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New York Mayoral Candidate Christine Quinn Marries Partner

Monday, May 21st, 2012

Out Lesbian Christine Quinn Marries Partner Kim Catullo

Christine Quinn, a leading mayoral candidate for 2013, and Catullo, an attorney, married in an evening ceremony at the Highline Stages in Chelsea attended by family members, friends and the city and state’s political elite.

The roster of elected officials among the nearly 300 invited guests included Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Nydia Velazquez, Joseph Crowley, and Charles Rangel, State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell, and a dozen City Council members. Other political figures in attendance according to various reports included Sally Susman, Quinn’s finance chairwoman and a major Obama campaign bundler, labor leader Randi Weingarten and the lobbyist Emily Giske, who introduced Quinn to Catullo in 2001.

The evening ceremony was closed to the press, but journalists outside the venue offered Twitter updates about the comings and goings. Gay City News reports that shortly after 7 p.m., a spokesman emerged to announce that Quinn and Catullo, who are both 45, were officially married. Former Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who wrote the dissent in a 2006 court ruling that found same-sex couples had no right to marry in New York, officiated. Audra McDonald sang “She Loves” by George and Ira Gershwin before heading uptown to Broadway, where she is appearing in Porgy and Bess.

Gay City News offers more details about what the brides wore and their walk down the aisle.

“Quinn, dressed in a full-length, cream gown designed by Carolina Herrera, was walked down the aisle by her father, Lawrence. Catullo, wearing a cream silk evening suit from Ralph Lauren, was accompanied by her father, Anthony. The couple exchanged rings designed by Doyle & Doyle.

 READ More from The Advocate Article

NY, USA: Jamestown Councilman Suggests Gay Weddings Could Boost Tourism, Gets Threats

Monday, April 30th, 2012

Jamestown Councilman Greg Rabb proposed using the new same sex law as a way to attract tourists to the city, but his comments have caused controversy. Now, Rabb’s supporters are rallying.

Rabb spoke out during a council meeting saying that one way to boost tourism would be for Jamestown to “market itself as a same sex destination”. He said it would help attract people from other states where gay marriage is illegal.

That comment sparked a fire storm of controversy. Several comments and editorials have been written on the newspaper’s website. Organizers of the demonstration said many of the comments written have not only been hurtful, but also threatened the councilman’s safety.

Full Story from WKBW

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USA: Three Big Romney Donors Also Supported Marriage Equality in New York

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

Mitt Romney and Marriage Equality DonorsMitt Romney’s opposition to gay marriage, which helped endear him to conservative activists during the dog days of the presidential primary, puts him at odds with three of his most prominent donors, all of whom helped fund a successful effort to legalize same-sex nuptials in New York last year.

Paul Singer, Dan Loeb and Cliff Asness — three hedge fund managers and major players in donor circles — each cut six-figure checks toward the landmark effort to legalize gay marriage in New York.

Singer, the intensely-private head of Elliott Associates, has been especially active in donating to groups aimed at legalizing gay marriage in different states over the last five years, concurrent with his rise as one of the Republican party’s mot prominent bundlers and donors to party committees. According to a recent New York Times story, Singer has donated $8 million to pro-gay marriage efforts since 2007.

Full Story from Politico

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NY, USA: Republicans Who Supported Marriage Equality – Update

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

New York GOP for Marriage EqualityAt the end of January, New York’s Conservative Party, the most influential of the minor parties that complicate the state’s politics, celebrated its 50th anniversary at a Holiday Inn near the Albany airport, a vast and dingy venue that reminded me of athlete housing left over from the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Politicians like former Gov. George Pataki, who owed his election to the Conservatives, came to pay homage to the party for its record of steering the state’s politics to the right.
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But one calamity darkened the mood of nostalgia and self-congratulation: the passage last summer of a law legalizing same-sex marriage. For many New Yorkers, the June 24 marriage vote was a rare moment of goosebump drama from a capital better known for tedious dysfunction. For the Conservatives, and in particular for Mike Long, the ex-marine who has been the party’s chairman for nearly half of its history, the vote was a triple humiliation.

