.GAY On the Way, Thanks to Joe Dolce

Early next year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will begin accepting applications for new, and maybe even unconventional, top-level doman addresses besides .com, .org and .net. Not only will they be recieving one from the city of New York for a ".NYC" address, but also from the Dot Gay Alliance, for .GAY.

The group was founded by former Star and Details editor Joe Dolce, who started the media strategy firm, DolceGoldin with former NY1 anchor and MSNBC editorial director Davidson Goldin last year. They're behind-the-scenes strategists for pop stars, musicians and politicians and, have worked with James Frey, Emily Brill, Heather Mills, and Assemblyman Herman "Denny" Farrell Jr, among others.

Next week, Mr. Dolce's alliance will reveal plans at an Internet conference in Seoul for a .GAY domain name "that will provide a reliable and ethical source of funding for LGBT civil rights," according to a press statement.

"The LGBT community has always supported itself and its causes - no one was there to help us," Mr. Dolce said in the release. "We've made amazing progress in the 40 years since Stonewall. Now in the digital era a .GAY top-level domain is a logical evolution in our history of self sustenance."

Minds + Machines, the same Web consulting group working with former mayor Ed Koch on .NYC and the Sierra Club and Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection on .ECO, is providing the tech, while Paula Ettelbrick, the lawyer and activist for lesbian and gay rights, serves as the philanthropic advisor for the Dot Gay Alliance.

Here's a list of supporters, according to Mr. Dolce's statement:

New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn
Daniel O'Donnell, Member of New York State Assembly
Edmund White, Award-winning author and professor of Creative Writing, Princeton University
Paula Ettelbrick, Civil rights lawyer, advocate, and non-profit executive
Michelle Kristel, Executive Director of In The Life Media
Sunil Babu Pant, the first openly gay member of the Nepal Parliament