Well, at least Miley is no longer the most embarrassing member of the Cyrus family (for now). Witness her dad Billy Ray's collaboration with Dionne Warwick's hip-hop rappin' son (says Complex) Buck 22, "Achy Breaky 2." Buck's first verse speaks of a chance meeting with Cyrus and concludes that this song happened because "I'd rather be lucky than good." Is that self-aware trolling I detect?

This is so good it's bad or so bad that even it hates itself or Cotton Eye Joe and Nelly's partially aborted love child. Or something.

Many people do not go to the mall any more. But some people still go to the mall. And most people at least used to go to the mall. What is the number one store that draws you—or drew you—to the mall? Think. This is important.

It is important because we were arguing about this very point the other day, here at work, and certain smart-alecky know-it-all types employed by Gawker.com insinuated that they had never gone to the mall in order to purchase cookies. Oh really? Not once? Not even to purchase a pizza-sized cookie cake from the Great American Cookie Store? This gives you some idea of the sort of moral depravity that infects certain members of the Gawker.com staff. "Never bought cookies at the mall? That sounds like a personal problem!" I zinged back at them smartly, sending them scurrying for cover like the rats they are.

Cookies—freshly baked, enormous, and sweet-smelling—are but one example of a Good Reason to Go to the Mall. Other Good Reasons To Go to the Mall Either Now Or In the Halcyon Golden Age of Malls might include, for example:

• Cinnabon
• MusicLand, to purchase the new Beatnuts cassette
• the video arcade

Lamer, but still borderline acceptable reasons to go to the mall might include "to see Turner and Hooch," "to go to the Thai place in the food court because it's the only Thai place in town," or "Toys R Us."

Unacceptable loser reasons to go to the mall might include "Forever 21," "Belks," or "Yankee Candle."

What store or food item most powerfully draws you to the mall? Put your answer in the discussion section below to find out whether or not you are cool.

[Photo: Flickr]

Last week: Twitter's stock price plunges after a weak earnings report, and still no sign of profitability. Today, Twitter's Head of News, Vivian Schiller, enjoys a New York office "champagne tasting," provided by Moet.

[Fans touch wax figures of One Direction members Louis Tomlinson, center, and Liam Payne, second from right, during an unveiling ceremony at Madame Tussauds in Tokyo on Tuesday. Image via Koji Sasahara/AP.]

Yesterday, we called the coalition behind "The Day We Fight Back," an initiative protesting mass surveillance, to find out why NSA-friendly tech giants had not signed up alongside Reddit, Tumblr, and other companies for today's event. Just wait, they said.

And sure enough, some logos you might recognize from the PRISM slideshow came out (just in time!) to voice their support, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

David Segal, cofounder and executive director of Demand Progress, told Valleywag:

"We were happy to have the support of the Reform Government Surveillance Coalition, and especially Google — which emailed a large list of activists that it accrued over the SOPA fight and endorsed the USA FREEDOM Act — and Twitter, which tweeted to nearly 30 million followers."

Demand Progress, which is known for its fight against SOPA, was cofounded by Aaron Swartz. A press release about today's event says:

["The Day We Fight Back"] was announced on the eve of the anniversary of the tragic passing of activist and technologist Aaron Swartz. The protest is both in his honor and in celebration of the victory over the Stop Online Piracy Act two years ago this month, which he helped spur [...]

According to Roy Singham, Chairman of the global technology company ThoughtWorks, where Aaron was working up until the time of his passing: "Aaron showed us that being a technologist in the 21st century means taking action to prevent technology from being turned against the public interest. The time is now for the global tribe of technologists to rise up together and defeat mass surveillance."

It's hard to see how social media slacktivism—like changing your avatar, putting up a website banner, or developing memes, as the press release suggests—will compel these companies to slam the back door on the NSA's foot. But at least they're not spouting the "treason" defense anymore.

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Image via thedaywefightback.org]

This week's New Yorker contains an essay, currently available in the print edition only, by Roger Angell, about what his life is like at the age of 93. It is full of well-wrought observations about loss and mortality and sex and the abundance of existence but it also keeps an eye on the contemporary, as in this passage:

Dailiness—but how can I explain this one? Perhaps with a blog recently posted on Facebook by a woman I know who lives in Australia. "Good Lord, we've run out of nutmeg!" it began. "How in the world did that ever happen?" Dozens of days are like that with me lately.

