Via press release: Last night, New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law State Senator Brad Hoylman’s (D -Manhattan) and State Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell’s (D-Manhattan) legislation to expand access to meningitis vaccines in the midst of an alarming and deadly outbreak of the disease among men who have sex with men (MSM). According to the New York …

The Smithsonian has expressed an interest in acquiring the hoodie worn by Trayvon Martin on the night he was murdered. Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture told The Washington Post Martin’s hoodie represents an to further the discussion about race in America. “It became the symbolic way to talk the Trayvon Martin …

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has rejected a peace offering by Sen. Rand Paul after their tit-for-tat feud stretched into a full week of returned insults. “We’re going to have to patch things up if we can sit down,” Paul said in an interview on Fox News. “I am inviting him for a beer, anytime he would like to come …

WARNING: This video includes a scene in which the NYPD shoots a dog on an East Village street. Details of that incident are here. NOTE: This video was posted to a YouTube account with the name “BradHoylman2014.” In fact, openly gay state Sen. Hoylman has endorsed Christine Quinn.

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Just one day after NOM’s Brian Brown issued a spittle-flecked denouncement of the “lawless” politicians who defy same-sex marriage bans, Alliance Defending Freedom has issued a notice to clerks in Rhode Island and Minnesota, offering them free legal defense if they defy local marriage laws. Alliance Defending Freedom is advising officials responsible for issuing marriage licenses in Rhode Island and …

The crackpot rural Pennsylvania sheriff whose machine-gun-firing “fuck all you libtards” video went viral, has been suspended after a town meeting reportedly attended by thousands of supporters. The borough council in the coal town of Gilberton said that police Chief Mark Kessler used “borough property for non-borough purposes without prior borough permission” when he made the video where he’s seen …

Back in March, I reported that Chelsea’s iconic Rawhide bar was closing after 34 years in business.  Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York reports on what is going in at that location: Crain’s reports that Chelsea’s iconic gay leather bar is “being replaced by a West coast pizza chain, in another sign of the gentrification of the area around the popular High …

Dozens of couples married in Minnesota last night at the stroke of midnight, but it appears that Rhode Island’s marriages just started this morning. Officials around Rhode Island began issuing licenses when offices opened at 8:30 a.m., including in Newport. A couple that have been together for 41 years, Federico Santi and John Gacher, arrived first thing at the Newport …

Fabulous: “You will be popular, the right kind of popular. I’ll teach to zip your fly, you won’t be that guy, with a camera down his pants.”

A Catholic high school in San Bernadino has fired a teacher after his same-sex wedding was covered by the local news. School administrators declined to discuss the firing on camera. But they did issue a statement that read, in part, “We respect and protect privacy interests and, to be respectful of those involved, the school does not comment on confidential …

NASA explains today’s photo: The Great Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda (aka M31), a mere 2.5 million light-years distant, is the closest large spiral to our own Milky Way. Andromeda is visible to the unaided eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, but because its surface brightness is so low, casual skygazers can’t appreciate the galaxy’s impressive extent in planet Earth’s …

USA Today has more: National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia for one year and left a Moscow airport to formally enter the country’s territory, according to his lawyer. Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s legal representative, told Interfax Thursday that he had given Snowden temporary papers issued by the Russian Immigration Service. The Associated Press reported …

The Oklahoman reports: A lesbian couple challenging Oklahoma’s ban on gay marriages say the U.S. Supreme Court has bolstered their arguments that the state prohibition is unconstitutional. The high court’s decision last month in a gay marriage case “provides clear and explicit guidance for concluding Oklahoma’s marriage ban violates both (the couple’s) fundamental right to marry, and the exercise of …

Fewer than ten actually showed up, including Richard “Tennis Racket” Cohen and PFOX loser Greg Quinlan, but that’s not what Sandy Rios predicted on her national radio show for the American Family Association. This is their most hilarious fail since “Ex-Gay” Pride Month got canceled, but you can bet all those AFA radio listeners won’t hear about it. UPDATE: “Hip-hip …

“The battle for marriage as God designed has come to The Land of Enchantment; and it’s your turn to stand in the breach. Every person who believes marriage to be the union of one man and one woman needs to contact Governor Martinez today, urging her and her administration to give their full support to the defense of marriage. As …

Gone viral on Facebook.