News

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Republican state senator who supports legalizing same-sex marriage in Minnesota said Wednesday that he hopes to convince GOP colleagues to join him in abandoning the party’s traditional stand on the issue.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The nation’s largest Protestant group is calling on members of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America to uphold a ban on gay leaders and Scouts when it votes in May.

A California state Senator on Tuesday introduced legislation that would remove the state’s tax exempt status for any youth group — including the Boy Scouts of America — that bans members on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity

CHICAGO — The results of a Crain’s/Ipsos Illinois Poll released this week found that 50 percent of the state’s adult residents support the same-sex marriage bill currently making its way through the Illinois state legislature.

A new poll released Tuesday by the Center for American Progress and Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), found that an increasing number of voters see the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as discriminatory.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ruled against Austria’s decision to deny a lesbian woman the right to adopt her longtime partner’s son.

Oregon United for Marriage, a broad coalition working to legalize same-sex marriage in Oregon, submitted 2,000 sponsorship signatures to the Secretary of State Elections Office on Tuesday, twice the number needed to move move into the ballot title process.

The Montana Senate is backing a measure to strike an obsolete state law that criminalizes gay sex. Senate Bill 107 repeals an anti-gay law the courts ruled unconstitutional in 1997.

The first national, public opinion poll of 2013 on marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, released Tuesday by the Respect for Marriage Coalition, found that a growing bipartisan majority of registered voters support marriage rights.

BERLIN — Germany’s highest court strengthened gay couples’ adoption rights in a ruling Tuesday that the country’s justice minister greeted as “a historic step.”