June, 2011

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MD: Marriage Equality Advocates Ask Governor O’Malley to Step it Up

Monday, June 27th, 2011

With New York’s embrace of same-sex marriage last week, advocates of gay nuptials in Maryland are pressing Gov. Martin O’Malley to play a more vigorous role as state lawmakers prepare to push the issue again.

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, another Democrat whose national profile is on the rise, is widely credited with getting a bill through his divided legislature with a well-funded lobbying campaign to persuade conflicted lawmakers.

In Maryland, O’Malley supported a similar measure that fell short during this year’s legislative session but, unlike Cuomo, largely limited his advocacy to private conversations.

Full Story from The Washington Post

Click here for gay marriage resources in Maryland.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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NY: Money Also Key in Marriage Equality Victory

Monday, June 27th, 2011

The passage of historic legislation legalizing same sex marriage in the state of New York last Friday was owed in large part to a compelling political motivator: money.

Although New York’s legislators were already disposed to approving gay marriage because of the more progressive disposition of the state and a major grassroots campaign in support of the bill, LGBT activists from both parties turned to a simple, poignant argument: Lawmakers not only stood to gain the support of well-funded gay-rights supporters if they backed the bill, they would suffer if they opposed it or shied away from the spotlight.

“I didn’t come in there saying, ‘Do this for me,’” recalled Ken Mehlman, the openly gay former RNC chairman who persuaded Republican lawmakers in Albany that there was not only political support but ideological consistency in backing the bill. “I said, ‘Do this for you.’ We didn’t walk in there saying, ‘Do this not only because it is the right thing from a policy perspective.’ We were saying, ‘It is the right thing to build the party from a political perspective.’”

Full Story from The Huffington Post

Click here for gay marriage resources in New York.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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CA: Prop 8 Supporters Appeal Ruling on Gay Judge’s Impartiality

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Supporters of California’s gay marriage ban are appealing a ruling that a U.S. judge’s own gay relationship was no basis for tossing out his decision in support of same-sex marriage.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco last year struck down California’s same-sex marriage ban, known as Proposition 8. He later openly discussed his own gay relationship after retiring from the bench earlier this year.
Supporters of the ban now say his ruling was compromised and should be vacated. But Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware disagreed earlier this month, ruling that granting such a request would send a message that minority judges could not rule in civil rights cases.

Full Story from Reuters

Click here for gay marriage resources in California.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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Brazil: Judge OK’s Gay Marriage in Sao Paulo

Monday, June 27th, 2011

A Brazilian state judge on Monday approved what the court said is the nation’s first gay marriage.

Sao Paulo state Judge Fernando Henrique Pinto ruled two men could convert their civil union into a full marriage. Brazil’s Supreme Court cleared the way in May for the recognition of same-sex civil unions, but stopped short of approving gay marriages.

A court statement said Pinto made the decision based on the top court’s ruling on civil unions and on Brazil’s constitution, which outlines how a civil union can be converted into a legal marriage.

Full Story from AP

Click here for gay marriage resources in Brazil.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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IL: Tax Trouble for Gay Couples in Civil Unions?

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Opponents of full marriage equality for same-sex couples often ask why the LGBT community can’t simply be happy with separate institutions and groupings of rights like civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Illinois recently became one such state to move to offer statewide protections supposedly equal, but separate, to marriage with the passage of the ‘Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.’ The act reads broadly about what it provides for same-sex couples, stating:

“This Act shall be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purposes, which are to provide adequate procedures for the certification and registration of a civil union and provide persons entering into a civil union with the obligations, responsibilities, protections, and benefits afforded or recognized by the law of Illinois to spouses.” (750 ILCS 75/5)

Full Story from Pam’s House Blend

Click here for gay marriage resources in Illinois.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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Marriage Equality Events Today/Tomorrow: LA, West Hollywood, DC, NY

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Gay Marriage Events Jun 27th-28th, 2011Here’s our list of events today and tomorrow around the world relating to marriage equality, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and other LGBT equality issues. If you know of any other events – rallies, meetings, phonebanking, etc – please use the link below to add your event to our list!

–USA, CA, Los Angeles: 06/27, Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays (w/Celebrity Cast) – Benefits Vote for Equality, Renberg Theater, 8 PM.
–USA, CA, West Hollywood: 06/28, Love Honor Cherish Meeting, Nat’l Council Of Jewish Women, 7:30 PM.
–USA, DC, Washington: 06/28, Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance Meeting, Sumner School Museum, 7 PM.
–USA, NY, New York: 06/27, Equality@Work Awards Luncheon, Goldman Sachs, 12:30 PM.

Full Events List/Add Your Own Event: http://www.purpleunions.com/mn/gay-marriage-events-list.html

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Matt Baume’s Marriage Equality News

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Matt covers the big news from New York and lots more. We met Matt Saturday at SF Pride – really nice, talented guy!

Full Story from Joe.My.God

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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Where is President Obama As Marriage Equality Fight Continues?

Monday, June 27th, 2011

On Thursday night, when same-sex marriage in New York State was teetering on a razor’s edge, President Obama had a perfect opportunity to show the results of his supposed evolution on gay marriage.

Unfortunately, he did not take it, keeping his own views in the shadows. The next night the Republican-led New York State Senate, of all places, proved itself more forward-thinking than the president on one of the last great civil-rights debates in this nation’s history.

Speaking to the Democratic Party’s LGBT Leadership Council at a fund-raiser in New York, Mr. Obama ran through the many efforts he has made on behalf of gay rights, including his decision to end the government’s legal support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids federal recognition of same-sex marriage. The act should be repealed, he said, since marriage is defined by the states.

Full Story fromThe New York Times

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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The American Medical Association Supports Marriage Equality

Monday, June 27th, 2011

AMAIn response to the vote in the New York legislature, the American Medical Association has issued a call for the marriage equality across the United States. Via press release from Freedom To Marry:

With the New York State now the sixth – and largest – state to end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy position declaring that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is “discriminatory” and reaffirming existing AMA policy to support relationship recognition of gay and lesbian couples as a means of addressing health disparities faced by those couples and their families.

Full Story from Joe.My.God

Click here for gay marriage resources.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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Hilary Clinton Praises NY, Doesn’t Back Marriage Equality Specifically

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday offered her approval of New York’s just-passed same sex marriage law.

Calling Friday’s vote by the New York state legislature “historic,” the former New York senator was careful in her remarks not to overstep her bounds as an Obama administration appointee.
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But the legalization of gay marriage, Clinton said at a State Department event hosted by Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, “gives such visibility and credibility to everything that so many of you have done over so many years.”

Full Story from Politico

Click here for gay marriage resources in New York.

To subscribe to this blog, use the rss feed on the right, or use the form at right to join our email list. You can also email us at info@purpleunions.com. 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.

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