Today is National Coming Out Day, a day to promote awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans­gen­der people. For anyone who doesn't already know: I'm bisexual.

I'm married to Emma. That leads people to tacitly assume that I'm straight. Too often, I do little or nothing to challenge that assumption, either from straight people or gay people.

I came out in grad school, a couple of years after leaving Ireland. It was difficult at first, but ultimately rewarding.

I'm married to a woman, but I could have ended up with a male partner, a partner whom I could not legally marry in Washington state. Emma and I married because anything else …continue.

I'm breaking radio silence to explain the un­char­ac­ter­is­tic drought of blog posts. In my last post, I mentioned that I had created a Twibbon overlay for Approve71.org, allowing you to overlay Approve71's badge over your Twitter icon.

The next day I went over to Ap­prove71's head­quar­ters and introduced myself to the tech team, Josh, Joe, and Adam. One thing led to another, and I spent that weekend writing my first-ever PHP code, which allowed you to upload a photo to Ap­prove71's website, stamp a banner on it, and then save it so that you could sub­se­quent­ly upload it to Facebook for your profile picture.

It's been a big success, …continue.

I attended the Approve Referendum 71 community or­ga­ni­za­tion meeting this evening and came away with several good ideas.

Emma and I are going to organize a fundraiser in late September or early October. Stay tuned.

I'm getting Freely Speaking Toast­mas­ters and BiNet Seattle to officially endorse the Approve Referendum 71 campaign.

Large businesses like Microsoft and Boeing endorsed the campaign yesterday. I'm told a number of small businesses have too. I'm going to ask our CEO to endorse the campaign. Robbie was willing to host Patty Murray at Cozi and to appear in her press releases, so why not.

I offered my technical services to the campaign, though I'm willing to do …continue.

Twibbon is a service that allows you to overlay a cause's badge over your Twitter icon.

I created a Twibbon overlay for Approve71.org.

The results look great on Twitter and Twibbon.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, if I save the image and upload it to Facebook as my profile picture, it doesn't look so good. Even if I use the FB UI to pan around in the image, the cropping ruins it.

I just mailed stormideas, the people behind Twibbon, asking if they could do something similar for Facebook profiles.

I spent 90 minutes phonebank­ing for Approve 71 after work today. I called voters who had already been identified as leaning pro­gres­sive and asked them to vote APPROVE on Referendum 71 in November.

Under the recent Domestic Part­ner­ship law (SB 5688 aka the “ev­ery­thing but marriage bill”), registered domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples with at least one partner over age 62), and married couples, are now treated equally under the law in all parts of Washington state.

The Religious Right objected and put together an initiative which scraped together just enough signatures to be on the ballot. They'll be voting to REJECT the bill, which would overturn domestic part­ner­ships in this state.

Civil …continue.

I held my annual fundrais­ing barbecue for the AIDS Walk today. Actually, the weather was so wet this morning that we cooked and ate inside.

I am happy to report that thanks to the generosity of my sponsors, I have raised $982 of my original goal of $1000. With three weeks left until the walk, I am predicting success in reaching my goal.

This year is the 23rd an­niver­sary of the Seattle AIDS Walk. A whole generation has passed since the Northwest AIDS Walk began. AIDS used to be the un­stop­pable disease that killed much of a generation of gay men.

AIDS is still a serious problem, but the de­vel­op­ment of an­ti­retro­vi­ral drugs in the Nineties means that people with HIV are living longer, healthier lives than before. More than 1.5 million Americans are now living with HIV/AIDS: 9,000 of them in King County. 40,000 people are infected every year, and most new infections are among African-Americans. The U.S. is getting off relatively lightly: about one-quarter of the adults in southern Africa have HIV!

The Lifelong …continue.

Approve Referendum 71. If you're eligible to vote in Washington state in November, remember this: Approve Referendum 71.

On May 18, 2009, Governor Gregoire signed Senate Bill 5688, aka the “ev­ery­thing but marriage bill” or the Domestic Part­ner­ship Law, a law ensuring that all Washington families are treated the same, with the same pro­tec­tions, the same rights, and the same oblig­a­tions as their neighbors. Under this law, registered domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples with at least one partner over age 62), and married couples, are treated equally under the law in all parts of the state.

Key rights and oblig­a­tions in the law include:

• Death benefits for the partners of police …continue.

Barely a month ago, while cleaning up Frank Maloney's Facebook account, I became aware of Portland Motsscon XXII.

I discovered the soc.motss newsgroup back in 1989, when I arrived in America as a grad student at Brown and had steady access to Usenet. MOTSS = members of the same sex, an opaque euphemism for gay attraction, which helped the group be created with a minimum of fuss in 1983.

I lurked on soc.motss for two years. I knew that I was bisexual, but I wasn't ready to admit it to anyone. Then my friend Éamonn came out as gay and I promptly came out to him. After a few …continue.

Candidate Obama talked a great line in gay rights, selling himself as a “fierce advocate”. He'd get rid of the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and more.

President Obama has been a big dis­ap­point­ment on gay rights. He hasn't done anything about DADT, he hasn't spoken out about gay marriage, he hasn't made any gay ap­point­ments. John Aravosis has a good roundup at Salon.

But now a shitstorm has blown up. On Friday, the Department of Justice filed a brief in defense of DOMA. First of all, the DoJ is not actually required to defend all laws. More im­por­tant­ly, the brief was gra­tu­itous­ly offensive, invoking incest and pedophilia.

People are outraged. A …continue.