The Sacramento Mayoral campaign is hitting the headlines with a bit of same-sex marriage controversy… The Sacbee reports that mayoral candidate Kevin Johnson and former NBA star, has upset local gay and lesbian leaders after saying he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Current Mayor Heather Fargo and the five other candidates however do [...] ...

A University of Toledo administrator is on paid leave following the publication of a column she wrote opposing gay rights and same sex marriage in the local Toledo Free Press. The column raised more than a few eyebrows because the... ...

An amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution banning same-sex marriage cleared a Senate committee 18-8 on May 5, but was tabled in the full Senate on May 7 after sponsors realized that the House had no intention of dealing with it in a timely fashion. Penn. Anti-Gay Amendment Stalls Gay City News - ...

A possible California referendum on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions has pundits predicting an epic battle this November that could end in the approval of same-sex marriage or a massive rollback in relationship recognition. VoteYesMarriage.com, the group collecting signatures to get the measure on the ballot this fall, has declared that it obtained by the April 28 deadline the 1.1 million signatures needed to bring the issue to voters. The California secretary of state has yet to certify that the signatures are valid and is not expected to make such an announcement until June. Geoff Kors, executive ...

A busy week on the gay rights front -- ITEM: New York's highest court declined, though strictly on procedural grounds, to review lower court rulings holding that same-sex marriages validly entered into in other jurisdictions (e.g., Massachusetts, Canada) must be recognized even though the gay couples could not have married in New York itself. The high court may hear the case after further litigation of the case in the lower courts. Despite the seeming contradiction, this "valid there means valid here" practice is actually a long-standing policy in New York (and other states) that has been applied to first-cousin ...

A possible California referendum on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions has pundits predicting an epic battle this November that could end in the approval of same-sex marriage or a massive rollback in relationship recognition. VoteYesMarriage.com, the group collecting signatures to get the measure on the ballot this fall, has declared that it obtained by the April 28 deadline the 1.1 million signatures needed to bring the issue to voters. The California secretary of state has yet to certify that the signatures are valid and is not expected to make such an announcement until June. Geoff Kors, executive director ...

Local governments and state universities in Michigan can't offer health insurance to the partners of gay workers, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The court ruled 5-2 that Michigan's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, enacted in 2004, also blocks domestic-partner policies for gay employees at the University of Michigan and other public-sector employers. The decision affirms a February 2007 appeals court ruling. Up to 20 public universities, community colleges, school districts, and local governments in Michigan have benefit policies covering at least 375 gay couples. After the appeals court ruled, universities and local governments rewrote their policies to ...

We’ve heard this over and over again: opponents to same-sex marriage don’t want to go after our domestic partnership benefits. We heard it most recently here in Arizona just a few weeks ago when opponents to same-sex marriage accuse LGBT advocates of “dragging in other issues” when they warn about the potential dangers of these anti-marriage amendments. Michigan now provides a perfect object lesson: An amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2004 to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman also prohibits public employers from providing health care and other benefits to the ...

As I mentioned briefly last week, Towleroad has partnered with LOGO's NewNowNext awards to present a prize for the most impactful video news moment of the year. We went through all the clips we've posted in the last year and chose the five that we felt were most hard hitting as gay video news moments. Our category does tend toward the serious. While Chris Crocker's "Leave Britney Alone" moment certainly inspired plenty of disgust and cultural fodder, we decided moments like those didn't fall into the news category - as much as CNN may want them to. So here are the ...

Don't be fooled by the religious right's assertion that they simply want to protect marriage and the family. Implicit in their efforts to pass legislation and constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage is an intention to slam the door on any measure that would grant rights or recognition to gays. Should there be any doubt, take a look at today's Michigan Supreme Court ruling. In a case designed to determine the scope of an amendment passed in the state in 2004, the court upheld an appeals court ruling that prohibits Michigan's universities, colleges, and municipalities from providing health coverage ...

