Our movement has now been endorsed by the highest office in the country. In June, when you join us for the Celebration and Parade, we will be celebrating this new mandate for equality not only in this country but on a global scale.

There is so much work to be done, and now more than ever, it is important to take a stand for Pride.

This historic statement by the President took place on the heels of North Carolina voters approving Amendment One: changing the state constitution to recognize marriages only between a man and a woman, banning civil unions, and eliminating health care for public employees and children receiving domestic partner benefits.

The harsh reality is that there are many parts of the world where homosexuality itself is still a criminal offense. Individuals like Jean-Claude Roger Mbede, who is currently imprisoned along with several other men in Cameroon under Section 347a of the penal code for being gay, need voices to champion their cause as well.

Even as we note these trials, we must have faith that our time is coming. However, justice for LGBT people won’t come without millions of other voices coming out and celebrating not just marriage equality but “Global Equality”.

Image Credit: Fry 1989

More than two years have passed since the massive earthquake in Haiti, and still its effects remain a hefty daily reality for hundreds of thousands of people. One of the lessons emerging from this disaster is the increased need to be mindful of improving humanitarian aid for vulnerable populations, like the LGBT community.

After the earthquake, LGBT survivors faced increased persecution as religious leaders and community authorities blamed the disaster on the LGBT community. It was suggested that gays and lesbians had angered God and that their sins had brought this quake upon the country. There were reports of LGBT people being left to die in the rubble of their houses as well as physical and sexual violence stemming from the scapegoating.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, along with SEROvie which is an LGBT rights oriented HIV services organization in Haiti, documented the arrest of 40 lesbian women in a camp for people who had been displaced by the quake. These lesbians were charged with indecency and immorality and many like them have become the victims of “corrective rape” since the disaster occurred.

Gay and bisexual men are being affected by the insecurity of food distributions, as rations are provided to “traditional family” structures with female heads of households who are considered to be more likely to distribute rations more equitably to their families. This food distribution policy has left many male-only households to have to rely on lesbian women to share their food rations.

This is just some of the evidence that suggests government agencies and international aid groups must be mindful of vulnerable populations when disasters strike. It is crucial that the LGBT community, though often considered invisible, not be forgotten in times of greatest need.

Image Credit: Fry1989

After hosting the country’s first lesbian wedding and recognizing a “third gender” in its census data, Nepal recently announced that it will be hosting an LGBT national sporting event. In what many call South Asia’s most LGBT friendly country, this will be the region’s first sports competition held exclusively for the LGBT community.

The event, called the Blue Diamond National Sport Competition, is scheduled to begin late this September and will feature a multitude of sporting events, including football, martial arts, tennis, volleyball and more. A gay rights group in Kathmandu called the Blue Diamond Society is spearheading the event.

Sunil Babu Pant is a gay rights activist and head of the Blue Diamond Society who also plans to compete in the event on a volleyball team. He is expecting at least 200 athletes from the region to participate and is also welcoming athletes from other South Asian countries.

Pant recently told India Real Time that he hopes the event will “send messages across that LGBTIs can do anything” and will promote healthy lifestyles for the community. The proposed event has been welcomed by many in the region, including members of Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Even the government of Australia is sending 1.6 million Nepali rupees (approximately $20,000) in support of the event.

The purpose of the Blue Diamond National Sport Competition is to provide a space that will bridge barriers and alter mindsets.

Photo Credit: Juan Carlos Pometta Betancourt

Each year, SF Pride^® works with local venues, promoters, and event producers to create the biggest and most authoritative calendar of events during Pride month as part of our Official Events Program.

Pride’s Official Events help event organizers and our community to make June a truly empowering and celebratory month. Official Event organizers can enjoy benefits like being published in our Official Pride Guide InsidePride^® which is distributed throughout the Bay Area (60,000 distribution), inclusion in our website calendar at sfpride.org, promotion in SF Pride e-blasts, and association with the largest gathering of LGBT people in the nation: the SF Pride Celebration and Parade^®.

The online application is now live on our website. If you are interested in participating in this year’s program, click here to learn more about our three discounted premier packages, or pick and choose your own benefits, to provide your event with crucial exposure to the LGBT community and beyond.

By joining the SF Pride Official Events Program, organizers are able reach out to the community and watch their events reach new heights. We’re excited to work with event planners from around the Bay Area as we celebrate our diversity this June.

All applications, images, and logos are due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 27, 2012.  For more information about the SF Pride^® Official Events program click here or email us at officialevents@sfpride.org.

Photo Credit: Fry 1989

In 2009, the Delhi High Court in India struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalizing gay sex among consensual adults in the region. However, this has not stopped LGBT opponents from trying to overturn the decision.

The Union Home Ministry has recently been attempting to get the apex court to reconsider the ruling, saying that Section 377 ought to remain law to prevent cases of child sexual abuse and what it calls other unnatural offenses.

Gay rights activist in the country are standing up in opposition to the Union Home Ministry, deploring their calls for reconsideration of the law. Mohnish Malorta organizes the annual gay pride march in New Delhi and is a gay rights activist. He recently told the India Times, “If the government is trying to decide what is immoral or unnatural by ignoring human rights, then it is unfortunate.”

Other gay rights activists have condemned the actions of the Home Ministry, calling them irresponsible. The ministry’s insistence upon blaming the LGBT community for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country is particularly disturbing.

Sadly, this is not the first time LGBT activists in India have had to defend the government’s stance regarding the decriminalization of homosexuality. We stand with them in their fight to defend and protect their human rights.

Photo Credit: Darwinek

A coalition of LGBT and women’s rights groups in Ecuador recently celebrated a huge victory. After years of advocacy and protest, Fundación Causana, Taller de Comunicación Mujer and Artikulación Esporádika lobbied the government of Ecuador to investigate and shut down clinics across the country that were using abuse and torture to “cure” lesbians. These clinics often disguised themselves as addiction treatment centers and offered cures for homosexuality in covert ways.

