NOH8 Campaign Brings Pride Photo Shoot to Fords
The 18-year-old nonprofit, best known for its signature duct-tape portraits, made a stop in Central Jersey as part of a national Pride season tour.
Scott (top left) and David Rudd, along with friends Miriam Holland and Ina Savitz, take part in the NOH8 Campaign photo shoot in Fords on Sunday, June 29, 2026. Photographer and NOH8 co-founder Adam Bouska is behind the camera. (The Central Jerseyan)
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Chris Howell | June 29, 2026
The group of friends came prepared.
David Rudd, his husband Scott, and two friends began sliding their hands into long red gloves that extended past the elbow. Then came the face tattoo and the duct tape.
“It’s actually quite gentle,” Scott said, who has facial hair.
“We practiced this in my living room,” said David Rudd.
Once the accessories were on, the group gathered in front of a white backdrop, framed themselves within a heart shape they had formed together, and readied themselves for their photo shoot.
It was all for the NOH8 Campaign, which made a stop in Central Jersey this weekend as part of the region’s Pride celebrations. The Rudds organized Sunday’s event, held at a dance studio in Fords. The organization launched nearly two decades ago as a nonprofit dedicated to fighting a California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage, and is best known for portraits of everyday people and celebrities posing in white T-shirts with red duct tape across their mouths and “NOH8” cheek tattoos.
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“The tape represents being silenced, which we feel is being done to us when our rights are taken away,” said Jeff Parshley, the campaign’s co-founder. He started it alongside longtime partner and photographer Adam Bouska.
“We share a lot of different stories through our social media and try to educate different people, but beyond that, we like to go into different small cities and create safe spaces and show people these are your welcoming spaces,” Bouska said.
For the LGBTQ community, those safe spaces carry added weight right now. The FBI recorded 2,413 hate crime incidents targeting LGBTQ people in 2024, the most recent year for which complete federal data is available, according to the agency’s annual hate crime statistics report. Attacks based on sexual orientation made up 17.2% of all hate crimes nationally that year, the third-largest category behind race and religion. In New Jersey, state police recorded 243 bias incidents targeting LGBTQ residents in just the first seven months of 2025 alone, according to data provided by the state Office of the Attorney General.
The climate has pushed NOH8 to broaden its mission well beyond marriage equality.
From left: Adam Bouska, Scott Rudd, David Rudd, Jeff Parshley (The Central Jerseyan)
“A lot of trans people are being murdered, and they’re losing their health care in certain states, or having to cross state lines just to get gender-affirming care,” Parshley said. “It’s important for us to raise awareness of these issues.”
Scott put it more plainly.
“Hey, it’s 2026 — get over it, and just start loving everybody,” he said.
Despite the elevated threat environment, polling shows LGBTQ Americans are approaching the 2026 midterm elections as a broad-based constituency rather than a single-issue one. Government accountability and corruption, the functioning of democracy, economic stability and the cost of living, LGBTQ rights and health care all ranked among the top concerns of LGBTQ registered voters, according to a March 2026 survey by the HRC Foundation. And 92% of LGBTQ registered voters said they would definitely vote in the midterms, compared with 68% of non-LGBTQ voters.
For the Rudds, longtime NOH8 supporters, bringing the campaign to their hometown represented something more than a photo opportunity.
“We want people to know this community exists here,” David said. The couple said they also attended the Pride flag-raising ceremony at the municipal center and noticed the modest turnout. The issue, they said, is not a lack of support but a lack of gathering space. They said there is no gay bar or club in Woodbridge where LGBTQ residents can see one another and be seen, which can lead to feeling isolated.
“It is danger when you’re silenced. It is danger when your voice is taken away. It is danger when we’re not standing together in community and celebrating one another,” David said.
The group agreed that LGBTQ rights have expanded over the decades, but said they see old struggles returning.
“We’ve come really far,” Scott said. “And I think the world today is trying to knock us back. But because of movements like this, we’re saying no, we’re not getting knocked back. We just keep going forward. We still stand together and fight together.”
Editor’s note: The Central Jerseyan is free to read and supported by advertising. If you value this kind of local reporting and want to help sustain it, you can become a citizen supporter on Patreon. Your contribution helps fund continued coverage of local government, schools, and community issues.