UPDATE: New York’s New Freedom Index

Since the freedom to marry bill passed in New York, the state’s freedom index for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people has risen from 67% to 70%; for transgender people, it has risen from 50% to 53%. This is great news—three percent is nothing to scoff at. Imagine if 3% of a house fell on you–very uncomfortable, and suggestive of shoddy construction!

Despite New York’s new freedom index, though, there is a ton of work left to do before our gay* friends have the same rights straight people do. Learn more by exploring our Freedom Index page.

You can also sign our Liberty Pledge here and promise to help your gay* friends win the freedom to marry!

And, to close on a mostly unrelated note, here is the Daily Show segment on New York Pride. Everyone is so patient with the interviewer guy (who is apparently also in Book of Mormon?) that it is actually touching as well as funny:

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repealed: Freedom Index Scores on the Rise.

Something historic happened this morning. President Obama signed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a 17-year old law that prohibited gay and lesbian Americans from openly serving in the military. For the repeal to be implemented, the Pentagon must first certify the legislation. This could take up to a year depending on how much political pressure the Pentagon receives.

On Friendfactor, we calculate a Freedom Index for the advocates on our site. While straight people experience 100% of freedoms, gay* and transgender Americans have far fewer. Today, those numbers are changing.

As a result of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the Freedom Index scores for our gay* friends just went up!

Here are the nuts and bolts of the changes at Friendfactor: The Freedom Index is based on a number of factors including “Freedom to Serve.” Starting today, Freedom to Serve will move from 0% to 90% for gay, lesbian and bisexual advocates. Once the repeal is implemented and an anti-discrimination law is passed, that number will move to 100%. Because transgender individuals are not included in the bill, their Freedom to Serve calculation will remain unchanged at 0%.

The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is just one step towards helping our gay* and transgender friends get to 100% full legal freedoms. Stay tuned as we build tools next year for you to help your friends get to 100%, faster.