In the Pink – new gay humanist magazine hits the cyberstreets

A new magazine for humanists who are gay or gay-friendly has just launched. The Pink Humanist is published by the owners of this blog, the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT), and edited by Freethinker editor Barry Duke.

Duke, a veteran gay journalist and photographer, formerly of Brighton, now languishing in Benidorm on Spain’s Costa Blanca (lucky bastard!), has put together a colourful mix of articles, including one that Freethinker readers will recognise as a fine display of his own acerbic, cut-to-the-chase (or cut-to-the-jugular) voice.

Here is the press release the magazine has put out today:

The UK gay Humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) has re-launched its online magazine with a new title, The Pink Humanist.

The PTT, which was founded in 1992, started publishing a printed magazine entitled Gay & Lesbian Humanist back in 1993 and continued this until it went online in 2008.

Though described as an LGBT publication, the new magazine is aimed at all atheists, Humanists, sceptics and freethinkers and is the only one of its kind worldwide.

The editor of The Pink Humanist is Barry Duke who is well known in UK atheist and Humanist circles as the editor of the Freethinker, a monthly journal which was founded in 1881. Duke was also closely associated with the National Secular Society for many years.

Contributors to the first issue of The Pink Humanist include Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev, who has been praised by human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell for “his amazing, ground-breaking work over many years”.

Barry Duke said: “As editor of the oldest freethought magazine in the world, I am delighted to have been invited to launch the newest.

“Since 1974, I have devoted my life to promoting LGBT rights, atheism, Humanism and rationalism, and The Pink Humanist will, I hope, help raise awareness of the need to challenge religious privilege wherever it occurs in public life, and stem the rising tide of homophobia, especially in Africa where mainly foreign evangelicals have been allowed to muddy the waters of tolerance and generate unprecedented levels of hostility towards the LGBT community.

“My hope, too, is that freethought writers from all over the world will donate original articles, comments and reviews for inclusion in future issues of the publication.”

In the current issue, there’s a piece on Britain’s greatest code breaker, Alan Turing; an article on Andrew Haigh’s recently released Weekend, which has been wowing critics and audiences around the world; a piece on the plight of gays in Russia; an article by Yours Truly about the use of the word “Christmas”; and much, much more, as well as an audio blog by freelance writer and voiceover artist Andrew John, of Celtica Radio, who takes a few pots at the hoo-ha over the latest Benetton ad, featuring the Pope kissing a fella, and the twit who coined the word “Gaystapo” (which we blogged about recently).

So do pop in, browse around, leave some comments and some votes. Especially on my article. Only joking.