Tag Archives: marriage equality

Gay rights continue to advance across South America, with Colombia’s government the latest to extend benefits to same-sex partners. However, marriage equality there continues to be thwarted by the Catholic Church. Colombia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the government must extend pension benefits to same-sex partners. The court ruled that same-sex partners must be given the same pension and health …

From the Huffington Post’s Ryan J. Davis: Sources wishing to remain anonymous in the California Court System indicate that the court, which has until June 2, 2008 to issue it’s marriage ruling, is considering issuing it on Friday, May 23, 2008, with the decision being written by Chief Justice Ronald George. The Court is readying itself for a backlash that …

Well, this is a suh-weet way to end the week! Speaking to the annual Log Cabin Republicans convention in San Diego, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said that if the current initiative to ban gay marriage in California makes it to the November ballot, he will fight against its passage. Gay journalist Rex Wockner quotes Schwarzenegger as saying: “Well, first of all, …

The petition drive to get an anti-gay marriage amendment on California’s November ballot is getting close to the number of signatures needed to succeed. The organization collecting signatures for a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage in California says it is close to meeting the requirement. Protect Marriage says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed. The deadline …

Support for gay marriage in Vermont is now in the majority. A majority of nearly 7,000 Vermonters completing opinion surveys on Town Meeting Day said they favor same-sex marriage. 54-percent said they support allowing gay couples to marry while 37-percent were opposed. That represents an 8-per cent jump in support for same-sex marriage in the last year, noted Johnson State …

The New York Times editorializes on the non-stop “scandal” of philandering heterosexuals: You can accuse the disgraced ex-governor Eliot Spitzer of many things in his decision to flout the law by soliciting the services of a pricey prostitute: hypocrisy, egomania, sophomoric impulsiveness and self-indulgence, delusional ineptitude and boneheadedness. But one trait decidedly not on display in Mr. Spitzer’s splashy act …

The Pennsylvania Senate is trying one more time to pass a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Constitutional amendment legislation failed in the last legislative session but is being considered anew in the current session. During a Senate committee hearing, Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage, said an amendment to the state constitution would protect against a judge’s …

After complaints from gays that civil unions create a second-class citizenship, Norway’s parliament is moving to make its civil marriage laws gender-neutral. The new legislation also would make a woman who is married to another woman the automatic legal parent of any child conceived in vitro during the marriage. In cases of adoption, both partners would be legal parents. The …

Yesterday the appropriately named Iowa House Minority Leader Christopher Rants failed in his attempt to force the state legislature to vote on a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage. Rants tried a procedural vote that would have moved the measure, House Joint Resolution 8, out of committee and before the full House for a possible debate. Rants’ maneuver failed on a …

With anti and pro-gay demonstrators outside, in yesterday’s arguments the California Supreme Court seemed to be split in their opinions on marriage equality, with some legal experts predicting a loss for our side. Dale Carpenter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, issued this opinion: [T]the most likely result is that the gay-marriage litigants will lose 4-3 or …

The California Supreme Court will hear the long-awaited gay marriage case today. Locals can watch live on the California Channel from 9am – 12pm Pacific. For the rest of us, there will be a live webcast. In briefs submitted to the court, same-sex marriage supporters argue that California’s Constitution leaves no room for denying gay men and lesbians the right …

Barack Obama told a crowd of supporters yesterday that his support for gay civil unions is based on the Bible’s “Sermon On The Mount.” “I don’t think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state,” said Obama. “If people find that …

Today Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives will vote whether to move forward a ban on gay marriage. U.S. Congressman Jose Serrano (D-NY) notes that such a move may imperil federal funding there. Serrano says that passage of such an amendment would put Puerto Rico among those groups that promote hateful and discriminatory measures which might not be seen in a …

Via Famous Author Rob Byrnes: [I]t looks like today’s special election for a vacant New York State Senate seat is flipping the district from Republican to Democrat. [JMG: It did.] Which means that a 40-plus-year Republican hold on the State Senate is down to one seat in the 62-member body. (Democratic Lieutenant Governor David Paterson would vote in the case …

“Many lesbian/gay organizations claim that state-enacted same-sex marriage is ‘marriage equality’ even though it has no federal marriage rights. They claim that a federal civil union policy, which would include these rights, would not be ‘marriage equality’ because it would not contain the word ‘marriage.’ This places rhetoric over reality. The opposite is true: federal civil unions would be marriage …

On the one-year anniversary of civil unions becoming legal in New Jersey, a state commission has released a report saying that civil unions don’t work and that gay couples in Massachusetts don’t have the same legal difficulties faced by those in New Jersey. The commission found that many companies in the state that are self-insured, and thus regulated by federal …

Saying acceptance of gay marriage was “inevitable,” Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler has become the first statewide-elected official there to endorse marriage equality legislation. Gansler accuses lawmakers of lacking the “political courage” to approve the legislation this year, saying “It’s wrong to discriminate against people, particularly because they think differently or because of their sexuality or because of their gender. …

“Phrases such as “gay marriage” or “same-sex marriage” imply that same-sex couples are asking for something other than marriage. They imply that same-sex couples deserve something different or lesser than the security, protections, safety-net, and respect that married couples cherish. And they play into the right-wing’s fear-mongering that gay people are a threat to marriage, that equality and inclusion would …