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NC: Catholic Church Fires Music Director for Marrying His Partner

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012

North Carolina Music Director FiredSt. Gabriel Catholic Church in South Charlotte, NC, fired its musical director last month because he married his partner in New York, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Steav Bates-Congdon, 61, began working at St. Gabriel in 2004 and parishioners claim that Bates-Congdon was open about being gay since his first interview with the church. Even his partner of 23 years, Bill Bates-Congdon, 47, was often involved in the church’s music department and ended up joining the hand-bell choir.

St. Gabriel is one of the biggest parishes in the city and has about 10,000 members. The couple married in a state park in Upstate New York on Oct. 15. Bates-Congdon returned to St. Gabriel on Jan. 19 after a going on a honeymoon and having to go to the hospital due to his appendix rupturing. Instead of being greeted by his co-workers, Rev. Frank O’Rourke, a pastor and a colleague of Bates-Congdon, handed the music director a note.

Full Story from Edge Boston

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Russia: Gay Flight Attendant Told to Marry Woman or Be Fired

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

Russia’s so homophobic, it won’t even tolerate gay flight attendants.
Maxim Kupreev is a 25-year-old flight attendant employed by Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline. In order to change the prevailing anti-gay atmosphere in his workplace, Kupreev decided to organize a group of LGBT Aeroflot employees. In response, his bosses commanded him: Marry a woman or you’re fired.

From GayStarNews:

The creation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group in Aeroflot was announced on 20 June 2011. At this time, Kupreev, the founder of the group said it would fight for the direct inclusion of discrimination ban on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity into internal documents of Aeroflot. His group also planned to fight for the recognition of same-sex partners of the employees.

Full Story from Towleroad.com

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Married Gay Couple With Four Kids May Be Forced to Leave US

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Family Faces DeportationAfter more than 20 years, four children, and three houses, we are still unsure of our future.

Like any other parents in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where we live, we spend our days taking care of our family, making sure that our children are loved, happy, healthy and are learning the skills and values that will give them the most opportunities for a successful and fulfilling life.

And yet, as much as we have devoted our lives to our family and to each other, we do not enjoy what most families in America take for granted. Despite being legally married, and having become the parents of four wonderful children, our family can be torn apart at any time by my own government because of the Defense of Marriage Act and because of outdated immigration laws.

Full Story from Stop the Deportations

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DC Event: Black Gay/Transgender Americans Need More Than Marriage Equality

Friday, January 13th, 2012

About This Event

Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, Americans continue to experience stark social, economic, and health disparities despite significant gains in securing basic rights for LGBT people over the last decade. According to recent data families headed by black same-sex couples are more likely to raise their children in poverty, black lesbians are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, and black LGBT youth are more likely to end up homeless and living on the streets.

These statistics suggests that some of the high-profile gay policy priorities that have garnered the most attention and advocacy–such as marriage equality–underserve this population even though they are important for overall progress. This also applies to racial and economic justice priorities that overlook gay and transgender people within their constituencies. How can we make progress in bridging these gaps?

Please join us for the launch of CAP’s FIRE Initiative, which works to eliminate the social, health, and economic disparities faced by gay and transgender people of color, for an engaging conversation about our new report, “Jumping Beyond the Broom: Why Black Gay and Transgender Americans Need More than Marriage Equality,” which sheds light on these issues and discusses why progressives committed to equality for all Americans should be engaged in the various policy and advocacy solutions that can address them.

Full Story from CAP

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Is Gay the New Black?

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Gay RightsThe civil rights issue of our time is gay marriage, and the key players in our country’s most significant civil rights movement are on the wrong side of it. The black church has taken on a new role: oppressor.

As a black person born in the late ’60s, I missed the actual Civil Rights Movement, but the remnants of oppression and stories of segregation were always fresh on my grandmother’s mind. It was her lessons in black history, literature, and Christianity that inspired me to be proud of my heritage. She did her best to teach me the value of diversity, and so I learned to love all people regardless of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or socioeconomic background.

