The national bestselling author and Sirius talk show host takes a no-holds-barred look at gay marriage, sex crimes in the Catholic Church, closeted Republicans, and other hot button issues.

For over two decades, Michelangelo Signorile has been among the most outspoken and controversial critics of American politics and culture. As a gay journalist, he earned headline acclaim as the father of the "outing" phenomenon, which he cogently argued in his groundbreaking 1993 classic, Queer In America.

Today, he remains one the most widely read and talked about gay muckrakers. In Hitting Hard (Signorile's first new book since his international bestseller, Life Outside), the author tackles the most heated topics of debate among gay people and the political left.

Bush and Karl Rove are master when it comes to playing people, but you do have to be a pretty craven fool yourself to be taken in. Since Election Day, we've heard the rumbling of moderation and acquiesce to Bush from the Human Right Campaign - though they have staunchly denied it - when the nation's biggest gay lobby was reported in the New York Times as being more willing to bend to red state America and might even accept Bush's draconian privatization plan for social security. Now we have the leader of the nation's largest AIDS lobby helping to toast the new president and asking others to join her in plunking down money - $125 to $5000 - to benefit a group that will help Bush's friends in the drug industry and hurt people with AIDS around the world. We're losing the battle not because the religious right is so powerful - most Americans staunchly disagree with them - but because their own leaders are so weak."