Know your News: Ffriday Link Round-Up!

The Friendfactor blog may have been quiet this week, but the world of gay news certainly was not! (We promise, the radio silence will be worth it… keep an ear out in early October… ) Here’s your weekly cheat-sheet to catch you up for the weekend. In this edition:  mostly stuff about TV. But lots of different kinds of TV!

Sports fans with gay friends can do a mighty big wave for this story: The NFL has added language to their anti-discrimination policy to protect folks from harassment based on sexual orientation! The league has made the move quietly, slipping the new protection in with the slew of other changes that came at the end of a collective bargaining marathon in the past few weeks.  Homophobia in sports is, unfortunately, a pretty widespread problem. So we’re glad to see such an influential group taking steps to say it won’t be tolerated. Did you know there are currently no out, gay professional athletes in football, basketball, hockey or baseball in the US? Maybe this move will change things.

On channels besides ESPN, on the other hands, the state of gay folks on TV isn’t faring quite as well: GLAAD reports a decline in gay and trans characters across pretty much all networks. Fox gets the best marks, which is pretty unsurprising as it’s the home of Glee, which makes gay news every time a rerun airs at 3 in the morning. In all seriousness, the scarcity of gay characters on TV is a real problem: the world we see represented in our entertainment says a lot about our cultural values, and it can’t be good for gay kids to see so few people like them on the tube. The question you should be asking: we have gay friends, why don’t the characters on our favorite TV shows?

Also on the television (give me a break, it’s been a dreary, snuggle on the couch sort of a week), there’s been a whole lot of manufactured drama around the booing of a gay soldier who asked presidential candidate Rick Santorum a question at the GOP debate. Many sources are trying to downplay this show of ugliness against one of our brave men in uniform, saying that it was only a few rogue audience members responsible for the negative noises. Either way, we give President Obama props for pointing out the obvious: that disrespecting hard-working soldiers, gay or straight, is not a very American way to behave.

Stephen Hill, openly gay soldier booed at GOP debate (via TPM)

Let’s balance that out with some good gay news from the military: the Pentagon has given Chaplains the green light to marry gay couples on military bases. This advance comes soon after the much-celebrated repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the effective ban on gay folks serving in the military. Just as experts expected, soldiers are taking the changes to policy in stride. We’re glad to know the country’s commitment to taking care of military families is expanding to include gay couples, bit by bit.

Finally, here’s an action item so you can help raise awareness about the issues that face gay couples who can’t get married. Thousands of such couples are torn apart every year because the federal government won’t recognize their love and commitment. Filmmakers are working to tell at least a few of those families’ stories in a new documentary called Entry Denied. Click through to watch the heart-breaking trailer; you’ll also have the opportunity to fund the film’s Kickstarter campaign and bring production to the finish line.