Iowa Family Policy Center's Chuck Hurley, the state's most ambitious anti-gay wingnut, who organized rallies to pressure the state Supreme Court over its ruling on marriage equality, says giving gays marriage rights is facilitating disease, citing a report this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that showed gay men have higher rates of HIV and syphilis.  Said Hurley in a statement:  "The Iowa Legislature outlawed smoking in an effort to improve health and reduce the medical costs that are often passed on to the state. The secondhand impacts of certain homosexual acts are arguably more destructive, ...

Jen and I are domestic partners now. This means I can be on her insurance. This is great great insurance. This allows me to work part time and have crappily paid internships and go to school so I can change careers. Should we have a child, this would allow me to stay home and take care of this child for as long as I wanted to. And most importantly cover our children, immediately. We are going to get married. Big party married, but also civil married, in Connecticut. According to New York City, if you marry your domestic partner, your ...

From AFP:Two Argentine men on [Monday] became the first homosexuals to legally marry in Latin America, after the governor of the country's southernmost Tierra del Fuego province permitted their wedding... Although the Argentine civil code does not recognize same sex marriages, a court had approved the wedding of Alex Freyre, 39, and Jose Maria Di Bello, 41, before it was challenged pending the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal.... Tierra del Fuego Governor Fabiana Rios authorized [Monday]'s wedding after a civil registrar had refused to officiate earlier this month... The Argentine capital became Latin America's first city to ...

Maine marriage defeated Voters in Maine rejected new marriage rights for same-sex couples 53 percent to 47 percent. The referendum put a marriage bill passed by the state’s legislature and signed by Gov. John Baldacci in May this year up to a “people’s veto.” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said the defeat was likely to embolden [...] ...

During my stay in Maine a couple of weeks back, as I followed the "No on 1" campaign in it's attempt to beat back an effort to strip away marriage rights from same-sex couples, I ran into two young guys producing an online documentary on the last days of the campaign. Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll of New Left Media (above) just sent me a message alerting me that they had just posted the resulting documentary on YouTube in two parts. In it, they capture the mood of the campaign, campaign supporters, staff and volunteer during those last ...

Senator George Maziarz tells Anne Tischer and Bess Watts of Gates, New York, a couple of 15 years who married in Canada four years ago, that he won't be voting for her right to get married in New York. This inspires a round of applause from those present. Disgusting. Watch, AFTER THE JUMP... (via joe) And use this tool to call your Senator now. ...

Ok so I was reading this lesbian world: What the Maine Vote Tells Us (hi there!) and my comment was getting to be out of control so I thought I'd post about it instead.I can understand Jeanne's frustration. I really can.But the "M" word, to me, is a critical component to the fight for marriage equality. I can't tell you how humiliating it was to say that I was "civil unioned" and then undoubtedly getting the "wtf is THAT?" look then having to explain, hat in hand, eyes lowered, how it was a watered down "we have to call ...

While voters in Maine rejected a law offering full equality in marriage rights to gay and lesbian Mainers, voters on the opposite side of the continent appeared to give tenuous support to a measure that would give slightly more limited rights to gay and lesbian Washingtonians. The measure in Washington – Referendum 71 – had an ever-so-tenuous lead Wednesday afternoon, with late-arriving mail-in ballots still to be counted. Just 51.03 percent of the state’s voters chose to “Approve” a law passed by the legislature last winter that stops just short of granting marriage to to the state’s registered domestic partners, ...

A year ago, the voting public of California favored Proposition 8 and banned gay marriage. Last night, Maine's citizens voted on Question 1 and also chose to keep marriage between one man and one woman. Is it right that gay marriage, and gay rights as... ...

The United States has passed and signed into law The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The new law carries stiffer penalties for anyone who intends to terrorize the entire gay community by selecting and violently assaulting gay people at random. Canada added sexual orientation to the list of minority groups protected from hate crimes in 2004—just five years ago. Hear that, all my stateside friends? You’re not far behind! In fact, at this rate, you’ll have equal marriage rights nationally by 2011. Go, push for it!

• President Obama signs expanded hate crimes bill into law [Digital Journal]

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Is this another first in Latin America?The top court in the city of Pereira, Colombia, located in the center-west state of Risaralda, has ruled that when a same-sex couple splits, the former partners are entitled to an equal distribution of belongings, just as married heterosexual partners are given the same right.The verdict follows a January ruling by the Colombian Supreme Court which stopped short of granting marriage or civil union rights to same-sex partners but basically said that gay couples should enjoy the same rights as heterosexual partners.In this case, Julio Alfredo Girardo (pictured above), who had spent ...

Catholic Vote Action, a religious political group based in Chicago, is demanding that an ad supporting equal marriage rights in the state of Maine be pulled off the air. The ad, which features a real family including a Catholic grandmother who supports her gay son and his adopted child, was produced by Protect Maine Equality in response to an upcoming ballot initiative that would take away the existing right of gay couples to marry in the state. “I’ve been a Catholic all my life,” the grandmother says in the ad, “my faith means a lot to me.” She continues, “Marriage ...

The No on 1 protect Maine Equality campaign has released this new ad featuring a grandmother whose grandson has been adopted by a loving gay couple. This Catholic grandma says her family is special and deserves equal marriage rights. ...