Hollywood producer and director Rob Reiner who worked behind the scenes to finance the Federal court challenge to Proposition 8 is in San Francisco this week for the landmark case. Watch:

Gay actor and singer Chris Salvatore makes a heart-felt plea for us to adopt one of the many gay American heros whose lives have been stolen from us, simply for being who they were. Watch.

Visit the Gay American Heroes Foundation for more info.

I covered the San Francisco Pride 2009 Media Party this evening honoring the grand marshals for this year’s Pride parade. I was really happy to meet Lt. Dan Choi, who is serving as one the Celebrity Grand Marshals along with Cloris Leachman and Milk producer Bruce Cohen. Lt. Choi has been in the news lately for outing himself on the Rachel Maddow Show and getting ejected from the military for violating Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He’s a real nice, standup guy, who shouldn’t be punished for who he is or who he loves. Some snapshots from the event below:

Granted it’s a comedy show by some crude and talent-impaired shock jocks (and one semi-reasonable jockette), but give me a break. It’s dehumanizing talk like this that nudges someone to act out and hurt someone. Listen to audio from the Rob, Arnie and Dawn Show if you can stomach it. Discussion starts around the 4:45 mark.

It’s easy to forget sometimes living here in this bubble called San Francisco that we are just an hour or two away from such intense prejudice and intolerance. Oh wait a minute, Michael Savage broadcasts from San Francisco. So much for that theory.

GLAAD has now called for an apology from the show.