Although my grandmother taught me to love, she was not immune to her community’s mores. And so she also — unconsciously — taught me to deny the humanity of another human. My uncle (one of her five sons) is gay. For his entire childhood and young adult life he was teased and beaten by his brothers for being gay. Our family never spoke aloud about my uncle’s homosexuality, and for decades we called his life partner, who was a kind and loving man, his “friend.” It was against the rules to openly accept, acknowledge, or appreciate my uncle for all that he really was. This was being a good Christian in my family’s eyes, but for me it was telling a lie and an act of oppression.

Full Story from the Huffington Post

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Nigeria: Gay Pastor Challenges Senate Over Marriage Equality Ban

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

The Senate during the week passed the anti Same-Sex Marriage Bill prohibiting all marriages between man and man and between woman and woman. The Bill sponsored by Senator Magnus Abe, PDP, Rivers, prescribes 14 years jail term for anybody convicted of contracting marriage between same sex.

It also prescribed 10 years for anybody convicted of aiding and abetting the contraction of same sex marriage in Nigeria and also nullifies certificate of same sex marriage contracted outside the shores of Nigeria.

In 2008, Saturday Vanguard reported a story about a gay Reverend Rowland who was running a church secretly in Nigeria. The Church called House of Rainbow was situated at No 36/38 Yakoyo street, Ojodu Berger, Lagos. Reverend Roland some time ago reportedly appeared on Cable Network News, CNN, where he proudly talked about his church of gays.

According to him, ” My Church is a voice of the younger generation of citizens, activists, and diaspora, and our collective belief in a more progressive Nigeria. They are afraid of our growing influence as we gather allies not just from the West, a people that are not afraid but powerful and resilient.”

Full Story from the Vanguard

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UK: Gays Less Likely to Split Than Straights

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Tasmania Gay Marriage VoteCivil partners are less likely to divorce than straight married people, new figures suggest. Data from the Office of National Statistics shows that after five years, 5.5 per cent of marriages had ended in divorce and 2.5 per cent of civil partnerships had been dissolved.

The ONS report says: “Early figures suggest that marriages are more likely to end in divorce than civil partnerships are to end in dissolution.”

Since they were legalised in 2005, 42,778 civil partnerships have taken place – four times the number initially expected.

Full Story from Pink News

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CA: Prop 8 Proponents to Appeal Ruling on Judge Walker

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Charles CooperThere is little to add, beyond what has been reported here and throughout the blogosphere. But, there is one thing that many of us have missed.

Much to the amazement of the gay media, Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for the Prop 8 proponents, vowed to appeal Judge Ware’s decision throwing out Mr. Cooper’s frivolous, dangerous and hateful motion to dismiss. Mr. Cooper stated that his “legal team will appeal this decision and continue [its] tireless efforts to defend the will of the people of California to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman.”

Appeal such a wholehearted beat down? Does he think he will get any more sympathy from a panel of Ninth Circuit judges who have known Judge Walker for years and have, in any event, already invested their court’s own time and effort into this case?

Full Story from Towleroad.com

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CA: Judge Hears Complaint About Prop 8 Ruling’s Gay Judge

Monday, June 13th, 2011

Prop 8 HearingIt now seems unlikely that a federal judge will vacate a landmark decision in which a gay judge ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

The evidence? U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Ware said, following a three-hour hearing Monday, that he plans to issue his ruling concerning a motion to vacate within 24 hours.

Judges typically take months to write decisions of consequence, and a decision to vacate the August 2010 ruling from former Judge Vaughn Walker declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional would be of enormous consequence.

Full Story from LGBTQ Nation

Click here for gay marriage resources in California.

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US: New Poll Says 73% Support Workplace Protections for Gay and Transgender People

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

USA Gay/Transgender Workplace Protections PollA new poll from the Center for American Progress shows that the American public strongly supports workplace nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender people.* This support comes at a time when new research shows just how much dis- crimination and harassment this population faces on the job.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research fielded the poll of likely 2012 voters in the first and second weeks of April 2011. Nearly three-fourths of voters (73 percent) support protecting gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination. This support cuts across political party affiliation, with 81 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Republicans supporting workplace nondiscrimination laws for gay and transgender people.

Catholic (74 percent support) and senior citizen (61 percent support) voters are also clearly in favor of employment protections for gay and transgender people. Even among voters who identify themselves as feeling generally unfavorable toward gay people, a full 50 percent support workplace nondiscrimination protections for the gay and transgender population.

Full Story from the Center for American Progress

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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.