New York, U.S.A. — In the wake of President Obama’s recent backing of same-sex marriage and a Supreme Court decision looming, BeautifulPeople.com is launching Gay and Lesbian versions of its online dating site in a national show of support for equal rights. BeautifulPeople’s billboard campaign, scheduled to launch across the country in support of same-sex marriage legislation, has been banned.

Choosing not to bow to an infringement on their right to free expression, BeautifulPeople has redesigned censored versions of the billboards. The censored images, originally a playful take on political dissonance, have gone up in 10 locations around Los Angeles including West Hollywood, California – one of the largest LGBT communities in the country – and also in Florida.

The original BeautifulPeopleGay.com billboard shows a loving matrimonial union between the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman and TV personality. The BeautifulWomenOnly.com billboard features former presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann kissing Sarah Palin, the gun-toting former Alaska governor and darling of the right. Both billboards show President Obama as officiant.

“This is a national campaign championing equal rights for the LGBT community and pledging support in a colorful way,” says Greg Hodge, BeautifulPeople’s Managing Director. “Through a humorous campaign we wanted to showcase how many of our political heavyweights are living in the last century.”

Determined to play an active role in the national effort to legislate equal rights for the LGBT community, BeautifulPeople.com is giving 15% from every same-sex membership to a non-profit organization championing marriage equality.

BeautifulPeople.com, an online dating site exclusively for beautiful people, already has a large gay membership; however only opposite sex voting is allowed to avoid members voting strategically against other beautiful hopefuls. The exclusively gay versions now allow gay members to enjoy the same-sex voting process and vote according to their own unique definition of beauty.

Both sites, www.beautifulpeoplegay.com and www.beautifulwomenonly.com, are now live, coinciding with the BeautifulPeople marriage equality campaign launch.

Images: The following are links to images of the uncensored billboard campaign, and the wedding album images from the BeautifulPeopleGAY photo shoot. Images of the uncensored billboard truck in NYC are also available upon request.

See the billboard here: http://www.beautifulpeople.com/microsites/billboards/

See the wedding album here: http://www.beautifulpeople.com/microsites/WeddingAlbum/

About BeautifulPeople.com

Like BeautifulPeople.com, acceptance to the site is a democratic process, with existing members voting beautiful hopefuls in or out. All members must pass through a strict rating process to make sure they are up to standard. Potential members submit a picture of themselves and existing members then vote. If successful they have exclusive access to a dating site where the one thing they can guarantee is that everyone is good looking and they don’t have to filter through riff raff.

BeautifulPeople is the largest community of attractive people in the world representing almost every ethnic and cultural background. This coveted community shamelessly exists so beautiful people can meet other beautiful people. There have been over 650 marriages through unions founded on BeautifulPeople.com and thousands of beautiful babies born.

Image Courtesy of  davidyuweb

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Choice Hotels International, Inc. has announced its recognition as one among the “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality” by the Human Rights Campaign, thanks to the company’s perfect 100 percent score on the 2012 Corporate Equality Index—an annual report from HRC ranking companies on their LGBT-friendly practices and policies.

“Choice Hotels is committed to fostering a fully-inclusive environment for all of our associates and this important ranking is another resource for us to do the right thing for our corporate employees,” said Steve Joyce, president and CEO of Choice Hotels.

“But participating in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also good for business; Choice Hotels is always looking to recruit and retain the best employees and being recognized for our inclusive culture helps to achieve this goal.” This is the 10th year that HRC has issued its CEI report.

The 2012 CEI chronicles the remarkable advances that have taken place on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality in the workplace since 2002. In its first year, only 13 businesses received a top 100 percent score. This year, Choice Hotels is among 190 other corporations, across industries, geographies, and size that will receive a 100 percent score on significantly stringent criteria.

As a company, Choice Hotels has participated in the HRC’s CEI over the past three years, increasing its score year over year with a 95 percent ranking for 2011. ”Corporate America is leading the charge for equality in the workplace,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “We commend the businesses that participated in the CEI. They understand that LGBT-inclusive workplace policies are the right thing to do and good business practices.”

As part of the CEI, Choice Hotels was rated on 40 specific policies and practices, 32 of which are new or more demanding this year. To achieve a perfect score and the coveted distinction of “Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality,” Choice Hotels had to have fully-inclusive equal employment opportunity policies, provide equal employment benefits, demonstrate organizational LGBT competency, evidence its commitment to equality publicly and exercise responsible citizenship.

Tomasz Bidermann / Shutterstock.com

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