The word "blog," as any stickler knows, is short for "web log," and originally referred to the online publishing format of that name: a series of posts, usually published in reverse chronological order. Calling an individual post a "blog" is, from this point of view, a solecism along the lines of saying Maureen Dowd "writes a newspaper" for the New York Times.

Using "blog" for "blog post," in this light, is a marker that the writer is an Old, a digital non-native, unable to properly use the jargon created by a younger and more astute audience. Which: LOL, because role reversal. The internet (small I!) is a prescriptivist's nightmare. Words get coined and spread outward with scarcely any professional screening or oversight, leaving the earliest adopters as a crotchety rear guard, chasing after the propagating language, screaming "It's pronounced 'JIF'!"

(It's pronounced how people pronounce it, which is mostly "gif.")

Moreover, we have encountered this usage, "a blog," even from people in their 20s, writing for blogs. We editors used to care about this, but why? Whose anachronistic befuddlement is really being implicated here? Web logs, qua web logs, are one kind of platform, with no particular claim on controlling the present or the future. But quickly composed, digital-only units of writing are here to stay. Roger Angell happened to read one via Facebook.

And so here is Angell—the stepson of the legendary usage rule-giver E.B. White and a self-identified blogger—using "a blog" to refer to a piece of writing, and doing so with the approval of the New Yorker's copy desk. His meaning is clear. This blog agrees.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Chinese citizens expect their government to censor search results. But according to The Guardian, Bing has been censoring results for Chinese language searches, even when you access the Microsoft-owned search engine within the U. S. of A.

Search for "Dalai Lama" in English vs. "达赖喇嘛" (Dalai Lama in Chinese) and the discrepancy is glaring. When I searched for the spiritual leader in English this afternoon, what popped up was his official website, images of his face, news of his recent meeting with the children of a jailed Tibetan filmmaker, and his Wikipedia entry. When I searched for the same term in Chinese, the top results Bing served up were links to Baidu Baike, "China's heavily censored Wikipedia rival run by the search engine Baidu," as well as China Central Television.

Oddly enough, we noticed the same censorship not just entities the Chinese government considers controversial, like Falun Gong and FreeGate, "a popular internet workaround for government censorship." Bing also showed us completely different search results for beloved basketball star Yao Ming. These same skewed results show up on Yahoo, which is powered by Bing.

What does Microsoft get out of this proactive censorship? The company is aware that we have reached out for comment. Meanwhile, The Guardian pointedly notes its growing business interests in China:

Bing accounts for a small percentage of search in China but has been building up its web services in the country. Microsoft is in the middle of hiring 1,000 new employees to build up its services in China.

Author Charlie Smith originally noted the difference in results when he was checking for information on FreeWeibo.com, a website he cofounded to search Chinese social media anonymously. Smith told the paper:

"It's a bit crazy. Any Chinese person who is searching in Chinese from overseas is being treated as if they have the same rights as a resident of mainland China. So we won't show them the accurate search results if they search for Dalai Lama. What you get is state controlled propaganda," he said. "Except they don't tell you the results have been censored. If you were in China they would at least tell you that."

If you're keeping track at home, Microsoft, which just signed a pledge against mass surveillance, is apparently less transparent than the Chinese government when it comes to search.

To contact the author of this post, please email nitasha@gawker.com.

[Images via Bing]

A 21-year-old California woman who killed six people this weekend drunkenly speeding the wrong way down an LA highway had just fully cleared her license of all restrictions after a string of traffic violations, beginning with a DUI conviction when she was only 16 years old.

Police say Olivia Carolee Culbreath was driving over 100 miles per hour in a Chevrolet Camaro around 4:40 am Sunday morning when she crashed head-on into the driver of a Ford Explorer, killing all four passengers. Two passengers in Culbreath's car — including Culbreath's sister Maya — also died in the crash.

Culbreath suffered a bladder rupture and a broken leg and is in stable condition.

The 21-year-old's drunk driving apparently began when she was arrested in 2010 and cited for at least two traffic violations before her license was reinstated the following year. She accumulated so many points on her license that it was revoked just a few months later. She also failed to appear in court for a November charge of using her cell phone while driving.

