Ffriday Link Roundup: Your quick guide to the week’s Gay-B-C’s

Hey friends hey! Welcome to the first weekly installment of the Friendfactor Ffriday Link Roundup (for Ffriends, obviously). This is the place to come for the very most important stories affecting your gay friends’ lives this week, and a solid dose of just plain awesome info for folks who support gay folks. So without further ado…

Marriages, Mentors, and Muppets after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »

Rise Against’s New Collaboration with It Gets Better

Rise Against is rising against homophobia in their latest video for “Make It Stop (September’s Children),” a collaboration with the It Gets Better Project. (Watch the video here.)

There’s also an interesting behind the scenes clip, in which, among other things:

• Tim McIlrath, Rise Against’s lead singer, explains that the song is dedicated to “September’s Children,” the gay (or gay-perceived) teens who committed suicide in September 2010.
• The members of Rise Against talk about being bullied in high school (“They called me Spock”—bullies rarely sound nerdier than the people they were bullying, but look, it just happened!)
• The video’s actors reflect on their high school experiences. Actor Joshua Banks notes, for example, that “high school was the lamest.”

Like Friendfactor, McIlrath hopes people will stand up for their friends who are struggling–whether the struggle is to marry, or to escape bullies.  Stand up for your gay friend by calling your New York senator today and saying you support the freedom to marry.

Where does/should Obama stand on freedom to marry?

It seems like everyone is speculating about Obama’s position on same-sex marriage. In Salon today, Alex Pareene argued that that Obama should come out for gay marriage already (literally—Pareene’s title is “Barack Obama should come out for gay marriage already”).

Pareene notes that the only way the New York marriage bill will pass is with Republican support—so if it does pass, Obama will have out-Republicaned New York Republicans. He also argues that Obama’s current position is unofficially silencing him on the subject of marriage equality:

With the president still “officially” opposing gay marriage, he won’t be able to celebrate the victory — or criticize the failure, if the New York state Senate acts like the New York state Senate and the talks collapse at the last possible moment.

“[I]f the New York state Senate acts like the New York state senate” is maybe not the most illuminating rhetorical device, but Pareene’s larger idea is worth considering.

The Huffington Post, meanwhile, got a position clarification from Obama, who had previously been issuing borderline comical bulletins like this one (via HuffPo):

Press Secretary Jay Carney stressed that the president had been nothing but consistent in saying that his position was “evolving” on the topic.

It takes a lot of self-confidence to call something consistent and evolving in the same sentence.

Luckily, in an email to HuffPo today, an anonymous White House official helped clarify Obama’s current position:

“Although the President believes that this is an issue best addressed by the states, he also firmly believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive equal protection under the law,” the official said.

What do you guys think of Obama’s freedom to marry politics? Comment away!