A political pundit who sometimes acts, Sean Penn won widespread admiration for finally appearing likable on-screen in the Oscar-buzzed Milk. Now, though, some are calling his political associations anti-gay.

Conservative writer James Kirchick started the fire in The Advocate, where he excerpted a Nation article Penn wrote and took him to task for being buddy-buddy with Hugo Chávez and Raul Castro:

Chávez and Castro are guilty of flagrant human-rights abuses, Kirchick writes: "Gay rights are human rights, as Milk said, and Penn discredits both when he rationalizes illiberal ideologies as 'anti-imperialist' and rushes to the defense of thugs who posture as victims of the West." [...]

Kirchick's story includes a quote from Human Rights Foundation President Thor Halvorssen, who says: "That Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator who put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling."

Penn's publicist Mara Buxbaum freaked out to Page Six, and Milk subject Cleve Jones added a rebuttal in The Advocate that more fully excerpted Penn's original article, where he includes an anecdote about his 14-year-old daughter complaining about homophobia in a face-to-face meeting with Fidel Castro:

At just the appropriate moment, still without a word from her, he asked what it is that's bothering her. She answered, "Why do you not offer the same human rights to homosexuals in Cuba as to heterosexuals? Why have you persecuted them?" She was ready for a fight. But no fight was forthcoming. Not even a hint of defensiveness. Castro seemed nothing but impressed with the question, patiently explaining that while homophobia had not been invented in Cuba, it had deep cultural roots, and that he and the revolution had made many mistakes as a result. But that there is an evolution involved in the process of change. And while they still made mistakes, there had been tremendous growth. (In 1979, Cuba abolished anti-sodomy laws. Today in Cuba, affirmation of same sex unions is scheduled for 2009, surpassing the pace of U.S. social reforms, and sexual re-assignment surgeries come compliments of the public health service) My daughter was disarmed and it was my turn.

While all this was going on abroad, Robin Wright Penn drove an SUV over to a friend's house to watch The O'Reilly Factor, for kicks.