be on hand providing information, testing and resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health: Planned Parenthood will have safer sex kits, SAGE is offering help quitting smoking, and St. Louis Effort for AIDS will be conducting STD tests. Check out fitness and nutrition demos and samples as well.

Then after you've learned how to keep your body in tip-top shape, go inspect bodies from the inside at Gunther von Hagen's controversial, creepy and incredibly fascinating exhibit of plastinated human bodies, with an emphasis on brains.

Welcome, queers!!

​Washington University gets top marks for being friendly and welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, according to this year's LGBT Friendly Campus Climate Index.

The index, which has been in development since 2001, quizzes colleges and universities on a number of criteria, such as housing, policy, outreach and inclusion. It weighs the self-reported answers and grades schools out of five stars.

Wash. U. is one of 33 schools to get a five-star rating. Its entry on the index touts the university's non-discrimination policy and gender-neutral housing and restrooms on campus. It also mentions parties like the Masqueerade and Gayla, fall and spring semi-formals.

Nice work, Wash. U.!
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​Last week we told you about how Internet software used by dozens of school districts in Missouri blocked student access to websites dealing with gay, lesbian and transgender issues.

Now the ACLU of Eastern Missouri has sued one of those districts, which it says refuses to lift the block for its students. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of several organizations whose websites are allegedly blocked by the filter (including PFLAG National, Matthew Shepard Project and Campus Pride), claims that Camdenton R-III School District near the Lake of the Ozarks discriminates by barring access to the sites.

The ACLU asserts that the school uses the "sexuality" filter on its Internet software, which blocks access to educational LGBT websites while allowing access to homophobic sites.

Tim Hadfield, superintendent of the Camdenton schools, disagrees with the ACLU's assessment.
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The Trevor Project was one of at least 23 LGBT issue sites blocked by Netsweeper.

​Internet security software used by dozens of school districts in Missouri censored students from accessing websites dealing with LGBT issues.

The Missouri Research & Education Network (MOREnet), a division of the University of Missouri, provides Internet hosting for 86 school districts in the state, including Normandy in the St. Louis area. John Gillispie, executive director of MOREnet, tells Daily RFT that its software vendor for the past two years, Netsweeper, comes with default filters designed to censor material deemed inappropriate for children in kindergarten though 12th grade.
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​Last night, Olivette city council passed two measures that solidify the suburb as a welcoming place for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.

The Vital Voice reports that the council unanimously passed bills 2672 and 2677. The bills create a domestic partnership registry and criminalize discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity.
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A work in progress--it's ready now!

​It's bigger. It's better. And you're invited.

The LGBT Center of St. Louis has moved to new digs on Manchester Avenue in the Grove, and this Sunday is an open house. From 2 to 6 p.m., stop on by the new home of the community resource for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community -- straight allies heartily welcomed.

"We needed to make the center a little more accessible to our community and give them a little more visibility," says the center's board president Leon Braxton. (You may know Braxton for his beyond-fabulous alter ego, the magnificent Dieta Pepsi.) "A lot of people didn't even know we had a center."
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​With social media like Facebook and Twitter taking over the world, your social life is probably all about your online connections these days. It's that very connectivity, though, that's making traditional blogs lose out.

As we reported back in May, the switch to social media as the preferred online connection led to the demise of GayStLouis.com, an online hub for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender news and events.Tony Bossaller, who ran the site since 1998, told us he hoped someone would pick up the site where he left off.

And someone has, integrating the DIY, crowd-sourcing ethos of social networking into what will hopefully become a central location for all things LGBT in St. Louis.
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​While the city's main lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender event, Pride St. Louis, is still more than a week away, folks across the river are kicking their heels up this weekend. It's Metro East Pride of Southwestern Illinois tomorrow in Belleville.

It's the fourth annual Metro East Pride, and it kicks off a whole summer of Pride events in the area, wrapping up in mid-August with St. Louis Black Pride.

Tomorrow will see plenty of booths, eats and beer. Folks from Black Pride, Pride St. Louis, Growing American Youth, TransHaven and the Human Rights Campaign will be on hand, along with many others.There will be bands, and the inimitable Dieta Pepsi will emcee part of the event.

And Metro East Pride is inaugurating a community service prize this year: the Brenda Grissom and Dixie Ruliffson Community Service Award.

Sounds like quite the party! 

Slay in a No Hate promo.

​Francis Slay used his blog yesterday to call on state legislators to pass a law allowing gay couples in Missouri to commit to civil unions.

The St. Louis Mayor writes that Illinois' recently enacted law allowing civil unions has made him realize the need for such a law in Missouri.

"The rights now recognized just across the river from us include automatic hospital visitation rights, the ability to make emergency medical decisions for partners, the ability to share a room in a nursing home, adoption and parental rights, pension benefits, inheritance rights, and the right to dispose of a partner's remains," writes Slay, who notes that St. Louis residents have long supported equal rights for gays and lesbians.
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