The suspense is burning. For the first time in the history of the Super Bowl, people who care nothing about football can experience the same level of investment over the outcome of the big day as sports fans. For my money, the halftime show will be the most exciting of the night's offerings: there is so much riding on Beyoncé's performance. Will she stay true to her word and sing live? Will she reinforce her status as her generation's greatest performer during this relatively vulnerable time in her career? Will she deliver something that erases the Inauguration lip-synching/backing-track accompaniment fiasco? Will she fuck everything up?

This is pertinent.

In Kountze, Texas, high school cheerleaders had a habit of writing Bible verses on banners for school football games. The superintendent, cognizant of our pesky "separation of church and state," ordered them to stop. A district judge disagreed, and has (temporarily) allowed the Bible banners to continue, throwing editorial writers across America into a tizzy over the various abuses of law and the American way by one of the world's easiest targets: insular middle American Christians.

While there are plenty of athletes who are allies to the LGBT community, homophobia in sports has not suddenly disappeared. Dan Savage shares the story of Jamie Kuntz, a college football player who was kicked off his team after kissing his boyfriend in the press box during a game.

11-year-old soccer phenom Gabriel Muniz is just like most Brazilian boys: He enjoys kicking the ball around with his friends, idolizes Lionel Messi, and "loves challenging social norms," according to his gym teacher.

Attention, non sportfan readers of Gawker.com: famous sport ball thrower Tim Tebow will render his athletic services unto the New York Jets, a corporate grouping of professional American football sportsmen, in the coming season. The New York Jets now have two quarter-back postion employees: accused rapist Mark "Sanchize" Sanchez and aggressively anti-choice part-time mohel Tim Tebow. Both have appeared in GQ.

The 46th Super Bowl in the history of the National Football League takes place on Sunday night. If you're saying "duh," then please feel free to move on to another corner of the Internet. If you're saying, "Is that the thing with the dogs?" then please keep reading.

The Super Bowl is approaching fast, and knowing you, you're already drunk and haven't even begun to think about what you're going to make for the party. It's okay — stop crying — no, really — because we've got some fun, fast recipes just for you.

The NY Daily News brings us the touching tale of a Brooklyn woman and her lucky garden gnome. Ever since Jennifer Pernice received the gag gift — it's your standard garden gnome in a Giants jersey — "The Giants have been doing pretty good." Look, either Pernice is the fun kind of crazy, or that gnome is actual magic. Either way it makes for a great story.

This morning we read how Yale Daily News, "Gutsiest Campus Newspaper of 2011," sat on the story of perfect Yale quarterback Patrick Witt's sex assault scandal for two months. Now, a humorous coda to their silence: We hear that YDN actually considered calling on wealthy alumni to charter a jet for the campus hero, so he wouldn't have to choose between the Yale-Harvard game and his Rhodes Scholarship interview.

Remember Patrick Witt, the Yale quarterback who chose the Yale-Harvard game over a chance at a Rhodes scholarship? As it turns out, it wasn't much of a choice: Witt's Rhodes candidacy had already been withdrawn over allegations of sexual assault.

Butchered celebrity performances of "The Star-Spangled Banner" are as important to American history as the anthem itself, but Steven Tyler gave us something entirely different during today's AFC Championship. His may be the first rendition that screeched while being butchered.

I do not watch football. In fact, I have a deep-seated loathing for the very game of football that goes back to the cold Sundays I was forced to endure with my family at Foxboro Gillette Stadium. I hate football. But that doesn't mean there aren't some football players I want to bone.

Everybody is talking about Tim Tebow. Except for you. Who is Tim Tebow? you're asking yourself, after spending 10 minutes nodding silently while coworkers discussed his game this weekend against the Patriots. (What sport is this? you are probably also asking. For the record: football.) It's okay, non sports fan: here is your exclusive guide to Tim Tebow.

Jerry Sandusky's also-kid-rape-y lawyer Joe Amendola says Sandusky and wife Dottie are "considering speaking together publicly," hopefully in a televised interview. Now the question is, are these people utterly delusional, kinda masochistic, or maybe enjoying the attention?

A strange coda for story of perfect Yale quarterback Patrick Witt, who dropped out of the finalist round for the Rhodes Scholarship so he could play in the Harvard-Yale football game: While Patrick was agonizing over his decision, his coach Tom Williams told everyone that he faced the same dilemma as a linebacker at Stanford in 1992, and chose football.

Like us, you've probably always assumed that schools with really good football teams are also full of stupid meatheads simply because stupid meatheads like football, and therefore go to those schools. That's not quite right; good football teams actually make students worse. Guy students. Cause guys like the football!

You know, the one thing not missing from the Friday Night Lights series finale was the presence of a possessed golf cart mowing down the Permian Panthers' defensive line. The Spring Dekaney Wildcats were not so lucky: The Texan high school football team were barely able to celebrate their new state title when just such a berserk vehicle — like something out of a not-particularly-terrifying Stephen King novel! — sent the stadium into a panic. Everyone was okay, though, so it's all right to laugh. Hahaha! Runaway golf cart! [Buzzfeed]

Strategists at noted Birther hive WorldNetDaily flew a banner over Cowboys Stadium this weekend asking, "Where's the real birth certificate?" Thankfully, the 90,000+ fans weren't able to see this embarrassing display through the stadium's closed retractable roof, sparing WorldNetDaily even further shame. [via Wonkette]

Former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno just fractured his pelvis for the second time. He'll be spared surgery, but will still have to continue living life as Joe Paterno: America's cancer-having*, idiot riot-inspiring, Presidential Medal of Freedom-less, buffed off, soon-to-be-trashed child rapist-protector. In central Pennsylvania. Where nothing cool happens, except miracle-of-lifey cow births and ice cream parties.