Sunday Funday is #GayForADay from Mexico to India to the USA

Hello, little spoons! It’s been another wild week in the world, and that means it’s finally Sunday Funday! Let’s dig into the good gay news dispatches from around the world and never look back.

Gay Sex Supporters in India

On Friday, people in India protested their Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a ban on gay sex with a social media campaign called #GayForADay, wherein Indians posted photos of themselves kissing someone of the same sex on various networks using the same hashtag:

The one-day social event was the brainchild of Tanmay Sahay, who created a Facebook “Gay for a Day” page asking people to support the LGBT community by posting photos of themselves kissing someone of the same sex.

“We have taken a simple symbol of love, friendship and solidarity – a kiss – to say that we stand together in our fight for rights. This is not a fight for gay rights. It is a fight for human rights and [it] impacts all of us. We are all queer and we must stand together to show the courts and all those who hate, that love does not discriminate on the basis of gender or sexuality and that it conquers all,” Sahay wrote.

Lots of allies to the gay community in India participated.

enhanced-buzz-7842-1386919559-1

It wasn’t just your average person in India who felt outraged at the decision. Countless Indian brands and Bollywood stars spoke out about the ruling with frustration and anger.

The People Have Spoken

+ Greg Louganis, former Olympic diver and bonafide homo, doesn’t think folks should boycott the Sochi Olympics. Instead, he believes American Olympians should dedicate their wins to the gay people they know and love.

+ A new poll shows that 70% of the Israeli public support equal rights for gay folks.

+ 66% and 56% of Americans in a recent poll support workplace discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, respectively.

+ US Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced Friday that federal college loan applicants will be treated equally whether their parents are an opposite- or same-sex couple.

#ProudToBeFemme

Femmes to look out for.

Not Another Gay Marriage Roundup

+ Congratulations to Kaitlin Ward and Lauren Bloch, the first same-sex couple at the Coast Guard Academy to announce their engagement!

enhanced-buzz-31044-1386784303-2

+ New Mexico’s lawmakers are calling on the state’s Supreme Court to do the right thing and rule in favor of gay marriage in a pending case.

Equality Florida is determined to let gay folks in the state set the date… in three years.

“In the fight for LGBT equality, Florida leads among Southern states and has become the new frontline,” says Nadine Smith, CEO of Equality Florida, the largest civil rights organization dedicated to securing full equality for Florida’s LGBT community. “The next three years are primed for huge breakthroughs in this battleground state that will ripple nationwide.”

+ Mary Cheney spoke in Indiana this week about gay marriage, her family, and a same-sex marriage ban proposed in the state.

anigif_enhanced-buzz-6818-1386950869-20

+ All 50 National Guard organizations are now complying with the DoD’s directions to grant same-sex spouses full military benefits.

+ Zaira de la O and Martha Sandoval are the first same-sex couple to marry in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Zaira de la O and Martha Sandoval are planning to exchange vows before a judge in Guadalajara, the state’s capital.

Last November, Jalisco lawmakers approved domestic partnerships for gay couples (Ley de Libre Convivencia), a union with limited benefits that is formalized before a notary, not a judge.

After being denied a marriage license in March, the couple sought relief from the courts and won, CNN Mexico reported.

“We are happy, relishing the moment we sign, with the same nerves as any couple about to marry for the first time,” Zaira said.

Blind Dachshund Paints Ornaments, Changes the World

Hallie, a 10-year-old Dachshund who lost her vision, isn’t too old to don her gay apparel or too visually impaired to get her artist on.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

13 Comments

  1. My Queer Theory professor suggested that we should boycott Russian vodka instead of the olympics. Clearly he’s never had burnettes…

    And the puppy is so cute!!

  2. Straight people pretending to be gay for a day on social media seems like not only the most inefficient way to fight back against homophobia, but possibly the most insulting one to queer people. Being able to post pictures of yourself kissing a same gendered person on social media in a country where public displays of affection between actual queer people are criminalized because everyone knows you’re not really gay is the epitome of straight privilege.

    It’s not brave and it’s not even helpful because it doesn’t send people a clear message about how queer lives are important and worthy and should be protected (it actually has nothing to do with queer folk because we’re gay every day, only straight allies can take part in this campaign), it’s just privileged.

    • Thank you, I came to say exactly this. Can you imagine if white anti-racist activists in the U.S. participated in “POC for a day” and wore black face or turbans? Just as skin color and clothing only make up part of the identity and experience of racially marginalized people, kissing people of the same sex is only a small part of what it means to be queer. I am not impressed.

      • Yeah, have to say that I agree here. I can see that it’s coming from a good place but kissing someone of the same gender and posting it on a social networking site doesn’t make you gay for a second, let alone a whole day. It just seems to take away a lot of what being gay is and reducing it to something gimmicky and generally less meaningful.

    • I understand your point, but, respectfully, I disagree. Given that the goal of the protest is to demonstrate that gay rights are human rights, and thus affect all people, I think the kissing is appropriate to the protest. I don’t think any of the allies are claiming to actually be gay for that moment, just showing solidarity. Also, the law that everyone is protesting doesn’t just criminalize gay relationships or gay marriage, it criminalizes any acts of gay sex. In that light, straight allies posing romantically with the same sex seems more political and more brave than the aggravating images of straight-people-posing-as-gay-to-get-attention you see so often in American media and advertising. This is just my two cents, but I was happy to see so many straight people publicly opposing an unjust law that does not affect them directly. Are there other ways to do that? Certainly. But the way they chose didn’t rub me the wrong way, and it was controversial enough to get the attention of those who aren’t allies.

      • I don’t mind the concept of kissing someone of the same sex as an act of political protest, I’m just annoyed by the hashtag, which to me seems flippant.

    • I’m glad I’m not the only one who was bothered when I saw this.

      “We are all queer.”

      No you’re not.

  3. Thank you for pointing out the change in the FAFSA info. We have a kid starting college next fall and we were trying to figure out how the hell we were going to fill that form out. Turns out that since they consider us married now, our paperwork hassles will be reduced significantly.

  4. That femme visibility video, sorry. I’m not femme and I still “look like a girl”, because I am one. What does a girl look like, anyway? Only long hair and painted nails? That definitely seemed to be the message that video was sending.

Comments are closed.