It was, first, a defining triumph for the state’s ambitious new Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo. Second, it was an abandonment by Republican leaders, who had invoked party discipline to kill similar legislation in 2009. This time the Republican leaders publicly opposed gay marriage, but knowing that both public opinion and lobbying muscle were coalescing on the other side, they freed their members to vote as they wished. And that led to what was, for Mike Long, an unforgivable betrayal. All four of the Republican senators who voted for the bill and provided the necessary margin for it to pass had been elected with the Conservative endorsement, a prize for which opposition to gay marriage was an essential litmus test. Two of those wayward senators would not have won their seats without the Conservative boost.

Full Story from The New York Times

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A Central Park Wedding and a New York City Celebration

Monday, April 9th, 2012

 When New York legalized same-sex marriages in June of last year there began a stampede of same-sex couples rushing to New York City, finally exercising their right to legalize their union. Every wedding celebrant I have spoken to was exhilarated to be a part of this momentous time in the state’s history. It has been an incredible and exciting few months for the New York wedding community but now that stampede has somewhat lessened.

New York City is famous the whole world over for being the best city in the world for a celebration. There is an unending choice of restaurants, bars and clubs, with so many of them gay-friendly. There are the classic, iconic bars of old, mixed in with the new hip and trendy clubs opened within the year. The City is a great place for a party, and what a memorable wedding celebration you could have here.

Your guest blogger, Claire, moved to New York from the UK in January 2011, and instantly fell in love with the city, who wouldn’t? She didn’t have a US work permit, so decided to spend some time volunteering in Central Park. So, after a few training sessions she was accepted onto the Greensward Guide program. It’s their job to greet people in the park, and give them information and directions. When she and her boyfriend at the time decided to get married it was an easy decision to choose to marry in Central Park.

A wedding in Central Park is such a free-and-easy way to tie the knot. There is no pressure to conform to a traditional wedding format because you have already thrown tradition out of the window by getting married in a public park! 

Manhattan is incredible, there is so much going on there, so many people and so much artistic and cultural stimulation. But it’s so busy and so noisy, and the park allows you to truly get away from it all. The park was begun in 1858, when the majority of homes in Manhattan were much further downtown than the park, but the city designers had the foresight to realize that the residential part of the city would rapidly grow further north. Although it looks very natural, a lot of excavation had to take place to get it looking like that. The park was constructed throughout the American Civil war and completed in 1873. Once the park was completed, large mansions were built along the Avenues running up either side of it. You can still see a lot of those beautiful buildings now, they’re mostly embassies or museums now.

 

To get married in New York City you must get your license from City Hall at least 24 hours before your ceremony. City Hall is downtown, amongst all the oldest New York legal buildings, and it can take a while to get the license. Take photo ID, such as a passport, and we would advise going in just before lunchtime, getting your place in line with a numbered ticket, then going to the cafe a few doors down for lunch, which you can eat in the lovely nearby park, to kill the time waiting for your number to come up. Discuss whether you will be changing your name prior to getting the license, because you will have to declare it on the form.

In the current economic climate, some people just don’t have the cash to throw a big party in an expensive venue, if you’re thinking of keeping your costs down, where better than outdoors? The small permit fee goes straight to the Central Park Conservancy, a charity in charge of running the park. Increasingly, people have wanted to “elope” to get married, just the two of them, to avoid divorced and remarried parents of their own or otherwise hostile or unsupportive family members making what should be a special day, just an emotionally complex one. Many couples will arrive at the Park together. This avoids any disagreements you maybe having about which one of you gets to walk down the aisle!

 

Claire had enjoyed the freedom of the Central Park wedding so much, she decided to launch a business to help foreigners, such as herself, and out-of-state people get married in the park. She called it Wed in Central Park. She had found a photographer and officiant through word-of-mouth but people from out of town are not in a position to meet people in this way. The regular photographer and videographer team Wed in Central Park use are a lesbian couple who have lived together in Manhattan’s East Village since the 80s. They specialize in weddings and East Village gay club parties and events. For more information on the packages they offer, see their website http://www.wedincentralpark.com/customisable-wedding-packages/

Wed in Central Park will help you write your own vows. Couples may feel that the traditional wedding vows do not apply to them, and want something completely different, or want to add their own twist to the traditional. Either way, they can help with ideas and editing.

There are lots of lovely spots in Central Park that are appropriate for weddings. There are some suggestions on the Wed in Central Park website http://www.wedincentralpark.com/wedding-locations/. Locations can range from the very public, such as Bow Bridge, to the quiet, sedate and private, such as the Great Hill, and other areas in the not-so-touristy North of the Park. Wed in Central Park will discuss the location options with clients and secure a permit for the chosen location.

