Dot Gay

There’s been much discussion about how the LGBT community would use a .GAY web address that dedicates a majority of its profits to LGBT civil rights causes in the US and abroad. We who are behind this effort see the benefits clearly, and this report, which comes from Marketing VOX: The Voice of Online Marketing, adds more power to the argument. Most enlightening. Check it out:

The successful addition of a “.gay” domain will likely influence how marketers target the LGBT community online, especially if LGBT users begin to widely adopt its use as a means of raising funds for various gay causes, or expect that it will be used to specifically target GLBT users, who have proven to be loyal to products, organizations and causes that support gay issues.

According to one Harris Interactive poll, nearly one in four (24%) LGBT adults said they had switched products or service providers in the previous 12 months because they found a competing company that supported causes that benefited the LGBT community.
The “.gay” movement also may be a natural fit for the online-friendly LGBT users, who are much more engaged online, and with social media in particular, than their heterosexual peers, a recent survey found.
Approximately 55% of gays and lesbians report reading some type of blog, compared with just 38% of heterosexuals, according to a separate Harris Interactive survey.

Other statistics about the online GLBT population:

* 34% of online gay and lesbian adults say they read news and current-issue blogs, compared with 22% of heterosexuals.
* 25% of gay and lesbian adults read entertainment and pop culture blogs, compared with 15% of heterosexuals.
* 28% of gay and lesbian adults read political blogs, compared with 14% of heterosexual adults. This represents an increase over March 2008, when 23% of GLBT read political blogs.
* 14% of gay and lesbian respondents say they read travel blogs, compared with 8% of heterosexuals.

Read the full report http://www.marketingvox.com/competing-groups-vie-for-gay-web-suffix-045328/?utm_campaign=rssfeed&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink

Paula Ettelbrick is the Philanthropy advisor to Dot Gay Alliance and had been away for a few days. When she got back in town and saw this video of President Obama addressing the Human Rights Campaign Fund, she was so inspired she sat down and sent this to all her friends. Her note was so moving I had to post it.

Dear Friends:

OK, another full-blown weepy moment for me as I could only think about what it would have been like in 1974 when I struggled to come out and find a place in my Roman Catholic family, my suburban community and among my friends  to have a President — scratch that — ANY public or community leader (or just any adult!)  stand up and just lend a kind word to a lesbian like me.

Whenever we begin to lose faith, when we become cynical about whether our system of government will ever work again in the face of the relentless and nauseating barrage of attack on civil discussion waged by the right wing in this country to confuse and divide people, remember this speech and think of two things:

1. This is what leadership looks like, and
2. Once we elect the leader whom we believe and know is leading in the right direction, it is our continuing responsibility to fight like hell to get the rest of our elected representatives (535 members of the United States Congress) to follow our leader — that is OUR job after election day.

So, please, watch this inspiring clip.  Revel what our passion and work has done to elect him to lead us. And then, do something tangible — today — to finish the work we all started oh so long ago.  Suggestion:  Take one minute to call your member of Congress AND your Senator, or better yet, write a personal letter (yeah, the kind with a stamp!) telling her/him how important it is to YOU that they do everything possible to support the President’s LGBT agenda (ENDA, Hate Crimes, HIV ban, HIV/AIDS policy, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, which he lays out beautifully in this speech.  (You might mention health care, etc. as well — the single most important issue facing America today)

And THEN — one more thing:  ask ONE other person to do the same, and ask them to ask ONE other person.  Perhaps someone in a district in which our elected representatives don’t hear from us on a regular basis.  It’s easy to google to find your elected representatives.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1061

BTW, you do NOT need to sign up with HRC to watch this clip.

We have an incredible moment here, guys. In three years we will either be voting for a President who has turned the history of hate and discrimination against LGBT people around, or we will be trudging to the polls cynically wondering why he did not do all we asked and needed. We have elected the leader who is more willing than anyone in history to go to the mat for us.  The difference in our attitude in three years will not depend on him — he’s put the agenda out there. It will depend on us.

Love,
Paula

PS.  If you no longer use stamps, or you have forgotten what they are, email your letters to me and I will send them for you.  How’s that for a deal?  Please, just do something.

you should watch his speech to HRC on Saturday night. I know there’s a lot he didn’t say, but I can’t imagine hearing George Bush utter the phrase LGBT (without mangling the letters).

“When you look back on these years, you’ll see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians whether in the office or on the battlefield.”
http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1061

Edmund White, the great novelist, biographer, nonfiction writer and long-time community stalwart endorsed Dot Gay Alliance today. This is fantastic! Not only is support coming from the political and non-profit spheres, but now it’s coming from the arts as well.

White’s new memoir, City Boy, is a great and courageous read, btw. Amazing detail on Stonewall (he was there) and moving material on being a self-hating gay in therapy with a shrink to ‘get cured,’ not to mention some good dish on Susan Sontag, Jasper Johns, Gore Vidal and other boldfacers of the day.

If you missed this wild time of gay awakening in NYC, then it’s a must read. If you were there, it’s a rocky, rich trip down memory lane. Either way it’s a reminder of how much things have changed in 40 years. http://www.amazon.com/City-Boy-Life-During-1960s/dp/1596914025