News

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania health department says a county clerk’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples “risks causing serious and limitless harm” in the state and beyond.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the School Success and Opportunity Act into law, a landmark bill to ensure transgender youth have equal opportunities to fully participate and succeed in schools programs across the state.

MOSCOW – Russia’s Interior Ministry, which controls the police force, said Monday that the country’s controversial anti-gay “propaganda” law will be enforced during the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

CANBERRA, Australia — Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, leader of the ruling Labor party, committed Sunday to introduce marriage equality legislation within 100 days if re-elected, becoming the first Australian leader to promise support for same-sex marriage.

MOSCOW — The law on “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors” was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on June 29. Originally titled the law on “homosexual propaganda,” the bill criminalizes public expression of support for nontraditional relationships.

BATON ROUGE, La. — The East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s recent use of an unconstitutional law to arrest gay men who weren’t doing anything illegal might not have happened if state lawmakers had stripped the statute from the state’s law books once it was thrown out.

TEL AVIV, Israel — The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv on Thursday issued the first derivative visas to same-sex spouses.

WASHINGTON — A gospel singer who says God delivered him from “the curse” of homosexuality, was removed from a concert lineup at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial after a request from Washington’s mayor.

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey court case headed for oral arguments this week is among the first to test what a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down key parts of a law barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage means in states.

ANTWERP, Belgium — More than 400 men and women staged a kiss-in protest outside the Russian Consulate in Antwerp on Friday to demonstrate support for Russia’s LGBT community and protest against that country’s recently approved anti-gay laws.