I hope you've written to the appropriate people at GLAAD and HRC (and PFLAG and GLSEN -- who else would be a good resource?) to pitch that idea. If they're not already on it, I'll bet they'd be glad to get your input.

I'm not sure what it is exactly that annoys you. I don't find anything offensive about a close up of 2 men holding hands to represent gay love or a male/male cake topper to represent same sex marriage.

"Or worse an image of gay people holding hands but looking away from the camera - implicitly reinforcing the idea of a stigma to being gay." I agree, about how looking away is a comment on stigmatization or perhaps worry. However, the reality is that gay men are stigmatized in this country. If a news item is about the stigmatization of GLBT, such an image might conger up empathy. But if the piece was about gay achievement, then the image would be out of place.

First, you should look at the company or media outlet in particular. Small news stations and news papers and internet sites rely heavily on royalty free photos they purchase from stock photo companies. (google search : stock photography) Many photographs make their bread and butter creating images that they believe can be shopped out as a stock photo. Not only do they snap images of the Statue of Liberty every 4th of July, but they also hire models to shoot an image of the business man pulling his hair out because he just lost his ass in the housing market.

Considering the scrutiny, is it any wonder that media outlets use the somewhat neutral image of the Lesbian gingerbread woman cookies. And because an image is worth a 1,000 words the editor who chooses the images might pick the image of the male/male cake topper because it is basically neutral on the idea of same sex marriage. Neither for nor against. Those kinds of images can be hard to find. Hence, when one works we tend to see it all over.

I just looked at the top three stock photo sites in the google search, www.shutterstock.com, istockphoto.com, Snapvillage.com, at all three you can search for Keywords. I searched for 'gay'. Sometimes what is available is disappointing and the quality and diversity of the images varies greatly. I would be interested to know if you found any images that you did approve of in the above lot. This is what most media outlets have to work with.

Many of the folks who are in charged with finding a stock image are likely to grab the book, CD that have on hand or check with a site that they have already signed up with. But I am sure some would go with a free service, especially if it all ready had a seal of approval from a well known group like GLADD. Perhaps GLAAD could be a useful search term in the future at these sites for customers to look for images that someone at GLAAD has given a seal of approval on.

Larger news media outlets like CNN or Time magazine, are likely to have their own staff of photographers and illustrators and buy images for their news that they hold the exclusive right to. They're unlikely to use stock photo sites.

If you find an image connected to a story that disturbs you, try writing the editor to find out the person who chose that image. Ask them why they choose that image and if they use a stock image provider. Explain why you thought thier choice wasn't working. You might be surprised by the answer. But if you were to find a photo at istockphoto, say, that was the exact type of image that you believed better suited the story, you could give them a link to that image online, and perhaps educate the editors in charge of making that kind of decision.