Black recently joined the board of The American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group that is sponsoring a federal challenge to Proposition 8. The American Foundation for Equal Rights is supporting the lawsuit filed by Republican former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and Democratic activist David Boies that argues that Proposition 8 violates the federal constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.

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Black has also campaigned to have the California legislature recognize May 22 as "Harvey Milk Day" in the Golden State. Such a commemoration of Milk's birthday would honor the slain leader's contribution to gay rights. The bill establishing "Harvey Milk Day" passed the legislature in 2008, but was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger. On October 12, 2009, however, he announced that he had signed it.

The Governor's signing the Harvey Milk Day bill into law came the day after the National Equality March in Washington, D. C., at which Black spoke. The National Equality March was the culmination of a grassroots movement, led by veteran activists David Mixner and Cleve Jones, to refocus the gay rights movement from an incremental, local approach to a broader, national strategy.

Black, who is single, has been so busy as an activist that, he jokingly told Karpel, it has damaged his love life. When he goes out on the town in West Hollywood, he spends so much time talking to "cool lesbians" who want to discuss marriage equality that he winds up going home alone. "That's why I don't get laid," he quipped.

Despite his work on behalf of glbtq rights, Black has a number of film projects in the works. He is directing a film based on his own script (and on his own youthful experience) entitled What's Wrong With Virginia?, described as a mother-son coming of age story. Scheduled for release in 2010, it will star Jennifer Connolly and Liam Neeson.

He will also collaborate with Gus Van Sant again, this time on a film based on Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test.

Black recently led the list of The Advocate's "Forty under 40": forty accomplished individuals who owe their success at least in part to what happened at the Stonewall Inn 40 years ago.

American television has made significant strides in its portrayal of homosexuals in dramatic series and movies, but cable networks have been more daring than the "big three" broadcast networks.

Reality television viewers have come increasingly to expect the appearance of gay men and lesbians on these shows because their presence helps further underscore the "reality" in Reality TV.

The socially and politically conservative Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long been antagonistic to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.

The queer community has used documentary film to resurrect historical memory and to permit the marginalized to bear witness, as well as to build an image base that reflects our diversity and counters distorted representations.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual film directors have been a vital creative presence in cinema since the medium's inception over one hundred years ago.

The U.S. gay rights movement has made significant progress toward achieving equality for glbtq Americans, and in the process has become more inclusive and diverse, but much remains to be done.

The monsters of horror films may frequently be read as mirrors of societal views of homosexuals as predatory, amoral, perverse, possessed of secret supernatural powers, and threatening to "normal life."

Marches on Washington in support of the rights of glbtq people have been a significant part of the modern movement for equality.

San Francisco has enjoyed a reputation as a "gay mecca" since World War II.

Although film may be a director's rather than a writer's medium, gay and lesbian screenwriters have made significant contributions to both mainstream and independent film.

Activist Cleve Jones is best known as the originator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, but his life as a gay man has always been firmly interwoven with his life as a political organizer.

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States, was assassinated in San Francisco's City Hall, making him the American gay liberation movement's most visible martyr.

Randy Shilts pioneered as an openly gay journalist in the 1970s and 1980s and was an astute interpreter of the various issues affecting American gay men and lesbians.

Film director and producer Bryan Singer overturns standard narrative formulae and develops complex characters; he consistently emphasizes the fluidity and ambiguity of identity categories, including those pertaining to gender and sexuality.

The confrontations between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 mark the beginning of the modern glbtq movement for equal rights.

One of the most idiosyncratic talents to have emerged from the independent cinema over the past decade and a half, Gus Van Sant is not only matter-of-fact about his sexual orientation, but in his work he also represents homosexuality matter-of-factly.

Prolific film, television, and stage producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron have created a diverse body of work, including a number of theatrical films and television features with glbtq themes.