New York high court refuses to strike down state's recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriage: "The Court of Appeals declined yesterday to review the mid-level appellate court's decision to recognize the couple's Canadian marriage, the first such ruling by an appellate court in New York State. For now, that lower court decision remains binding across the state." Thomas Roberts talks to The Advocate about the news industry's glass ceiling for gays: "It’s funny that people think I got fired from CNN. I left CNN on my accord: I resigned from my contract because of personal reasons. I never ...

Yesterday, a Pennsylvania Senate committee voted 18-8 to send Senate Bill 1250, which would place a measure on the ballot banning same-sex marriage, to the full Senate for a vote. The measure must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions for it to be placed on the ballot. Following the vote, lawmakers attended a boisterous rally against the ban in the Capitol: "Senate Bill 1250, which is meant to bolster the state's 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which already prohibits same-sex marriage, "is disheartening and discriminatory," said Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park. 'It's marriage mischief -- an attempt ...

Gays and lesbians need your help today. The email below that I send to my friends and family sums up the issue at hand. Please take a few moments to tell your senator that discrimination does not belong in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!Hello Everyone,Most of you know that I avoid getting political since you all have very different feelings and opinions regarding politics. However, today is going to be a little different. I'm writing to encourage each of you to contact your PA state senator to urge him/her to oppose SB1250, also known as the "Marriage ...

365Gay.com Newscenter(Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) A proposed constitutional amendment that would bar same-sex marriage and civil unions in Pennsylvania passed a key committee on Monday and is now headed for a full vote on the Senate floor. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 18 - 8 to send the bill to the Senate. If it passes it would then need approval of the House and then a second round of approvals in the next session of the legislature. The earliest it could be placed on the ballot would be in 2009. Pennsylvania already limits marriage to opposite-sex couples but supporters of the amendment ...

Liberal democracy just took another hit! Pennsylvania’s Senatorial Appropriations Committee today voted 18-8 to put a gay marriage amendment to a vote, which will likely happen tomorrow. Many of you are probably thinking, “Wait, doesn’t Pennsylvania already have a law banning same-sex marriage?” Well, yes; yes, it does, but conservative politicians think that an amendment’s needed to ensure nothing like civil unions can be legalized. Because even pseudo-queer-equality’s yucky! The amendment reads thus: “No union other than a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage or the functional equivalent of marriage by the ...

Frederic Minvielle, a gay Frenchman who has been living in the Netherlands for six years and married a Dutch man in 2003, has lost his French citizenship because of the marriage, Time reports: "Although the Franco-Dutch immigration treaty pertaining to his situation generally forces nationals from one country to surrender their original citizenship when naturalized in the other, there is a key exception that allows dual citizenship accorded through marriage. Minvielle figured that would work for him. 'France does not recognize marriage between people of the same sex as the Netherlands does, and therefore considers Mr. Minvielle an unwed man ...

Yeah, so... time out from a perfectly good morning to freak out... twice.Here goes:Few gay Americans understand their basic rights, according to an analysis released this week.Based on the responses of 768 gays, lesbians and bisexuals to a national poll given in November, the analysis found that most respondents could not correctly answer four questions regarding their state and federal rights.“I think ‘ignorant’ is the right word, unfortunately,” said Pat Egan, an assistant professor of politics at New York University who is gay and helped write the analysis.The poll by City University of New York’s Hunter College asked whether ...

Maggie Gallagher, President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and Board Member of the Marriage Law Foundation, is always careful to present her arguments against marriage equality in terms of what is best for families and children. She does not rail against the evil sodomites or make bizarre claims about mortality statistics or invented diseases. And because of her demeanor and her scholarly presentation, Maggie is regularly relied upon as a source for logical sounding soundbites and quotes in opposition to civil equality. She was even secretly paid to promote George Bush’s “marriage initiative”. In ...

The religious right likes to be seen as the moral compass of the country...though they rarely want the country to fully understand that their focus on denying any rights to gays is their primary objective. Yes, they talk incessantly about same-sex marriage and frame it as the pivotal issue facing the American family. At the same time, they seek to keep the bulk of their mean spirited efforts working quietly in the background. The latest to surface is an attempt to force Wells Fargo to remove all protections for their gay employees. From 365Gay.com: (San Francisco, California) A motion by ...