All of the restrictions on her license were fully lifted last week.

Culbreath's sister, who died in the crash,also had a string of DUI convictions and fully lost her license in May.

[Five days in to the Sochi Olympics and NBC figure skating commentator Johnny Weir still has not exhausted his range of sport-coat looks. Poor Tara Lipinski.]

Who hasn't done this before: Early Monday morning, a teenager allegedly got drunk as hell, put a flower pot on his head, grabbed a chainsaw, and tried to rob a 7-Eleven.

At about 4:30 a.m. Monday, Steven Frank Steele allegedly entered a 7-Eleven attached to a gas station in Ipswich, Australia and tried to attack two store clerks with a chainsaw, which was running at the time. Terrified, the clerks fled to backroom and called police,

Undeterred, the teen smashed a window with the chainsaw, knocked over two shelfs of snacks, and demanded money.

When the clerks refused to hand over any cash, Steele allegedly pulled down his pants, mooned them, stole a soda, stormed out of the store, and damaged a car in the parking lot.

A police officer responding to the call spotted the flower pot-clad teen walking down the road and detained him. The chainsaw was found in a bush not far from the store.

Steele was arrested and charged with one count of armed robbery, two counts of willful damage, one count of going armed to cause fear, one count of public nuisance and one count of possessing suspected stolen property.

[ht BroBible/Via the Queensland Times]

A federal judge just struck down Kentucky's law banning the state from recognizing gay marriages performed out-of-state, saying: "No one has offered any evidence that recognizing same-sex marriages will harm opposite-sex marriages."

Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch, is answering questions over at Jezebel. Join in the discussion!

Despite an industry-wide tuition contraction, colleges had a great financial year last year. They took in more money from donors than ever before. And for the elite few, the boom years are booming big.

Inside Higher Ed reports on the 2013 figures for total donations to colleges in the US and Canada: $33.8 billion (the highest figure ever), including $9 billion from alumni, $10 billion from foundations, and more than $5 billion from corporations. And more than 17% of all that money went to just ten institutions:

1. Stanford University ($931.57 million)

2. Harvard University ($792.26 million)

3. University of Southern California ($674.51 million)

4. Columbia University ($646.66 million)

5. Johns Hopkins University ($518.57 million)

6. University of Pennsylvania ($506.61 million)

7. Cornell University ($474.96 million)

8. New York University ($449.34 million)

9. Yale University ($444.17 million)

10. Duke University ($423.66 million)

On one hand, a college degree earns people more money than ever before, so they should be happy to give back. On the other hand, there are much better charities to give to than your fucking college.

Especially if you're talking about fucking Duke.

[Photo: FB]

For his recent appearance on Ellen, Bruno Mars agreed to pull a prank on an unsuspecting nurse. The gimmick is basically this: Mars repeats exactly what Ellen tells him through his earpiece.

Mars tells and asks Deborah the nurse a number of ridiculous things, like:

"I haven't swallowed since the Super Bowl."

"Why do Pringles come in a tennis can?"

"How many throats have you looked at?"

"It also hurts when I go [makes chicken noise]."

And that's before he starts to cry. All in all, Deborah the nurse is a good sport about it. Plus, she got to be on Ellen.

[h/t Viral Viral Videos]

Regardless of your stance on Valentine's Day, there's no way to avoid being bombarded with romantic imagery. So you might as well take this as an opportunity to learn something new. With that in mind, here are ten things you probably didn't know about sex, love and lust.

Illustration from Saga, by Fiona Staples.

Who knows? Maybe you can use one of these to impress your valentine — in fact, some of these could probably even be crafted into clever pickup lines.

10. You can break a penis

There are no bones in the penis, but it can, in fact, become "broken." Doctors refer to the injury as a "penile fracture," and it's every bit as harrowing as you'd imagine. (All right, so if you're going with the whole pickup line angle, you might not want to start with this one.)

"[Penile fracture] is a severe form of bending injury to the erect penis that occurs when a membrane called the tunica albuginea tears," explains Hunter Wessells — chair of the urology department at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He continues:

The tunica albuginea surrounds the corpora cavernosa, specialized spongy tissue in the core of the penis that fills up with blood during an erection. When the tunica albuginea tears, the blood that is normally confined to this space leaks out into other tissues. You get bruising and swelling.

