Tag Archives: marriage equality

Donald Trump was the headliner today at the Faith & Freedom Coalition convention in Washington DC, where, speaking from a teleprompter, he threw anti-gay red meat to the gathered evangelicals by vowing to “uphold marriage and family as the building blocks of society.” And even at this event, there were protesters. Via Talking Points Memo: Donald Trump’s speech was disrupted …

Just in from Brian Brown: I am writing to you today about an urgent problem. I’ve just reviewed the budget for the March and I have to admit I am concerned. We’re $25,000 short of being able to cover the costs for security, staging, sound, promotion and all the other elements that are involved in hosting an event like this. …

The White House today issued a lengthy recounting of the many, many advances in LGBT rights seen during the Obama administration. The “fact sheet” – which I’ve posted in its entirety below – serves both as a very well-earned bragging point and as a stark reminder of how tenuous many of these advances remain with the specter of a Republican …

Roy Moore can suck it. AL.com reports: A federal judge, citing the unwillingness of Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and others to go along with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year making same-sex marriage legal nationwide, this week entered a permanent injunction barring state officials from enforcing laws banning gay marriage. U.S. District Judge Callie V. Granade, …

Just as they did at PepsiCo’s shareholders meeting in North Carolina last month and at Walmart’s shareholders meeting in Arkansas last week, anti-LGBT activists from the National Center for Public Policy Research ambushed Target executives at yesterday’s annual shareholders meeting in Costa Mesa, California. A spokesman for the group confronted Target’s board of directors, demanding to know if they had …

Wow. The Pride LA reports: The United States federal government has recognized as legally valid the April 1975 same-sex marriage of Richard Adams and Anthony Sullivan, approving the “green card” petition that Adams filed in 1975 for his husband, an Australian citizen. After Adams died in December 2012, Sullivan sought to have the Immigration Service recognize their marriage and grant …

Via Barbados Today: The Barbados Government “will not change the law” to allow for same-sex marriages, an adamant Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite has declared. However, Brathwaite warned the island had no room for discrimination on the basis of sexuality. “As a lawmaker, if Jane decides she wants to live with Janice, that is their business as far I am concerned. …

Following a 2010 ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court, same-sex marriage is recognized in all 31 Mexican states, but currently only nine states have enacted laws that allow gay couples to marry locally without going to court. Last month President Enrique Nieto proposed a constitutional change to force the remaining states to comply. Yesterday he authored a Huffington Post column explaining …

Via the Associated Press: Florida taxpayers are going to pay nearly $500,000 for the state’s losing battle to keep intact a voter-approved ban on gay marriage. State officials have now reached settlements with two separate groups of attorneys representing same-sex couples that challenged the state’s ban. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office reached a final settlement on Wednesday that brought the …

Advertising Age recaps: Bud Light has partnered with Ellen DeGeneres to launch a new ad today in support of gay marriage. “Gay weddings, they are just like any wedding,” Seth Rogen says in the spot, which shows a wedding between two males. The ad also features Amy Schumer. The two comedians have been starring in the politically themed “Bud Light …

The New York Times reports: Connie Kopelov [seated], whose wedding to Phyllis Siegel in 2011 was the first legal same-sex marriage in New York City, died in Manhattan on Saturday. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by Ms. Siegel, who said Ms. Kopelov had been in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Ms. Kopelov and Ms. Siegel had been …

From the Sydney Morning Herald: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he expects a plebiscite on same-sex marriage to be held by the end of 2016 if the Coalition is returned to government, his strongest commitment yet on the timing of the vote. “We will hold it as soon as possible after the election. Given that the election is on 2 …

The Globe & Mail reports: The federal Conservative Party shed its official aversion to gay marriage this weekend as rank-and-file members voted to remove the traditional definition of wedlock from their policy book – part of an effort to recast the Tories after bidding farewell to founder Stephen Harper. “It’s about telling Canadians that you can love whom you want,” …

Michael Lavers reports at the Washington Blade: Two men on Tuesday became the first same-sex couple to legally marry in Colombia. Fernando Quimbayo and José Ticora, who have been together for two years, exchanged vows before a registrar in the city of Cali. El País, a Colombian newspaper, posted a video of the ceremony on its website. Colombia’s constitutional court …

Via Rex Wockner: Sixty-five percent of Mexicans agree with “approving marriage of persons of the same sex at the national level,” a new BGC-Excélsior poll has found. Thirty-four percent disagree. Sixty-six percent agree or agree in part with changing the federal constitution to permit at the national level that persons of the same sex or different sex can establish a …

Via press release from the Liberty Counsel: The Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee passed a resolution Saturday calling on the unelected Alabama Court of the Judiciary to drop the charges by the unelected Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) against Chief Justice Roy Moore. The JIC has charged Chief Justice Moore with six counts. The Chief Justice has been suspended with pay …

Agence France-Presse reports: Romanian campaigners said Monday they had collected three million signatures on a petition to block same-sex unions in the EU member state. Several groups linked to the Orthodox Church and united under the umbrella Coalition for Family are seeking a constitutional amendment to narrowly define marriage as the “union between a man and a woman”. It is …

“I was obeying my law. I had couples bring in the whole Supreme Court ruling and I said, ‘You know, I really don’t need to see this because that’s not a law, that’s a ruling’ [and they’d say] ‘Well, why won’t you do this?’ And so then I go to the Bible and I’d tell them, [and they’d respond,] ‘Don’t …

From the pro-LGBT site Bondings 2.0: A top cardinal at the Vatican attacked transgender civil rights as “demonic” and compared marriage equality to “poison” during a speech before high-profile U.S. Catholics. Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, keynoted the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast yesterday morning in Washington, D.C. His address about family and religious freedom …

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto today unleashed a flurry of tweets that recognize today’s International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia and call for immediate marriage equality nationwide. Same-sex marriage is recognized in all 31 Mexican states, but currently only eight states have enacted laws that allow gay couples to marry locally without going to court. From the Associated Press: Speaking …