The Armed Services Committee has approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would ban military bases from hosting marriages or “marriage-like ceremonies” between same-sex couples. Opposing the amendment, Rep. Susan Davis of California, the ranking Democrat on the armed services subcommittee on military personnel, said the amendment seems to encourage discrimination in…
(CNN and LGBT Weekly) – President Barack Obama said Wednesday he supports same-sex marriage, raising the political stakes on an issue in which Americans are evenly split. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be…
LAS VEGAS – Lambda Legal has filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Nevada on behalf of eight same-sex couples challenging Nevada’s constitutional ban on marriage equality, which relegates them to only a second-class status. “Every day that same-sex couples in Nevada are denied marriage equality, the government sends a message that…
(CNN – San Diego LGBT Weekly) — Despite long-term relationships, shared children and steadfastness to each other in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, same-sex couples like Heather McIver and Suzanne Lowe, Kelli Evans and Karen Wade, and J. Wesley Thompson and Trey Owen know that their commitments could be invalidated with…
(CNN – San Diego LGBT Weekly) — Maryland’s highest court is set to issue a ruling in a case involving a lesbian couple married in California but denied a divorce in Maryland because the state does not currently allow same-sex marriages. Jessica Port, 29, and Virginia Anne Cowan, 32, were married in San Francisco in…
Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday in the state of Nevada in an effort to advance marriage equality in the state. The suit was filed on behalf of eight Nevada same-sex couples. Sevcik vs. Sandoval is the first entirely federal lawsuit brought on by an LGBT advocacy group according to MetroWeekly, despite a previously…
With all this talk about Proposition 8 and constitutionality over the past year, we can’t lose sight of the sibling issue calling for the repeal of federal laws that infringe on the rights of LGBT persons on the national stage. There are more than 1,000 statutory provisions in which marital status is a factor in…
The fight for same-sex marriage has been lambasted by the right as the greatest threat to the institution of marriage since divorce. “It will destroy marriage as we know it,” shout the voices of fear and hate. Guess what? Those voices are potentially right. But achieving marriage equality for gays, lesbians and bisexual Americans in…
Who says that times aren’t a-changin’ for the better? This year promises to be a year of legislative progress for California; and new legislation broadening protections for LGBT persons is evidence that California is moving toward equalizing the rights of all of its citizens. The changes effective this year will touch many members of the…
For most of your life, people have been making decisions on your behalf without you. When you were born, for instance, they decided whether you were a boy or a girl (usually, though not always, based on obvious visual clues). Because of that, they hung a gender-specific moniker on you, dressed you in pink or…