So how does a penis actually, you know, break? According to Wessels, any form of vigorous intercourse when the penis is rammed into a solid structure... "during sexual acrobatics," for instance.

"We had this patient who suffered penile fracture after running across the room and trying to penetrate his wife with a flying leap," he says.

9. Ovulating strippers make more money (according to one poorly conceived study)

In 2007, researchers at the University of New Mexico recorded a surprising correlation between strippers' ovulatory cycles and their tip earnings. Strippers who were ovulating (and thus most likely to conceive) averaged $70 per hour in tips. Those who were menstruating, and those who were neither menstruating nor ovulating, pulled in $35 and $50, respectively. One hypothesis for this strange observation is that men are, subconsciously, more inclined to tip a woman who they believe they have a better chance of producing a child with.

But take all of this with a grain of salt. The investigation monitored a mere 18 dancers from one club for a total of two cycles, making it more than a little limited in scope and its sample size borderline ridiculous. Needless to say, few were surprised when Geoffrey Miller, the researcher who conducted this study, was reprimanded by his university last year for lying about his research in other areas.

8. Women can smell genetic incompatibility

The genes that comprise your major histocompatibility complex (MHC) play an important role in regulating your body's immune response — most notably in determining compatibility of donors for organ transplant. Some data have shown that the more dissimilar a man and woman's MHC are, the more likely they are to bring a child to term — but even more interesting is that women are thought to be capable of actually smelling this genetic differences.

In a study led by Claus Wedekind at the University of Bern in Switzerland, women were asked to smell T-shirts that had been worn by anonymous men for two nights and choose ones which appealed to them. According to the researchers, the women consistently preferred the odors of shirts worn by men with dissimilar MHCs.

How the whole smelling thing works remains very much a mystery. Research has shown that mice detect compatibility genes by smell, as do some species of fish. But in an interview with The Guardian, researcher Daniel M. Davis, author of The Compatibility Gene, admits that, at least for humans, "how [MHC detection] works on the olfactory level is basically not understood at all."

7. Birth control could mess with a woman's ability to assess a mate

In the study conducted by Wedekind and his colleagues, the womens' preference for men of dissimilar MHCs was actually reversed when the women rating the odors were taking oral contraceptives.

6. Fat men last longer in bed

The relationship between obesity and sexual health is sort of a mixed bag. On one hand, obesity is associated with erectile dysfunction; on the other, studies like this one — published in 2010 in the International Journal of Impotence Research: The Journal of Sexual Medicine — suggest that the fatter a man is, the less likely he is to suffer from premature ejaculation. In fact, men with a higher body mass index (BMI), were able to make love for an average of 7.3 minutes, while slimmer test subjects averaged 1.8 minutes.

So what's the secret behind those extra five and a half minutes? Men with excess fat also pack higher levels of the female sex hormone estradiol. One hypothesis is that this substance interferes with the the body's ability to achieve orgasm... at least for a few minutes.

5. The seven year itch may not be a myth

Originally made famous in the 1955 film by the same name, the phrase "seven-year-itch" is used to describe the tendency for someone to become unsatisfied with their partner or marriage after a period of seven years, at which point they may feel an urge to move on.

If you're measuring by way of divorce, the myth of the seven year itch may not be a myth after all; according to the 2009 U.S. Census Bureau, the median duration of first marriages that end in divorce is 7.9 years.

4. We will actively avoid temptation

Even if the seven year itch is real, evidence also suggests that men and women will actually avert their attention from tempting alternatives to their partners — even if this aversion is subconscious.

In a study published in 2008, psychologist Jon K. Maner showed male and female test subjects pictures of faces on a computer screen for half a second, followed immediately by a circle or square on some other region of the computer screen, which they were asked to identify by pressing a corresponding keyboard key as quickly and accurately as possible.

The results show that the gazes of single, heterosexual men and women were liable to linger on photographs of attractive members of the opposite sex, in what the researchers refer to as a high level of "attentional adhesion." But the test subjects who were already in relationships reacted differently, and actually looked away from attractive faces more quickly; in fact, some test participants in relationships turned their attention away from "attractive" members of the opposite sex more quickly than they did from "average" looking faces.

