Morning Brew – Friday, June 10: Goodbye, US “Skins,” Hello, Tracy Morgan’s homophobic tirade

Happy Friday, Brewbies! Want to kick off your almost weekend with a marriage equality video that will make you weep happy tears? Of course you do! The American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group behind California’s Prop. 8 appeal, has released a new PSA in which Ted Olson and David Boies – the conservative/liberal power couple that opposed Prop. 8 in California’s Supreme Court – talk about the 44th anniversary of the famed Civil Rights case, Loving v. Virginia, and what it means for the future of same-sex marriage in America.

You know who else supports marriage equality? Ben and Jerry! Check out the ice cream mavens in HRC’s new PSA.

BRB, getting a bowl of double fudge brownie for breakfast! For marriage equality!

Unsurprisingly, MTV has canceled US Skins with the following statement:

Skins is a global television phenomenon that, unfortunately, didn’t connect with a US audience as much as we had hoped. We admire the work that the series’ creator Bryan Elsley did in adapting the show for MTV, and appreciate the core audience that embraced it.

In disturbing (but, frankly, unsurprising) news, Tracy Morgan apparently melted down into another homophobic rant on stage. At his show in Nashville last weekend, Morgan went on a tirade about how being gay is a choice, and about how gay people need to drop the whole “Born This Way” shtick. He said if his son turned out to be gay, he would stab him. And when the audience finally started to turn on him, he apparently remarked: “If gays can take a d–k up their ass, they can take a joke.” Morgan’s publicist has been answering all inquiries with a curt, “No comment.”

Option A: Grow up, dude. Seriously.

Option B: Tina Fey, kick him in the nuts, please.

For at least a decade, comic book fans have been divided about whether or not X-Men can be viewed as an allegory to being gay and the gay rights movement in the United States. The essays and arguments have cropped up again in the wake of X-Men: First Class, but this time screenwriter Zack Stentz has jumped into the online conversation to confirm what we’ve been saying for years. After a commenter responded to a narrative deconstruction about the X-Men/gay allegory with “It’s just a movie, dude,” Stentz jumped in to defend the article’s writer:

Um, no offense, but you’re wrong. I helped write the movie, and I can tell you the gay rights/post-holocaust Jewish identity/Civil Rights allegory stuff was all put there on purpose. Joss Whedon designed the whole “Cure” storyline in the comic books specifically as a gay allegory, and Bryan Singer wove his own feelings of outsiderdom as a gay man into the movie series. The whole “Have you tried NOT being a mutant” isn’t even … subtle.

Well said, Mr. Stentz. Now, how about a full-on, out and proud gay or lesbian character in the next film adaptation? You’ve got the source material in the books!

Fox has released a new Fringe video in its “Fans Ask” series, this time featuring one of my very most favorite out actors, Jasika Nicole.

Gwenyth Paltrow‘s life and style website, GOOP, is tackling homophobia and the Bible this month in honor of Pride. She asks what the Bible teaches about gays, and she gets an answer from two Episcopal priests, a Kabbala scholar, and Dr. John Stott, the Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church in London. Stott gets an astrerisk above his entry: “Note: We wanted to include as many perspectives as possible on this issue and so we are also including a more conservative voice here below.” He’s the only ill-informed participant who is hanging on to an antiquated interpretation of an antiquated manuscript. Everyone else is all about the love.

This year at Frameline and Outfest, Jenni Olson and Susan Stryker are presenting “We Who Are Sexy: The Whirlwind History of Transgender Images in Cinema.”

A smart combination of on-stage conversation and film clips, this program will showcase an amazing array of rarely seen tidbits ranging from the bad old days of guys in dresses and pathological transsexuals up through the empowered self-representations of the early ’90s and into the hot transgender best of the 21st century.

You can find more information at Butch.org.

And finally, Chris Colfer has inked a two-book deal with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. According to EW:

The first will be an adventure novel that draws elements from the very, very in-vogue world of classic fairy tales. The Land of Stories is set to hit stores in summer 2012, with the second as-of-yet untitled novel coming later. While these will be Colfer’s first foray as a novelist, he does have some experience as a writer, having recently penned the scripts for a Disney Channel pilot and the movie Struck by Lightning.

You know who else’s Little, Brown two-book deal features queer characters and adaptations of fairy tales? Malinda Lo‘s Ash and Huntress. (Just sayin’.)

Trish Bendix will be back Monday with her superior Brew coverage. Until then, have a happy weekend!