Gay Marriage Watch

A judge on Tuesday authorized two men to marry in Buenos Aires in what would be the country’s second same-sex marriage. In December, two Argentine men, Alex Freyre and Jose Maria Bello, became the first homosexuals to legally marry in heavily Roman Catholic Latin America, after the governor of southernmost Tierra del Fuego province allowed them to wed in the provincial capital, Ushuaia.

Judge Elena Liberatori gave her approval to the second couple, two men whose names were not immediately released, to set a date to wed at the Civil Registry.

She said they were exercising their rights even if current laws “are not in line with the times.”

Full Story from AFP
Click here for gay marriage resources.
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The U.S. Office of Personnel Management still thinks it can’t authorize health care coverage for the same-sex spouse of a federal court employee even though a judge has ordered the agency to do, a government lawyer said Friday. Elaine Kaplan, the office’s general counsel, said in a statement issued Friday that the Department of Justice has determined that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act supersedes the recent ruling by Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. DOMA, as the law is known, prohibits the government from recognizing same-sex unions.

“As the President has explained, the Administration believes that this law is discriminatory and needs to be repealed by Congress,” Kaplan said.

The dispute involves Karen Golinski, a staff lawyer at the 9th Circuit’s San Francisco headquarters. Earlier this year and again last month, Kozinski ruled that Golinski is entitled to enroll her wife in her employer-sponsored health plan because the court has a policy prohibiting discrimination against gay workers.

Full Story from The LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-gay-marriage-federal-employees,0,1977764.story

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.

Supreme Court Justice Carlos Fayt said the highest tribunal is currently analyzing a ruling on the possible legalization of same-sex marriages, as the first gay wedding, scheduled for today, had been suspended following a court injunction.

Alex and José María, two leaders of the gay community, were given permission to wed today by a Civil Registry in Buenos Aires, after a local court said two articles of the Civil Code that restricted marriages to heterosexuals was unconstitutional. Yesterday, another local court ordered a halt on the wedding, following an injunction presented by a third party.

Legal experts have criticized the ruling saying the issue falls outside local jurisdiction and that it should be decided by the Supreme Court instead.

Full Story from the Buenos Aires Herald: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/18833

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.

A Princeton Borough-based organization that is the leading financial backer of an anti-gay marriage campaign in Maine must identify its contributors, a federal judge ruled this week.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a group founded by Princeton University politics professor Robert George in 2007, has given more than $1.5 million to a group that is urging voters to overturn Maine’s law allowing gay marriage.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci signed the measure into law in May, making Maine the first state to create gay marriage through a governor’s signature rather than a court ruling. The referendum takes place Tuesday.

Full Story from NJ.com: http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-18/125688180673960.xml&coll=5

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, 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.

Today, I was directed toward an article in the Hammond, Louisiana Daily Star about a justice of the peace who refuses to marry interracial couples (emph. mine):

A justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple last week because of concern for the children who might be born of that relationship. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, also said it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

I guess, as they say, anecdote doesn’t equal data. I speak as someone with two adult cousins produced out of an interracial marriage, and yes, their parents are still together.

Full Story from the Poll Gazette: http://www.poligazette.com/2009/10/16/the-devils-advocate-checks-in-denying-marriage-services/comment-page-1/

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

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.

As a most unusual October mega storm left our Bay Area, with downed electrical lines and trees in it’s a wake, a delightfully fresh aroma reveals another unique event– but this one we like…for the first time a Federal Judge in San Francisco asked the backers of California’s voter-enacted ban on same-sex marriage to explain how allowing gay couples to wed threatens straight marriages. Much to my personal delight the lawyer for the supporters of Prop 8, Charles Cooper acknowledged he did not know.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker, wants to examine other issues that are part of the political rhetoric surrounding same-sex marriage but rarely surface in courtrooms. Among the questions he plans to entertain at the trial are whether sexual orientation is a “fixed or immutable characteristic, whether gays are a politically powerful group, and if same-sex marriage bans such as Proposition 8 were motivated by anti-gay bias.”

This refreshing exchange between the Judge and Cooper, came during a hearing on a lawsuit challenging the measure as discriminatory under the U.S. Constitution. Cooper had asked Walker to throw out the suit or make it more difficult for those civil rights claims to prevail.

Full Story from Lez Get Real: http://lezgetreal.com/?p=22258

Planning to marry your partner? 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.

A Dallas man seeking a divorce from his male spouse in Texas appeared publicly for the first time Sunday, saying he is not “a poster child” for efforts to legalize gay marriages in Texas and other states.

The man, who identifies himself only as “J.B.,” said on ABC’s “Good Morning America Weekend” that his petition for a divorce from his spouse of three years was not intended to be a “test case” for expanding gay rights.

“This is not about gay and lesbian marriage,” he said.

The case drew attention after Dallas Judge Tena Callahan ruled Thursday that Texas’ 4-year-old ban against gay marriages is unconstitutional because it stands in the way of gay divorces.

Full Story from the Star-Telegram: http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_news/story/1659726.html

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, 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.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that an anti-gay marriage group must provide records associated with last fall’s campaign to ban gay marriage in California, The Associated Press reported.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco has ordered ProtectMarriage.com to produce internal emails, memos and records associated with its strategy to ban gay marriage in the state.

ProtectMarriage.com is the sponsor of Proposition 8, the voter-approved referendum that ended the June-to-November “Summer of Love” in California when gay marriage was legal.

Full Story from On Top Magazine: http://ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=4630&MediaType=1&Category=26

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

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.

In an illustration of the hazards that travel across state lines poses to gay and lesbian families who have no federal recognition and no nation-wide protections, a Washington woman whose partner succumbed to a stroke while on vacation says that she, and the women’s children, were denied visitation privileges even as the stricken woman lay dying in a Florida hospital.

A suit that followed the incident was tossed out of federal court on Sept. 29.

As reported at EGDE last February, Janice Langbehn, her partner of 17 years Lisa Marie Pond, and their children had traveled to Florida from Washington and were about to embark on a cruise from Miami when Pond collapsed, either from a heart attack or because of an aneurysm (media accounts have cited both).

Full Story from Edge Boston: http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=97026

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

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.

A judge who refused to allow a gay woman and her partner to take custody of the woman’s daughter has to reconsider, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has ruled.

Angel Chandler and Joseph Barker had agreed that Chandler and her partner would take custody of their daughter, 14, while Barker and his new wife took custody of their 16-year-old son. But a Gibson County judge rejected the plan they agreed upon, saying that state law required every parenting plan to have a “paramour provision”: that the parent won’t have someone stay the night if they aren’t married.

Since Tennessee law doesn’t allow for gay marriage, Chandler and her partner of 10 years were in violation of that provision, the judge ruled. Chancellor George Ellis of the 28th Judicial District in West Tennessee imposed the restriction in May even though Chandler’s ex-husband had not asked for it.

Full Story from The Tennessean.com: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090922/NEWS01/909220331/Custody+ruling+on+gay+parenting+reversed

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

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.