3. Masturbation starts in utero

Those of you flying solo on Valentines day should know that masturbation is nothing to be ashamed of — in fact, there's a chance you've been practicing it since you were in the womb. What you see here is a sonographic image from a paper titled "Sonographic observation of in utero fetal 'masturbation.'" In the image on the left, the baby's hand can be seen hovering above the penis. In the image on the right, the yellow arrow shows the hand engaged in what researcher Israel Meizner describes as "the hand grasping the penis in a fashion resembling masturbation movement."

"Bear in mind," explains Mary Roach — author of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex — at her TED talk on things you didn't know about orgasms, "this was an ultrasound, so [Meizner would have observed] moving images."

Then again, who knows? Maybe there's nothing sexual about this image at all, and it's actually an example of the palmar grasp reflex in the womb. [Figure by Meizner et al. via TED]

2. There's more to the clitoris than you probably realize

If you picture a clitoris in your mind, there's a good chance that what you're imagining is actually the tip of a bigger, internal clitoral iceberg — a sexual organ that is much larger than the sensitive bundle of nerve endings on the outside of the body (the tiny part of this diagram which is labeled as "Glans") would lead you to believe.

We covered the enigmatic clitoris in greater detail here but the upshot is that prior to the late 90s, researchers had never studied the internal structure of an excited clitoris. In fact, it wasn't until 2009 that scientists produced the first 3D sonography of a stimulated clitoris. The sexual organ is depicted here in its excited state in an illustration by the Museum of Sex Blog's Ms. M, which she drew for this fascinating post on the internal clitoris. Do yourself a favor and go educate yourself.

1. If sex makes you sick, ask your doctor about injecting yourself with semen

Have you heard of post-orgasm illness syndrome, or POIS? It's something entirely different from post-coital regret; it's a rare condition characterized by flu-like symptoms — including fever, runny nose,extreme fatigue and burning eyes — that arise following ejaculation and can last for up to a week. It's basically one of the most unfortunate syndromes on Earth. Ever.

But there is hope for sufferers of POIS. According to two studies published by researches at Utrecht university, men with the syndrome may just be allergic to their own semen, a finding that could open doors to helpful therapeutic options.

In the first study, 88 percent of men diagnosed with POIS were subjected to a skin-prick test (using a diluted form of their own semen) and had a positive skin response indicative of an allergic reaction. In the second study, men diagnosed with POIS were treated with hyposensitization therapy (which is commonly used to treat allergies), which involved exposing the patients to skin injections containing increasing amounts of their own semen. The study revealed that over the course of three years, the men showed a significant drop in their POIS symptoms. (A similar form of treatment has been proposed for women who are allergic to semen.)

All images via Shutterstock unless otherwise indicated

This io9 Flashback originally ran in 2012.

Here's something you should never watch if you're afraid of heights: A group of Russian daredevils filmed themselves climbing (and hanging from) the world's second highest building, the still under-construction Shanghai Tower. It's absolutely terrifying.

The group, who call themselves Rasklovit, have filmed similarly terrifying videos before but never at heights like the Shanghai Tower's 1950 feet.

Your move, insane Ukrainian daredevils.

[h/t Daily Picks and Flicks]

[Germany's Eric Frenzel celebrates winning the gold as he is flanked by Japan's silver medal winner Akito Watabe, left, and Norway's bronze medal winner Magnus Krog during the flower ceremony after the cross-country portion of the nordic combined on Wednesday. Image via Matthias Schrader/AP.]

Have you heard of "gun nullification"? It's all the rage. Seriously, so hot. It's especially popular in these Southern states who've used nullification before to tell the federales to butt the hell out of their business. Back then, nullification protected slavery and Jim Crow. Now, it protects your Smith & Wesson.

Via KMOV-TV in St. Louis:

Missouri senators endorsed legislation on Tuesday that seeks to nullify U.S. gun restrictions and send federal agents to jail for enforcing such laws, though the measure would likely face a court challenge if it gets approved in the state.

Courts have consistently ruled that states cannot nullify federal laws, but that hasn't stopped Missouri and other states from trying.

