lgbt rights
A Valentine’s For Homophobes: FCKH8’s new video
(Warning: Explicit language)
FCKH8 released a new Valentine’s Day-themed video calling out the “hypocrisy of homophobes’ claims to preserve the ‘sanctity of marriage.’”
FCKH8.com will give 5¢ for every Facebook “Share” & Twitter tweet of this video - up to $5,000 - to H8Sux.com, a project that will give thousands of free “OK4U2BGAY” t-shirts to school kids to fight bullies, suicide and H8 in schools! FCKH8.com has raised over $250,000 for the fight for equal rights through T-shirt sales! Tees start at $9.99. Get yours at FCKH8.com!
The press release states that FCKH8’s videos have generated over 6 million views and sold over 70,000 t-shirts with $250,000 raised for gay rights causes.
Join the movement:
“Same-sex couple Frank Capley-Alfano, left, and Joe Capley-Alfano kiss as they celebrate outside San Francisco City Hall Feb. 7, 2012, in San Francisco.”
Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional on Tuesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.
(Photo: Getty Images via CBS News via Peter Galazka)
Uganda’s “Kill The Gays” Bill reintroduced without death penalty
Uganda’s highly controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been reintroduced by its author, David Bahati, according to the BBC.
The original bill was introduced in 2009 and resulted in international media cry before being shelved in 2011.
Homosexual acts are already illegal in Uganda, but the bill aims to increase the penalty to life in prison.
Originally, the legislation proposed the death penalty for those who engage in gay sex where one participant is under the age of 18, disabled, or HIV-positive. The death penalty has been removed from the revised version of this bill.
Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill is not only a threat to gays, but to anyone who is aware of individuals participating in homosexual acts and doesn’t report them to authorities.
Ever since the bill was introduced, gay people in Uganda are increasingly facing harassment and threats.
(Photo: AP)
MyAcceptance.org tells stories of LGBT people, two photos at a time
MyAcceptance.org, a new photo essay project, is documenting members of the LGBT community — two photos at a time. The one on the left representing how they’ve felt in the past and the one on the right representing how they feel now.
Much like the It Gets Better campaign, the goal of the project is “to give hope to those out there that are struggling in their lives, those who feel like they’re alone and that there’s no one to turn to.”
The project also invites people to participate by submitting their own photos.
Learn more about the project and view the photos at MyAcceptance.org.
(Photo: Parker Austin)
Irish LGBT group launches PSA against homophobic bullying
Irish organization BeLonG To Youth Services just launched an anti-homophobic bullying advertisement as part of their annual “Stand Up!” LGBT Awareness Week. The campaign promotes standing up against homophobic bullying, positive awareness of LGBT people and their supportive families and friends.
For more information on the campaign, visit belongto.org/campaign.aspx
(via Rinsaikeru)
Unfair Adoption
An illustration by Michael Dimotta for Instinct Magazine.
Anti-straight marriage PSA (video)
A team of writers known as Title Wave Creative just launched a parody PSA against heterosexual marriage, mocking the arguments against gay marriage. The PSA stars Derek James Baynham, Kelly Elise May, and Calum Worthy.
(via ItzJeffy)
Another Perspective
A photo by Minus18 to promote the International Day Against Homophobia. Minus18 is the largest melbourne hangout for gay teens. The organization honsts dance parties and events in Melbourne.
Find out more:
Tumblr launches new tag system, #LGBTQ featured
Today, Tumblr expanded their tag system, creating a new way to discover content. Among the listed 25 “popular tags” is #LGBTQ.
The system highlights Tumblr’s popular tags and allows users to browse content among that tag. The tags are switched out periodically based popularity, and some high-traffic tags become trending tags—for example, ”Egypt” and “Libya.”
What sets this apart from systems like Twitter’s Trending Topics is that the content listed under these tags are chosen by selected “editors.” These editors are users who are chosen by a semi-automated process. According to the FAQ, Tumblr’s bot identifies users who post popular content about a topic. Users from this list are then selected to be editors. Every 1-4 weeks, editors are switched out.
The new tag system is an innovative way to discover content and crowdsource the task of featuring content, and incentivize that process.
Tumblr explains that this new feature fixes the limitation of the Tumblr Directory:
“It’s hard to organize Tumblr blogs by topic. A single one of your blogs may include your personal updates, your art, your opinions, and a YouTube video of a cat speaking Japanese, all in a single day. This has been a real limitation of the current Tumblr Directory. So, for the last few weeks we’ve been experimenting with some brand new tools for exploring Tumblr.”
Currently, editors of the #LGBTQ tag are imaylikemychardonnay, kristinnoeline, hunsonisgroovy and dannielle. Top contributors (users who have been featured the most by editors) are rising, franfine, everyoneisgay, sincerelyconcerned and fuckyeahlgbt.
Facebook adds new relationship statuses: civil unions, domestic partnerships
Today, Facebook added the two options to the “relationship status” section of profiles. Users are now able to specify that they are in a civil union or domestic partnership.
According to Mashable, the update is effective immediately for U.S. residents, and will be rolled out to other countries soon. These options will not appear in countries where same-sex marriage is already legal.
In an email to Mashable, a Facebook representative stated:
“This has been a highly requested feature from users. We want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook.”
Current relationship statuses include single, in a relationship, engaged, married, it’s complicated, in an open relationship, widowed, seperated, and divorced.
