At Saturday’s 28^th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York City, GLAAD announced that Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters received the award for Outstanding Blog.

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters exposes, catalogues and challenges misinformation about LGBTQ people spread by anti-LGBTQ religious organizations.  

Blogmaster Alvin A. McEwen is a resident of South Carolina and founded the blog in 2006. Through his activism on and offline, he has been instrumental in drawing attention to the ways that religious-right groups distort legitimate research and rely on flawed studies to stigmatize LGBTQ communities.

In an impassioned March 2016 post, McEwen unmasked anti-LGBTQ activists’ use of so-called “religious freedom,” contextualizing it as the latest in a long history of attempts to legitimize – and legalize – discrimination against LGBTQ people.

“Blogging offers a way to bring attention so many issues in our community which are not getting the spotlight they deserve,” McEwen told GLAAD.

He continued:

“That’s why I began my blog ten years ago. I felt that the LGBTQ community was constantly being put on the defensive about our lives, all while the religious right was pretty much getting away with all sorts of unfair claims and tactics because so few were calling them out. And even when religious right was being called out, even fewer paid attention. In this new world of digital information, it became easier for anyone willing to do the work to change the scope of the argument and bring sorely needed information to the community and mainstream.

“Bloggers connect the grassroots of our community, not only each to other but also to organizations like GLAAD and HRC. They encourage intersectionality and yank a lot of us out of our cliques. LGBTQ blogs have given rise to communities that offer a degree of comfort that our community needs, providing a space for discussions, forming friendships or finding the commonality between different facets of the LGBTQ community. As to current events, LGBTQ blogs provide members of our community with a level of trust and assurance.  When a news event takes place regarding our community, LGBTQs, like every other community, tend to go to sources they trust to give them the full story and provide them with a degree of calm akin to being with trusted friends. In addition, blogs provide our community with a diverse number of potential leaders and voices, both of which are very needed to this community.”

The GLAAD Media Awards recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and the issues that affect their lives.  They also fund GLAAD’s work to amplify stories from the LGBTQ community that build support for equality and acceptance.