PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia city council on Thursday approved a landmark LGBT equality bill that provides tax incentives to private employers who extend insurance to the same-sex partners of their employees, and strengthens legal rights and protections for LGBT citizens.

Pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner have long warned that homosexuality is responsible for natural disasters and that the US government should follow Uganda and “remove the abomination from the land” before it destroys people and society itself.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon church says it welcomes the Boy Scouts of America’s latest proposal to lift the gay ban for youth members but continue to exclude gays as adult leaders.

YORK, Pa. — Prom court voting is over, and with prom night just days away, one senior at Red Lion Area Senior High School in York, Pa., is angry over an arbitrary decision by the school’s principal that left him excluded from the prom court election.

KENT, Wash. — Police in Kent, Wash., say they have arrested a man who used popular gay dating and cell phone apps to set up dates with gay men at remote locations and then robbed them at gunpoint.

WASHINGTON — The latest bad news in the hunt for an AIDS vaccine: The government halted a large U.S. study on Thursday, saying the experimental shots aren’t preventing HIV infection.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — An Orono, Minn., businessman angling to be the next governor of Minnesota, says he supports civil unions for gay couples but wouldn’t back same-sex marriage if faced with a bill legalizing it.

Phone banks, an army of volunteers and alliances with organized labor, business leaders and religious clergy propelled gay marriage to victory in Rhode Island this week, a savvy and coordinated strategy that relied on growing public support and old-fashioned bare-knuckle politic

Former U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday dodged an opportunity to weigh in on whether his views on marriage equality have evolved since leaving office more than four years ago.

PHILADELPHIA — The daughter of Cuba President Raul Castro cannot visit Philadelphia to receive an award for her gay rights activism because the State Department has denied her permission to travel there, officials said Thursday.

HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut lawmakers are seeking to restore state benefits to gay and lesbian veterans discharged under the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. On Wednesday, the Senate voted 34-0 in favor of legislation making veterans eligible for state benefits if they’ve been denied federal benefits solely because of their sexual orientation. The […]

WASHINGTON — The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was reintroduced in both chambers of Congress on Thursday. The measure would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by civilian, nonreligious employers with at least 15 employees.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A former top aide to Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Wednesday publicly urged Minnesota GOP legislators to back legalized same-sex marriage or risk alienating young voters.

SANTA FE, N.M. — The Santa Fe City Council has passed a controversial resolution recognizing same-sex marriage as legal in New Mexico.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Rhode Island state Senate voted moments ago in favor of a marriage equality bill, a crucial vote that puts Rhode Island on course to become the tenth U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.

DES MOINES, Iowa — A group of conservative lawmakers have proposed cutting the salaries of Iowa Supreme Court justices who joined in a unanimous ruling four years ago that legalized gay marriage in Iowa.

Frustrated at being left out of an immigration overhaul, gay rights groups are pushing to adjust a bipartisan Senate bill to include gay couples. But Democrats are treading carefully, wary of adding another divisive issue that could lose Republican support and jeopardize the entire bill.

DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa lawmaker who gained national attention last week for critical remarks about homosexual lifestyles says he wants to go to lunch with a gay colleague.

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University has announced it will begin offering student health insurance coverage for gender confirmation surgery. The university joins a handful of other institutions offering similar coverage, though the University of North Carolina System currently does not.

Wednesday marks the two year anniversary of the brutal death of Noxolo Nogwaza, a South African lesbian and LGBT rights activist. In 2011, 24-year-old Noxolo, organizer of the Ekurhuleni Pride Committee, was murdered in South Africa, while on her way home from a night out with friends. Her attackers raped, repeatedly beat and stabbed her, apparently because of her sexual orientation, before dumping her body in a drainage ditch. Two years after her death, no progress has been made into the investigation of her murder…