Today is the World Aids Day. Jack Mackenroth has released a 15-month calendar with all proceeds benefiting the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), to help find a cure for AIDS. . The calendar begins in January 2012 and continues through May 2013. Each month features a different photographer with a very different style.

Photographers taking part int the project include Adam Bouska (NOH8), Rick Day, Carsten Fleck, Frank Louis, James Franklin, Karl Giant, Tommy Synnamon, Mattheus Lian, Richard Gerst, Ray John Pila, Sonny Tong, Thomas Evans, Krys Fox and Preston Cros with over 17 amazing images in total.
On Wednesday, political leaders in St. Petersburg (Russia) are voting on a new law that will make it illegal to speak in public about being gay, lesbian or transgender. Russian gay activist need support from around the world – and they need it fast. Because Russia is powerful, most world leaders have stayed silent. But if we raise our voices now, we’ll shine an international spotlight on the issue that will be impossible to ignore.
Will you take 2 minutes to add your voice to our urgent call?
We’ll deliver the petition to Russian embassies around the world and push the issue to the top of the international agenda.
If the law passes this week in St. Petersburg, it could quickly lead to a crushing of freedoms throughout all of Russia. Moscow, the largest city in the country, already said they were looking into passing the same law – paving the way for officials to make it national. Our friends in Russia believe that stopping the bill in St. Petersburg can derail the plan to take this law nationwide. Many around the world have been reluctant to criticize the ruling party led by President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, but their party appointed both the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg and they’ve gone on record in support of the proposed laws.

Russia is already a dangerous place to be out and open as an lesbian, gay, bi or trans (LGBT) person. Courageous pride marchers were brutally attacked and detained by Moscow police last summer – for the simple act of holding their heads up high in public. If this bill passes, even the small victories that the LGBT movement in Russia has won will be wiped out – and pride marches, cultural festivals, and even the distribution of leaflets in the streets will be considered illegal.
After 17 years on the political scene, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned Saturday 12 November 2011. He was the most homophobic leader in Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of people paraded in Rome today (June 11, 2011) for the European Gay Pride to challenge the Vatican and Silvio Berlusconi’s “backward” government over same-sex rights, with Lady Gaga as the star guest.
The Pride would be more of a protest than a celebration. Organisers of the event said their main message was that deeply Catholic Italy is a laggard in terms of gay rights in Europe, with no specific laws against homophobic violence and no provision for gay civil unions. Prime Minister Berlusconi last year dismissed a sex scandal with a comment: “It’s better to be passionate about beautiful women than to be gay”.
Italy is one of the few European states that lacks specific legislation against homophobic violence and has no provision for gay civil unions. The Vatican condemns homosexuality as a “disordered” behaviour and lobbies against laws allowing more rights for gays including laws against homophobic violence and marriage.
I hope the parade would help to push out the most backward government since World War II. It’s better to be gay than to be Berlusconi and Ratzinger.

After watching this photo @ Hunk du Jour, fuck with Scott Caan is one of my dreams.
