BY ROB SALERNO - It wasn't quite the judgment of Solomon, but a BC judge was forced to decide what to do with sperm belonging to a pair of lesbians whose relationship had hit the skids.

The women (who are not named in the court documents) owned a big batch of semen because they had planned to start a family and presumably wanted all the children to have the same father. The couple had already started a family when they broke up.

One of the women wanted to use the sperm to impregnate her new partner, but the original partner didn't want to share the semen.

Justice Loryl Russell weighed the evidence and decided that the only fair thing to do was to cut the semen in half down the middle and let each of the women take a piece.

When neither woman protested that they'd rather the other have all the semen than see it destroyed, Justice Russell realized that the semen should be returned to its rightful owner, Mark Ruffalo.

Awkward.

Kidding.

In a weird way, the ruling further entwines the family, at least biologically, if they're going to continue to make new half-siblings for their children with their new partners. It's a fascinating development. What do you think?

(PS. Do *not* Google image-search "lesbian sperm fight." Trust me.)

BY ROB SALERNO - With last year's repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the US Armed Forces have begun to step boldly into the American battle for gay equality. So what better way to signal which side of the culture war the US fighting men and women are fighting for than by naming a naval ship after a famous gay rights activist?

Democratic Congressman Bob Filner (San Diego) has sent a request to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus asking that he name the next available ship after Harvey Milk (pictured above), the activist, city councillor and former naval diving officer who was murdered in 1978 along with San Francisco mayor George Moscone by former board of supervisors member Dan White.

While the navy traditionally names ships after cities, states or marine life, in recent years ships have been given the names of prominent Americans, including senators, congressmen and civil rights leaders.

Would the USS Harvey Milk be the gayest ship in the fleet? No, that would be the USS Missouri, seen here:

And because no story about the US Navy would be complete without The Village People:

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI - The concerted push to criminalize queers across Russia got another boost when the country's third-largest city, Novosibirsk, became the latest jurisdiction to pass so-called anti-gay propaganda legislation on April 27.

Before Novosobirsk, the cities of Ryazan, Arkangelsk, Kostroma and St Petersburg passed similar legislation that Orthodox Church and political authorities want to see in place federally.

According to The Moscow Times, regional deputy Alexander Ilyushchenko says the law is all about protecting the "majority of people who are not associated with homosexuality," so they don't have to explain to -- yep, you guessed it -- "their children that things like this happen." The law, and others like it, is meant to prevent promotion of public actions aimed at "propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism among minors."

Ilyushchenko says gay pride parades are among the events that the new measure could target for a crackdown. Potential fines for breaching it range from 1,000 ($30) to 3,000 rubles for private citizens, 3,000 to 5,000 for officials and 10,000 to 50,000 for legal bodies, it was reported.

So far the courts have not, for one reason or another, invoked the measures in the cases brought before them. 

Bearing placards that read, "Gay -- this is normal," Moscow Pride activists Alexei Kiselyov and Kirill Nepomnyashy, two of the first to be arrested under St Peterburg's new law, were released for lack of sufficient evidence.

More recently, a straight man, Sergey Kondrashov, was cleared of holding up a gay rights banner -- again in St Petersburg -- though he was found guilty of disobeying police orders.

His sign bore the words "A dear family friend is lesbian. My wife and I love and respect her and her family is just as equal as ours."

"I was accused only of disobeying the policeman, but all evidence of the supposed 'propaganda' I was spreading disappeared from the court record," Kondrashov said, according to an allout.org release.

He added, "I will continue to stand for what is right. I was not an activist before, but now I am committed to fighting this 'gay propaganda' law. Supporters of the law claim that it would 'protect children,' but my arrest makes clear the real intention. This law is really about making lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) people disappear in Russia's second largest city."

"This despicable law could go national -- unless we fight it now," Kondrashov concluded.

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI - Ay caramba! A beso is not just a beso, according to Mexican football higher-ups -- even if it's not a real beso. 

It was conniption city on Sunday last after two America club players, Christian Benitez and teammate Matias Vuoso, swapped a non-kiss kiss after Benitez scored the goal that gave their team victory over Puebla. Benitez put the palm of his hand over Vuoso's mouth before feigning a mouth-to-mouth smooch during his post-goal celebrations.

Just a little internalized homophobia, perhaps? 

Homophobia Act II: the football federation's disciplinary chief Alfonso Sabater goes into tsk-tsk mode. Such behaviour is not a good example, said he.

And, in case you're wondering, yes -- he did cite the now de rigueur delicate sensibilities of "the children, the children" who were unfortunate enough to witness the debauchery.

One of Sabater's colleagues apparently went further along the continuum of crazy: lip-locking gay-style "is like flipping off to someone else," Gay Star News reports.

Dios mio!

Homophobia Act III, sort of: the president of the offending players' club says it's only a joke. No prior rehearsal was involved. Just some good ole spontaneity between friends during "an explosive moment" in the game.

Yeah. Not even going there.

Non-homophobia Act I: no sanctions on the way.

Bueno . . . for now.

BY ADAM M GLEN - Looking for a little good news?

In case you missed it, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation held the second of three annual media awards ceremonies in Los Angeles. Modern Family and Hot in Cleveland took home awards for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Individual Episode, respectively. OWN's documentary Becoming Chaz took home the Outstanding Documentary trophy and Mike Mills' beautiful, funny and sweet film Beginners (which snagged Christopher Plummer an Oscar and totally didn't make me cry) snagged Outstanding Film - Wide Release.

But the two big winners of the evening were writer Chaz Bono and actor Josh Hutcherson. Bono won the Stephen F Kolzak Award for his work in advancing queer rights through his books and television appearances. The award was presented by his mother, Cher (and her fabulous hair), and his step-mother, Representative Mary Bono Mack. Hutcherson, one of the stars of the hit film The Hunger Games, received the Vanguard Award for his work as a  queer activist and his contributions to the Straight But Not Narrow campaign, aimed at teaching straight males to accept their queer peers. You can watch their acceptance speeches below: 

But the entertainment industry isn't the only place with allies. This past weekend, Oakland As' pitcher Brandon McCarthy came out swingin' at the stadium's Kiss Cam operators who try to get some cheap laughs from the crowd by showing straight male pairs. McCarthy tweeted, "They put two guys on the 'Kiss Cam' tonight. What hilarity!! (by hilarity I mean offensive homophobia). Enough with this stupid trend." McCarthy went on to argue his point on Twitter through the night, engaging in civil responses to criticism. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I'm certainly a fan of McCarthy.