After working with women who had escaped these clinics, human rights activists gathered disturbing stories of physical and psychological abuse. Women described being detained without consent, starved, shackled, beaten, and sexually abused in efforts to make them “straight”.

After a decade of advocacy, women’s and LGBT rights groups in Ecuador have recently been successful in partnering with the Health Ministry to close these torture clinics. Two recent developments made this victory against human rights violations possible.

First, Fundación Causana, Taller de Comunicación Mujer and Artikulación Esporádika circulated an online petition to draw attention to their campaign. That petition gathered over 100,000 signatures from around the world calling on the Health Ministry to protect the rights of LGBT people.

Second, a leadership change within the Health Ministry also proved advantageous to the cause. In early January, Carina Vance, former Executive Director of the gay rights organization Fundación Causana was appointed as Health Minister. Vance is directing a campaign of raids which are shutting down dubious clinics and freeing women.

The work of these activists, who have succeeded in calling attention to these crimes, is vital. Yet a great deal of work still remains. It is believed that hundreds of “ex-gay clinics” are still operational in Ecuador.

Photo Credit: Bill Weaver

All this month, the much anticipated public voting for Community Grand Marshals will take place. The public will be electing one Community Grand Marshal, an Organizational Grand Marshal, and a Pink Brick Nominee.

Public voting will begin on March 1, 2012 and end on March 31, 2012. You can click here to review the ballot and vote online today.

San Francisco Pride’s Grand Marshals are the public ambassadors of Pride. Community Grand Marshals are local leaders and organizations who have made significant contributions to the LGBT community.

The Pink Brick is a symbol of the first brick hurled at the Stonewall Riots in 1969. This faux award is an opportunity to highlight an individual or organization that has done significant harm to the LGBT community.

Photo Credit: Bill Wilson

Applications are available now for San Francisco Pride’s 2012 Community Partners program.

The Community Partners Program has supported numerous Bay Area non-profit organizations in their efforts to build safe spaces in our community and provide vital services to the public. SF Pride has been able to grant nearly 2 million dollars since 1997 to our beneficiaries thanks to beverage purchases and donations made at our event gates.

That’s one of the reasons a donation at the gate is so important. Not only do you earn yourself a discount off of beverage purchases for that day of the event, your donation is also going to help local charities who are staffing the gates and working at Pride’s beverage booths.

The Community Partners Program is open to any non-profit organization based in the nine counties of the Bay Area whose mission involves service to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender communities, animal welfare/rights, and people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, or homelessness.

The 2012 Community Partners application is available now on the SF Pride website. Just click here to apply.

Applications will be considered in March and April of 2012 and Community Partners will be selected and contacted no later than the first week of May.

All applications for 2012 and associated paperwork must be received in the SF Pride office by Wednesday, March 28^th, 2012. Please be advised that an invitation to apply does not guarantee placement in the 2012 Community Partners Program.

If you are curious about the Community Partners Program you can click here to visit our website. You can also contact our office at communitypartners@sfpride.org or call at (415) 864-0831 x110.  Thank you to all our non-profit partners for the important support you provide to the community by helping to make San Francisco Pride a world-class LGBT event.

Today is a landmark day in the road toward marriage equality in the state of California. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling which declared that Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional under federal law. It is widely anticipated that the ruling will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Today’s victory is a significant milestone in what has been an uphill battle for same-sex marriage supporters in the state of California. Follow the timeline below to see the mountains we’ve climbed to get to this day.

2000

March 7, 2000
California voters approved Proposition 22, also known as the Knight Initiative, with 61% of the vote. Prop 22 added to California’s Family Code, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

2004

February 12, 2004
At the direction of then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Office of the County Clerk of San Francisco revised forms for the marriage license application and for marriage certificates, and the City and County of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in what became known as the “Winter of Love.”

March 11, 2004
The California Supreme Court halted same-sex marriage licenses from being issued in San Francisco. By that time about 4,000 same-sex couples had already received licenses.

August 12, 2004
The California Supreme Court annulled the marriages that Newsom had authorized, as they conflicted with then current state law.

2005

September 29, 2005
Then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill passed by both chambers of the California state assembly. Gov. Schwarzenegger reasoned that his veto was “out of respect for the will of the people,” referring to the voter’s passage of Proposition 22 in 2000.

2007

October 12, 2007
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger again vetoed a bill approved by state lawmakers that would have legalized same-sex marriage.

2008

May 15, 2008
In re Marriage Cases, the California Supreme Court struck down the voter-approved initiative Proposition 22, holding that “statutes that treat persons differently because of their sexual orientation should be subjected to strict scrutiny” and that the existing “California legislative and initiative measures limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state constitutional rights of same-sex couples and may not be used to preclude same-sex couples from marrying.” In the six months that followed, approximately 18,000 same-sex couples married.

November 4, 2008
Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that sought to amend the state constitution, passed in the November 2008 state elections. The measure added a new provision to the California Constitution, determining that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Same-sex couples were once again barred from marriage in the state of California.

2009

May 26, 2009
After being challenged, the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 8 was valid and enforceable. The court also ruled unanimously that the approximately 18,000 same-sex marriages that had occurred prior to Proposition 8′s passage would still be valid and must continue to be recognized in the state.

2010

August 4, 2010
On August 4, 2010, in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned Proposition 8 but also stayed the ruling, keeping the voter initiative in effect pending appeal.

2012

February 7, 2012
On Tuesday, February 7 a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that California’s same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional under federal law and that Judge Walker correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedents when he declared that Proposition 8 was a violation of the civil rights of same-sex couples.