This week:

Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project took off on YouTube. The It Gets Better Project is a quest to collect videos from LGBTQI adults who want to let high schoolers know that life does really get better after high school. There are, unfortunately, a lot of queer teen suicides, and this project exists to give teens who might be thinking about that a tangible reason to hope for a better future. Dan and his partner Terry made the first video for the project. They talk about their high school experiences, how they met, and how great their life is now. If you want to participate, there are instructions on the It Gets Better Project YouTube Channel. Please also tell us if you make a video for this, and we’ll link to it in a future Spotlight!

Sandra McDonald‘s novel, The Stars Blue Yonder, came out in paperback this week. To celebrate, Sandra made an amusing video tribute to Australia (where the book is set).

And, Bart Leib announced that the queer issue of Crossed Genres is going away at the end of this month. It’s been up for eleven months now, and expires after twelve. If you haven’t read it, now’s the time!

That’s all for this time. Join us again next week, and please share any news you might have (or links to your It Gets Better videos!) here in the comments, on the Outer Alliance google group, or via Twitter (mention either @omgjulia, or @outeralliance).

President Obama has added gay, lesbian, transgender and disabled people to those protected by US hate crimes law; other promises about gay rights remain in progress or outstanding.

Religious settler comes to aid of gay Palestinian: a young Palestinian man who lives with his partner in Israel visited his parents in West Bank and was subsequently not allowed back into Israel. For fear of his life he couldn’t return to his own village, but a religious Jewish settler agreed to shelter him in his settlement.

Crash director Paul Haggis quits Church of Scientology after 35 years as a member, in protest against its opposition to gay marriage.

Crossed Genres has released their LGBTQ issue (Issue #12)

If you come across any links to share for next week’s linkdump, please post them to the Outer Alliance forum or bookmark them on delicious or diigo with tag “outeralliancelinks“.

Who is invited into the Outer Alliance? Anyone who supports the community’s tenets and is committed to engaging in intelligent discussion about LGBT issues in SF/F. This is a group founded in the belief that the best course against bigotry and discrimination is by rising above it, not stooping down to it.

This group is open to all writers (professionals and fledgelings alike) of SF/F (speculative, horror, paranormal, etc)–and their friends–of any inclination. The idea is that this is an alliance, so as long as you uphold the tenets of the Outer Alliance (see below) you’re welcome in.

• The Outer Alliance is a group of SF/F writers and friends dedicated to LGBT advocacy through education, support, and celebration.
• As a member of the Outer Alliance I pledge to uphold the tenets of education, support, and celebration of LGBT contributions to the science-fiction and fantasy genres through my actions and work, online and in print.

Things we hope to accomplish: blog articles, guest posts, community shout-outs, web-badges, newsletters, mailing lists. This is in no way meant to be a group that bombards you with information every ten minutes; I’m thinking a monthly newsletter, and biweekly mailing list announcements (we’ll cross post to the blog, as well, with celebrations of stories sold/published, important news, etc.)

If you’d like to join the Outer Alliance please visit our GoogleGroups page and fill out the form.