What do The Gossip, Grizzly Bear and now Vampire Weekend have in common? Well, yeah, since the latter’s keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij came out you would be correct if you said “they are all bands with out, gay members.” But the real answer I was looking for is that they are some of the highest-profile and most-loved indie bands playing in America today. And unless I am sorely out of the loop,hey have hardly been greeted with a loss of fans, dropped sponsorships or boycotts by the religious right. The earth beneath your local record store did not open and swallow passerbies with an assortment of writhing, pink tentacles. In fact, it would be pretty safe to say that no one really fucking cares.

The haters tried to spoil the party, but love won the day. I would try to describe the feeling of being there, but I wouldn’t be able to do it justice, so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

“Moments before the first marriage applicants walked out of the courthouse, the Fred Phelps gang of loonies were spreading their hate. Remember, friends, despite our slowly unfolding successes, there are many challenges ahead.”

When Equality California and oher organizations opted to wait until 2012 to try to repeal Proposition 8, they gave our opponents the green light to attack gay rights elsewhere. This week’s vote in the New Hampshire legislature is just one of many battles they will be waging.

On February 19, the Fred Phelps brings his hate group to protest the Ragga Muffins Festival (Long Beach’s huge reggae rally), the Alpert Jewish Community Center, Temple Beth Shalom, and Wilson High School.

Valentine’s Day has become a traditional day of marriage activism. Here’s a round-up of protests and events that occurred around the country.

With the aspiration of using photography to promote international gay rights and visibility, the new and independently developed “Walk with Pride” project aims to spend over a year documenting pride parades around the globe.

It is with great sadness that I post about the passing of Zelda Rubinstein. Actress, character, and early anti-AIDS activist, Zelda represents the kind of Angeleno that makes this city shine.

While most of DC’s twenty something’s are recovering from last night’s binge drinking, Lauren Hamilton is protecting the rights of women.  Her Saturday morning volunteer position, which involves escorting women into women’s healthcare clinics in Washington, DC, is more than service hours on a resume or a political statement, this much I can tell from her impassioned face as we video chat from out respective homes in different time zones. She has plenty to say about her volunteer position, surprising me with the offhand detail that there are plenty of male escorts at these clinics. My surprise comes from the misconception that abortion is a “women’s issue” but Hamilton has a lot to teach me. “For every man who’s sister, mother, wife or friend who deserves the right to choose,” she starts. “The reproductive rights of women affect all of us. Every woman and every man in this country.”

“9 out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.”

–glsen.org

It is 2010 and homophobia is still among us. This is unacceptable.

There are a slew of LGBT educational organizations out there, but The Generation Project, Inc.—a new educational 501(c)3—offers a fresh and distinct avenue for schools seeking to eliminate homophobia—to finally do so.