New York is a wonderfully busy and exciting city, and Central Park is the perfectly tranquil oasis within it, why not choose Central Park for your wedding location and combine a tranquil ceremony with an incredible celebration in the city?

Contact Claire at info@wedincentralpark.com

NY, USA: State Senator Happily Joins NOM Efforts to Drive Wedge Between Black, Gay Communities

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

NOM LogoIt seems the National Organization for Marriage believes that if it simply redoubles its race-baiting tactics as if they are not problematic and offensive, then the controversy over its now-known intention to do so will somehow be overlooked. New York state Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz (D) has unsurprisingly volunteered to be the anti-equality group’s latest token to help “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and “make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker” for young Latinos:

DIAZ: Brian Brown and NOM have done something, that no one has been able to do before: they have helped Black and Hispanic people throughout the nation to find our voice when everyone else rejected us and excluded us from the debate.

You should know that NOM has not divided us, it has brought us unity; NOM has given a voice to the voiceless on the marriage issue, and shown us respect for our core, and sacred values on marriage–a respect the mainstream media has consistently denied us.

Full Story from Think Progress

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NY, USA: Manhattan Judge Agrees to Dissolve Vermont Civil Union

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

New YorkA Manhattan judge has agreed to dissolve the civil union of a same-sex New York couple hitched in Vermont.

Louis Viel and Gregory Williams were joined in civil union in Vermont more than a decade ago, said Viel’s lawyer, Malcolm Taub of Davidoff Malito & Hutcher. In a ruling from the bench on Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper granted Viel’s petition for dissolution, a move that Taub said helped reinforce the right of similarly-situated couples to have their unions dissolved in New York.

“This provides another precedent for granting relief to same-sex couples who prior to just recently were unable to have their rights determined in the courts of the state of New York,” he said. In 2000, Vermont became the first state to offer same-sex civil unions that conferred the same rights as marriage. With virtually no residency requirement, couples from neighboring states flocked to Vermont to enter into unions.

Full Story from Reuters

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Click here for gay wedding resources in Vermont.

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NY, USA: Five Binational Couples Sue Federal Government Over Marriage Equality

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

DOMA LawsuitFive married couples, wherein one partner had a non-US nationality, have filed suit in New York today against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), arguing that it denies gay men and lesbians the right for permanent residence, as it is available to heterosexual couples, thereby violating equal protection under the constitution.

The case, lodged by Immigration Equality, is part of a host of anti-DOMA suits that have been filed across courts throughout the United States, ultimately expected to land in the Supreme Court over the course of next few years.

Recently, the case of a couple in San Fransisco involving an Australian citizen received widespread coverage in US media, and he was saved from deportation due to intervention by Nancy Pelosi (Democrat), the minority leader of the House of Representatives. That said, many argue that, for all the talk by the Obama administration about ‘prosecutorial discretion’ concerning gay and lesbian couples, it continues to enforce DOMA rather aggressively.

Full Story from Pink News

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OH: Gay Couple Married in New York Granted a Divorce in Columbus

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

Ohio Gay Couple DivorcesTwo Columbus men married in New York were granted a divorce by a private judge appointed by Franklin County Domestic Relations Court.

Jonathan E. Baize, 31, and Stephen J. Wissman, 31, were granted a divorce last week by Judge Donald A. Cox after a 10-minute, “unremarkable” hearing, said attorney Thomas J. Addesa. He represented only Baize in the case.

Baize and Wissman were married in New York on Sept.1 last year, but later agreed to divorce.

Full Story from the Columbus Dispatch

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NY: Christine Quinn Sets a Wedding Date

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

Christine Quinn Sets Wedding Date in NYCouncil Speaker Christine Quinn’s office announced yesterday that she has set a date to marry her longtime partner. Quinn, who could become the city’s first gay mayor in 2013, set May 19 for her nuptials with Kim Catullo, said her office, which revealed virtually no other wedding details.

Quinn, 45, sent out “save the date” cards yesterday to wedding guests in the form of vintage subway maps. So her aides decided to notify the media of the timetable before someone else leaked it.

The only other information they would provide was that the ceremony would be held in Manhattan “with family and friends” and would be private.

Full Story from the NY Post

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