Tag Archives: LGBT rights

A lesbian couple’s challenge to France’s marriage laws will be heard this week by the Constitutional Council, the nation’s highest court. Pink News reports: Corinne Cestino and Sophie Haßlau launched the bid in May 2010 at the Tribunal de Grande instance of Reims to question the constitutionality of France’s position on gay marriage. The couple, a paediatrician and an English …

Beginning today Ireland will recognize same-sex marriages and civil unions performed abroad. However those married in other countries will have their relationships “downgraded” to civil partnerships upon arrival in Ireland. Unions from 27 countries or states will be recognised; 17 of which currently give gay couples the right to marry. Couples will be automatically considered as civil partners and will …

In an interesting episode of the BBC’s Big Question series, famed LGBT activist Peter Tatchell and Richard Dawkins debate others on the right wing and anti-gay attitudes brought by some in Britain’s burgeoning immigrant communities. Dawkins goes off beautifully at 15:00.

The West Virgina Family Foundation plans to ask lawmakers to introduce a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Just as they’ve asked for the last six years. West Virginia Family Foundation President Kevin McCoy stated: “The Marriage Protection Amendment will constitutionally protect marriage as only between one man and one woman, preventing activist judges from radically redefining marriage in our state. …

Trans activist, actress, and cabaret singer Alexandra Billings’ message to LGBT youth: “Everybody transitions. You just happen to be transitioning into the real you.”

A coalition of religious groups in the tiny South American nation of Guyana has issued a condemnation of a local LGBT film festival, calling the event a “new form of Western colonialism.” “We cannot allow the Western world to come and foist their lifestyles and thinking on to us; this will simply mean that we are just allowing a newer …

Rhode Island state Rep. Arthur Handy will introduce a marriage equality bill today. Handy’s bill already has 27 cosponsors. Handy said the bill he will introduce is identical to one he introduced last year, declaring marriage to be a “legal institution recognized by the state in order to promote stable relationships and to protect individuals who are in those relationships.” …

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the teabagging founder and former CEO of a hospital group found guilty in the hugest Medicare scam in history, began his tenure today by issuing an executive order limiting the state’s non-discrimination law to cases involving race, gender, creed, color and national origin. South Florida Gay News reports: “Governor Scott did not even include all of …

The Empire State Pride Agenda notes via press release that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is off to a promising start regarding LGBT rights and today mentioned marriage equality in his first State Of The State address. Among Cuomo’s first actions since assuming office are the continuance of former Gov. David Paterson’s executive order protecting state employees from gender identity discrimination. Additionally, …

New Mexico Attorney General Gary King has issued an opinion declaring that his state can legally recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. “While we cannot predict how a New Mexico court would rule on this issue, after review of the law in this area, it is our opinion that a same-sex marriage that is valid under the laws of the …

The Human Rights Campaign gloomily assesses the new Congress. As the new Congress is sworn in this week, there is no denying that pro-LGBT numbers have shrunk on Capitol Hill. A Human Rights Campaign analysis shows a pick-up of 53 House seats to anti-LGBT lawmakers as well as a 5 seat addition in the Senate. Not only do those opposing …

As his final day in office winds to a close for Governor David Paterson, LGBT New Yorkers should offer him our thanks for being the most relentlessly and loudly pro-gay governor in state and arguably, national history. Our state movement’s two most important pieces of legislation, GENDA and marriage equality, remain unattained, but that, of course, is due to our …

“Successful governance is about getting 60 votes for things that move the ball forward. The people who tend to control the 55th through 60th votes on any given issue are not like you and me. They are driven by a baffling combination of raging egomania and crippling terror. They want to be treated like statesmen even as their decisions are …

GOP lawmakers in Wyoming plan to introduce legislation banning the recognition of same-sex marriages from other states. Such a move failed in 2009, but the plan is to put the issue to voters. State law defines marriage as a legal union between a man and woman, but Wyoming also recognizes marriages performed in other states. Rep. Owen Petersen of Mountain …

The second attempt to get Apple to accept a retweaked version of the anti-gay Manhattan Declaration iPhone app has failed. And the Christianists are so not happy. “Inasmuch as the Manhattan Declaration simply reaffirms the moral teachings of our Christian faith on the sanctity of human life, marriage and sexual morality, and religious freedom and the rights of conscience, Apple’s …

Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg says that the repeal of DADT is yet another example of the rise of the homosexual bourgeoisie, a gay culture that rejects its uniqueness for an integrated heteronormative lifestyle. Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian …

During an appearance on the Today Show, this morning Vice President Joe Biden said that he agreed with the president’s “evolving” position on gay marriage and that a “national consensus” on the issue is inevitable. “I think the country’s evolving,” he said. “And I think you’re going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to …

Uganda’s notorious Pastor Martin Ssempa, who infamously tells national audiences that the preferred sexual practice of gay men is eating human feces, has been charged with attempting to blackmail another pastor. Ssempa is accused of offering to pay another man to say that he had “been sodomized” by Pastor Robert Kayanja. A total of eight anti-gay Christian activists have been …