GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, the Matthew Shepard Foundation and The Trevor Project – three organizations that work to improve the lives of LGBT youth – are among 100 finalists in Chase Community Giving, a campaign by Chase and Facebook to award $5 million to charities voted on by Facebook users.

Facing a Friday deadline, the Courage Campaign Institute and CREDO Action launched an unprecedented signature drive Tuesday to ensure that the most important equal rights trial in a generation be accessible to the public. The signature drive -- which has gathered more than 50,000 signatures in less than 12 hours -- asks U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to publicly televise the proceedings in the federal case to overturn California's Proposition 8.

Show your rainbow colors, and enter to win an eight-day Pride vacation for two to “America’s Riviera,” Miami Beach, followed by a Caribbean cruise aboard the luxurious Norwegian Sky. Miami Beach Gay Pride has teamed up with Passport Magazine, Source Events and the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) to host the Pride-ful vacation for two, April 16 – 23, centering on Miami Beach Gay Pride.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker -- who will be overseeing a federal court challenge to Prop 8 starting this Monday (January 11) -- is considering whether or not to open the court room to TV cameras.

The court just announced that it is seeking public comment on the proposal to televise the trial -- and that all comments must be submitted to the court by a Friday deadline.

Tongues Untied launched an uproar of controversy when it aired as part of PBS’s P.O.V. series of documentaries, back in 1991. The religious right used it as an example of why U.S. citizens shouldn’t fund PBS or the National Endowment for the Arts. Lost in the raving was the film’s content: creative explorations of black gay men in America. Yes, the film includes pictures of a naked man: the film’s director, Marlon T. Riggs. It also includes strong language, with explicit references to sexuality. The language and nudity are central to Riggs’s honest, naked investigation of what gay black men experience.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, hailed the announcement that a ban on HIV positive visitors and immigrants entering the country, first established in 1987, has been lifted. A regulation promulgated by the Obama administration last summer and finalized in November goes into effect today, removing HIV from the list of communicable diseases that bar foreign nationals from entering the United States.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy and anti-defamation organization, has staff on the ground today as gay and lesbian couples begin to marry in New Hampshire  after Governor John Lynch signed marriage equality legislation in June 2009.

Drumroll, please: Talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and style guru Tim Gunn today were named PETA's 2009 Woman of the Year and Man of the Year. Each honoree has made an exceptional effort to place animal rights issues before a large audience.