Sen. Brian Nieves, the Republican sponsoring the bill, said the legislation would protect law-abiding gun owners from federal encroachments and regulations. Missouri Republicans began pushing for the legislation following President Barack Obama's call last year for increased background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

..."This is primarily purposed to protect liberties of Missourians," said Nieves, of Washington.

Since the time of John Calhoun in South Carolina, nullification doctrine—the fancy-bred, college-educated stepbrother of those mental deficients, the militia and sovereign citizen movements—has held that America's several states have the right to nullify federal laws that infringe on their constitutional liberties. Unless we're talking about the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment rights of minorities in these nullificationist states, in which case their freedom is totally treading on our freedom, dude.

But no matter. Liberty-loving bears of small brain have found a five-syllable word, and it must necessarily lead to their promised land. Kansas and Alaska have already passed gun nullification laws, while Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Missouri have been pushing. Nine states, led by Montana, have passed laws asserting that gunmakers in their states are exempt from federal regulations, and so they can make all the full-auto machine guns and assault weapons they want.

The real fun comes when local politicians and law enforcement officers get in the nullification game: Nearly 250 sheriffs from Oregon to California to Arizona to Minnesota have written open letters defying federal gun laws and threatening to arrest U.S. government officials working in their jurisdictions. One rural Florida sheriff even beat prosecution last fall for releasing (and destroying evidence related to) a suspect who'd illegally held a concealed weapon.

It's fun times in America when libertarians and John Birchers are openly praising law enforcement officers for picking and choosing which laws they'll enforce, you know, to protect the good, law-abiding folk from federal interference. What could go wrong?

[Photo credit: justasc/Shutterstock.com]

Get the farewell tour ready. Present Derek Jeter with only the rarest and most expensive presents. You will be judged by your gifts, and if found wanting you will be shunned by the baseball community.

In a Facebook post, Jeter has announced that "The 2014 season will be my last year playing professional baseball." Here's his entire letter:

You know what this means—Jeter will peace out before Alex Rodriguez comes back. YEAH JEETS.

Top image via.

Yoruba Richen's documentary The New Black (opening today at New York's Film Forum) achieves what seemed impossible before it: It examines the generalized notion that the black community is homophobic with specificity and subtlety. Using the backdrop of the fight for marriage equality in Maryland in 2012 (where it was eventually approved by voters), Richen's film examines both sides of the debate within the black community by primarily using the National Black Justice Coalition Sharon J. Lettman-Hicks to represent the pro-equality side, and Maryland Marriage Alliance's Derek McCoy as the face of the anti-equality side.

My ideological allegiance with the pro-equality faction should be obvious. While the rhetoric of those on the anti-equality side never struck me as convincing or logical before, during, or after this movie, The New Black did help me see why people could take a stance against something that doesn't seem to involve them. By examining the importance of the church within black culture (it's where a black person "could be a person" and not worry about answering to white people, explains Bishop Yvette Flunder) and the institutionalized assault on black families dating back to the antebellum South, The New Black helps make sense of what has often seemed like a hateful, senseless assault on an already disenfranchised group. I'm not saying it's not that at heart, but I now understand how people on the anti-equality side see their cause as amounting to much more than homophobia.

The New Black engages in a difficult conversation, in which there are numerous exceptions to any generalization that can be posed. It is rich with enlightening person-to-person conversations about its central issue, abounding with great one-liners ("Equality never hurt anyone"; "Riding the bus in Montgomery in 1955 could not have been everyone's top issue, either," when the notion that marriage is not LGBT blacks' primary issue is posed), and it has a real sense of momentum as it races to the climax of election night. It's way more than polemic; it's a great film.

Yoruba Richen has agreed to answer your questions about her movie and the issues it explores below. First, you can read a sampling of my own interview with the director, which took place yesterday, below:

Gawker: Why did you make this movie?

Yoruba Richen: I started conceiving of this film the night of the election of 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president and Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, was passed. It was a feeling of great elation with the election of the first African American president, and then this huge defeat at the same time. What started to happen pretty much immediately was that African Americans started to be blamed for its passage and I was kind of confused and shocked why that was happening. It turns out there was an erroneous poll that said 70 percent of blacks voted for the referendum and that turned out not to be the case. But the narrative of black homophobia took hold in the media and I wanted to see why these groups were being pitted against each other. Of course black LGBT voices were completely left out of that conversation.

