A California-based gay rights group has filed a complaint with Maine’s campaign oversight agency against groups pushing for a people’s veto vote in November on Maine’s new gay marriage law.

Californians Against Hate founder Fred Karger filed a complaint with the ethics commission asking for an investigation into what he alleges is illegal fundraising reporting. Karger says the groups are contributing to the Stand for Marriage campaign without reporting the names of their donors.

The ethics commission is likely to decide whether to order an investigation during its October meeting, according to its executive director Jonathan Wayne.

Full Story from Seacoast Online

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources in Maine.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Also received this and thought we’d pass it along:

www.IBelieveSpeech.com is an amazing new Viral Video produced as a message to President Barack Obama, other political leaders and the American people, around Gay & Lesbian Rights.

This video is designed to open minds, followed by an opening of the heart.

Thanks to Jeffery Hammerberg for forwarding this to us.  Enjoy and pass it along!

–Scott, Gay Marriage Watch

Received this today from the National Marriage Boycott:

The National Marriage Boycott (NMB) is currently competing for a $10k contest for seed funding and needs your help. To win funding we need people to vote for our idea. It is not everyday that a queer activist organization has the chance to win a high publicity social entrepreneurship competition! Our goal for this year is to spread to all fifty states as quickly as possible. By doing this we have a number of objectives:

However, rapid expansion requires funding. To help raise money, we have enrolled in an entrepreneurship contest called ideablob and are now finalists for a $10,000 prize. The winner is determined by the idea that gets the most votes by the end of August.

Please take a minute to vote here:
http://www.ideablob.com/ideas/6032-National-Marriage-Boycott

And view their YouTube Video Here:
http://marriageboycott.ning.com/video/nmb-official-video

Thanks!

–Scott, Gay Marriage Watch

Newark, N.J., mayor Cory Booker admitted to feeling “frustrated” and “impatient” with the Obama administration’s pace of progress on LGBT rights on Sunday, telling a group of LGBT journalists and community leaders about the “competing sentiments” he experiences as a private citizen and as an inner-city executive who can “sympathize” with the roster of problems facing the president.

“I was a huge supporter of Barack Obama and still am, but I think that he needs to take some steps right now, and I think that the more people who are friends of his or associates of him get into his ear about ending ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ about repealing DOMA, about creating more inclusive employment discrimination policy, I think that we as a nation can start moving a lot further forward,” said Booker, who co-chaired the Obama campaign in the Garden State last year.

“Unless you can change the federal strategy or focus on these issues, New Jersey residents will face high levels of discrimination in my opinion,” he said.

Full Story from The Advocate

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Vermont’s new gay marriage law takes effect September 1st. Some observers predicted the state could see 1,000 same-sex ceremonies over the next three years, providing a big boost to tourism.

At The Essex Resort & Spa, the kitchen is always working on its offerings. The spot has been a popular destination for brides and grooms.

“We’re really looking forward to the future,” said Mimi Overman of the The Essex Resort & Spa.

Full Story from WCAX.com

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources in Vermont.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Elections officials say they’ve now checked more than 100,000 signatures for Referendum 71, an attempt to overturn Washington’s new “everything but marriage” same-sex domestic partner law.

The totals as of Monday evening are: 103,898 checked, 91,716 accepted and 12,182 rejected. R-71 sponsors need 120,577 valid Washington voter signatures for the measure to be placed on the November ballot.

“The overall error rate is 11.72 percent, barely up from 11.68 percent, which we reported Friday,” Brian Zylstra of the secretary of state’s office said in a blog post. “In order to make the November statewide ballot, the referendum’s overall rejection rate must not go over 12.4 percent.”

Full Story from Seattle PI

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources in Washington.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has dismissed a lawsuit filed by two married gay men who were attempting to get the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) overturned.

The case was dismissed on a technicality. Judge Carter said that the suit had been improperly filed in state court before it was transferred to his court. The federal government cannot be sued in state court and Carter indicated that the lawsuit should be refiled in federal court.

The lawsuit was the latest step for Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer who originally took to the courts in 2004 to challenge DOMA and the state of California’s refusal to grant them a marriage license. When Smelt and Hammer were legally married during the brief window when gay marriage was legal in California, the couple renewed their lawsuit to have the federal law against same-sex marriage overturned. The law prevents gay couples married in states where same-sex marriage is legal from enjoying any federal rights and privileges associated with marriage.

Full Story from the Examiner

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

People who signed anti-gay Referendum 71 may not have been registered voters at the time, but state elections officials say they will count their signatures anyway. As Box Turtle Bulletin noted, the secretary of state’s office defended the state’s legally murky position today on its blog:

There is no deadline for registering to vote for purposes of qualifying an initiative or referendum; as a practical matter, the deadline is the date that the signature on the petition is checked. Checkers are instructed that a signature on a petition is valid if they find a person with the same name in the voter registration file, and the signature on the petition matches the signature in the voter registration file. The registration date has never been a limiting factor.

Secretary of state’s office spokeswoman Christina Siderius, who wrote the blog post, says the problem arises because the state cannot determine the date people signed the petition—and thus cannot determine if they were registered to vote at the time. State law doesn’t require petition signers to include the date they signed next to their name. “It becomes a little more difficult for us to sit around and speculate when someone registered and when they signed,” she says. According the office’s interpretation of the rules, she says, “Our policy basically states that if you are a registered voter when we check the signature, then we we count it.”

Full Story from The Stranger

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources in Washington.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

The city of El Paso will extend insurance benefits to unmarried partners of gay and straight city employees.

City Council members voted 7-1 early Tuesday afternoon to include the benefits in the budget for 2010. Only Northeast City Rep. Carl Robinson voted against the measure.

They heard hours of public comments before making their decision.

Full Story from KVIA.com

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources in Texas.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.

Germany’s highest tribunal has affirmed that gays and lesbians have the right to adopt their partner’s children, overturning a lower court ruling.

The Federal Constitutional Court decided in favour of a woman in the southern city of Schweinfurt who wanted to adopt the now three-year-old child of her female partner, with the consent of the father and social services.

The lower court had argued that such a move would be unconstitutional because it placed the rights of the partner of a parent above those of a biological parent.

Full Story from TheLocal.de

Planning to marry your partner? Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com with “subscribe blog” as the subject. Or find us on Facebook – just search for Gay Marriage Watch (you’ll see our b/w wedding pic overlooking the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge in SF). We’re also tweeting daily at http://www.twitter.com/gaymarriagewatc.