Notes from the Managing Editor
By Glenn Gullickson

Don't Smile for the Camera

When faced with a camera, the natural impulse is to flash a smile. But that can be a little tricky with duct tape across your mouth.

That’s only appropriate — there’s nothing to smile about when you don’t have equal rights.

Like hundreds of others, I had my photo taken when the NOH8 Campaign came to Scottsdale earlier this month. It’s part of a protest of California’s Proposition 8, which voters approved in 2008, ending same-sex marriage in that state.

The duct tape represents how the vote silenced voices of the LGBT community and its allies. Ironically, the campaign’s images are a powerful statement for marriage equality that’s gained national attention.

For a NOH8 Campaign group photo, Echo’s full-time staffers posed with the Echo Magazine from earlier this year that featured Cindy McCain’s NOH8 photo on the cover. That edition included an interview with photographer Adam Bouska and his partner in business and life, Jeff Parshley, about the making of the McCain photo.

As part of our coverage of the Scottsdale shoot, I had a chance to catch up with Bouska and Parshley.

PSA promotes Permanent Early Voting List

For another type of camera, it was my pleasure recently to represent Echo Magazine and lend my voice to a public service announcement to promote Arizona’s Permanent Early Voting List.

The campaign, organized by One Community, gathered several members of the LGBT community to record the PSA encouraging voters to sign up to get their ballots by mail.

You can find the PSA (and check out why I’m a print journalist) on YouTube.

Spotlighting a columnist

We’re introducing a new columnist with this issue. As the new chair of the Greater Phoenix Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Tony Felice is taking over the responsibility of the chamber’s Spotlight column.

We thank outgoing gay chamber chair Joseph Gesullo, who originated the column as a way to introduce chamber members, and look forward to Felice’s contributions.