It was a great edition of The Agenda with Joe Solmonese last night on XM Satellite Radio with our usual mix of news, politics and fun. Kicking off the show, Joe and co-host Mary Breslauer chatted with David Hardt — the newly elected president of the Young Democrats of America who also happens to be openly gay.

Even though our show’s one-year anniversary was now two weeks ago, we never get tired of celebrating. So I put together a look back at the past year with some highlights of my favorite “Joe and Mary moments.” Listen in.

Then we took a look at a fascinating article in this month’s New York magazine by author David Amsden. His piece, Married Man Seeks Same for Discreet Play, is an in-depth look at a man living a double life.

Then we went to the dogs, as they say, with the president of the Lesbian and Gay Veterinary Medical Association. Dr. Michael McElvaine gave us the recap of the organization’s recent conference and talked about what we know about human sexuality through the world of animal research.

You may have seen the recent CNN/YouTube Democratic presidential debate that allowed everyday people to submit questions to the candidates. We were of course thrilled to see GLBT issues represented, and last night we were joined by two women whose video question about marriage equality was asked on-air at the debate. Mary Matthews and Jen Weidenbaum are avid video bloggers as well. Listen in.

For our big Point of View segments, we were thrilled to welcome back two great return guests to The Agenda. First, lesbian comedian Sabrina Matthews joined us. She’s been working hard with her own Comedy Central special and a lot of TV appearances so, of course, she had some hilarious stories to tell. Listen in.

Then we closed the show with Rick Klein of ABC News. He writes the Beltway must-read The Note and has his finger on the pulse of everything political. Listen in.

Most of the country is thinking about summer vacations, but we were still hard at work bringing you a great edition of The Agenda with Joe Solmonese last night on XM. This show did have one interesting twist… co-host Mary Breslauer was fogged in on Martha’s Vineyard so she had to do the show remotely from there but we managed to pull off a great show.

Kicking everything off, we went to gay summer camp with Shane Windmeyer of Campus Pride. We welcomed him back to The Agenda to talk about the GLBT campus leadership training camp his organization is sponsoring this week.

After that we were joined by Maureen Johnson, a well-known author of books for teenagers. Recently one of her books — The Bermudez Triangle — was banned from a school library in Oklahoma because it features a lesbian relationship.

Then we took a little turn to talk about some news with Jennifer Levi of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. She is working on the case of a Massachusetts woman who is fighting an IRS decision that told her she could not deduct her gender-reassignment surgery as a medical expense.
Listen in.

One thing we hear from our listeners is that you want to hear more about GLBT nightlife so we had a great segment on the topic last night. Matthew Poe, an organizer of LA’s Guerrilla Gay Bar, joined us to talk about how he’s helping reshape the gay nightlife landscape by encouraging groups of GLBT people to go to particular straight bars en masse.
Listen in.

We got back to a more serious topic with the ACLU and a new campaign they’re sponsoring called 10couples.org. The director of their Gay and Lesbian Rights Project Matt Coles was our guest to talk about the innovative multi-media campaign that profiles ten GLBT couples and the hardships they face since they’re denied the right to marry.

Finally, we had a very special feature on The Agenda last with three women involved in a new documentary called God and Gays. Producer Kim Clark joined us for two segments to talk about the film and the tremendous reception it’s been receiving. Joining her in the first segment was Darlene Bogle — an ex-ex-gay. Darlene was a leader of Exodus International which claims they can change a person’s sexual orientation but now she lives her life openly and honestly as a lesbian. In the second segment, we welcomed Rev. Deborah Johnson who is the founding minister and president of Inner Light Ministries, an omnifaith outreach ministry dedicated to teaching the practical application of universal spiritual principles to all of life’s circumstances.
Listen to the first segment with Kim and Darlene.

One year ago today, The Agenda with Joe Solmonese premiered on XM Satellite Radio, so it was a big anniversary show for us last night with some looks back and some great guests to help us celebrate.

We started off the show with an update from Capitol Hill where the Senate is set to vote on the Matthew Shepard Act as early as this week. Sens. Ted Kennedy and Gordon Smith filed the hate crimes measure as an amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill last week, and the Human Rights Campaign’s legislative director, Allison Herwitt, filled us in on its status.

Then we were thrilled to welcome Angela Robinson to The Agenda. She’s a writer, producer and director for the must-see Showtime drama The L Word and you may also know her as the director of D.E.B.S. She filled us in on all of The L Word gossip and an exciting new project called Girltrash. Listen in here.

It wouldn’t be an anniversary show without a proper retrospective so I put together a compilation of some of the best Agenda moments from the past 52 shows. Hear clips from our biggest guests and some of our less-than-scripted moments here.

Continuing our series of “In Their Own Words” segments, we heard from Elizabeth Edwards who spoke at HRC’s San Francisco gala dinner on Saturday night. Turning back to celebration, we welcomed XM’s executive vice president for programming, Eric Logan. He’s a veteran radio guy and consistently ranked as one of the top movers and shakers in the digital media world.

On one of our first shows last summer we were joined by TV writer Carol Leifer who told us about her big birthday. We decided to bring her back last night to hear how the year went for her and find out about some new TV projects in which she’s involved.

Finally, we wrapped up with politics with another return guest — Amy Walter, now editor of The Hotline. Get the scoop on presidential politics here.