To me, your pro-equality politics were clear just through viewing the movie. What kind of challenges did that pose in portraying the other side?

I think as a documentary filmmaker, you can make an advocacy film, you can make a balanced film, but you can also make a film that tells the different sides and still have a point of view yourself. For me, in terms of reaching out and working with "the other side," I always knew I wanted that voice within the film and Derek McCoy led the campaign against [gay marriage in Maryland]. It was really his job to talk to the media, to win hearts and minds. I'm very grateful that he agreed to be in the film. I really try hard not to make fun of people or denigrate anybody even if you don't agree with me. It's not about what I think, but in terms of the filmmaking part of it, I do have a way that I'm framing it. Of course. As filmmakers it's always subjective.

I get that, and there are things within this movie that help me understand why people think the way they do, but there is a fundamental breakdown of logic in the anti-equality stance, which boils down to straight people telling other straight people what it's like to be gay. Did having to portray those hollow arguments make you feel any sort of way?

As the filmmaker, I'm trying to get people to reveal. It's my job to push them and I do, and through that you hope to get better information onscreen about why they think this. My last film was about land and race in South Africa, I told the story of white land owners, and sometimes people will say crazy things to you. But again, it's kind of like those are the bites that are revealing. It's like, "OK, great. This is going to make for a really interesting film."

That must be a hell of a thing to experience: Hearing things that are revolting, while at the same time knowing that they make for good material. The documentarian's multiple consciousness. The story of homophobia within the black community is a very complex one to tell. What you are doing is telling a specific story that explores a generality. Was it difficult to parse the specific from the general?

Totally. It took nine or ten months to edit the film and that's where you start getting into that. You hit it on the head: You're telling a specific story with these general themes and issues that are bigger than Maryland. I always wanted it to be that. In fact, Maryland didn't really become a storyline until 2012, after the legislator passed the bill, the governor signed it, and the other side got the signatures. I had been filming since 2010. The last official shoot was election night, and we had no idea what was going to happen, that it was going to win not just in Maryland but in those other states as well. It was a huge night. The process in terms of editing was figuring out how we would tell that specific story while dealing with these general themes that I, as a filmmaker, thought it was important to understand.

You favor the use of subtlety to tell your story — moments and what often sound like individuals' theories combine to tell the bigger story. Are you worried about people missing things?

Definitely. I've watched a lot of films as a filmmaker. You have to trust, though, that audiences are going to get the main point. People pick up different things all the time. Some people are shocked by the Christian right stuff. Other people, it's seeing the organizers in the field. But yeah, of course you worry that people are going to miss stuff. I'm not interested in hitting people over the head with things and being didactic. That's just sort of my filmmaking choice.

Have you received any angry responses to this movie?

Yeah, I've gotten a few. We've been doing the festival circuit, which is very friendly, and it's been great. As we expand, we're planning a big outreach campaign to bring it to places that aren't friendly, artsy movie houses, so I expect more resistance. I've gotten a couple of emails: "You're going to hell," and all that kind of stuff. I did a call-in show that also brought, "This is God's law and this is not right..."

What did you say to that?

I tried to make the distinction between civil law and religious law. "It's fine for you to agree with it, but my marriage certificate doesn't come from the church." There's a way in which you can go head to head on the religious scripture thing, and some of the ministers [in the film] like Reverend Coates who is in the film and who speaks forcefully for marriage equality, he does that. There are so many other things prohibited in the Bible. I didn't choose to talk about that so much in the film because I thought this other film, For the Bible Tells Me So, does that really well already.

Do you want to change minds with this movie?

Of course. I think that conversation can change minds, and not just conversation, but in our outreach campaign, what kind of institutional reach can we have? For example, with the HBCU [historically black colleges and universities] thing, there's more talk than ever about what kind of services LGBT students do and don't have at these universities. They don't have as many as when you go to the liberal arts college in New England. How can we be part of instituting that? Churches, local laws. So it's not only about changing hearts and minds, but making real change on the ground.

[Top photo credit: Jen Lemen; Yoruba Richen photo credit: Luke Rattray]

Our chat with Yoruba is now over. Thanks to all who participated. The film provides a lot more to think about on this subject. You should see it.