News (USA)

One year after California’s electorate ended same-sex marriage in the Golden State, voters in Maine are preparing to decide whether to allow gay nuptials. To avoid another defeat, supporters of same-sex marriage were ramping up their grassroots efforts in advance of Tuesday’s vote on the proposed “people’s veto.” Only if the initiative, known as Question […]

WASHINGTON DC – Two men allegedly attacked a Georgetown student because they thought she was a lesbian, according to the university’s Department of Public Safety. The student was perceived to be gay because of the gay rights shirt she was wearing when she was verbally and physically Tuesday night near the campus entrance on Canal […]

A SkyWest Airlines baggage agent who married his partner last year after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions says the airline is breaking state law by refusing to give his husband the free fares it provides to heterosexual spouses. The airline says Gilbert Caldwell’s husband is his “travel companion,” entitled to fly at a […]

President Obama on Friday called an end to the 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people tested positive for HIV, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.” Obama made the announcement as he signed the fourth […]

Washington state’s slow-but-steady approach to increasing rights and benefits to gay and lesbian couples hit its first snag just as the three-year process appeared to be complete. After lawmakers passed the state’s first domestic partnership bill in 2007, and then expanded it a year later, they completed the package with the so-called “everything but marriage” […]

MSNBC. Though the Obama administration calls the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) discriminatory, the Justice Department nonetheless is defending the law in a court filing today in Massachusetts. The state has challenged the law, which denies federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples who are nonetheless legally married under state law. Massachusetts officials say the […]

Rachel Maddow spoke with Maine’s Governor John Baldacci Thursday night about the attempt to repeal Maine’s same-sex marriage law, enacted in May, but up for a vote in next Tuesday’s election. Not too long ago, Baldacci stood against gay marriage, but has since had a change of heart, saying “civil union is not equal to […]

It’s been more than 10 years since the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was kidnapped, brutally beaten and left to die tied to a fence on a freezing night in the Wyoming wilderness.

Via The Daily Dish, from Andrew Sullivan at TheAtlantic.com The anti-gay forces in Maine are ramping up the “gay conspiracy to get your kids” angle in the latest wave of ads. The pro-gay forces continue on the high road. They are, in a way, almost poignant examples of the politics of fear and the politics […]

SFGate.com: Californians, in particular, are watching Maine’s same sex marriage vote closely. And some, like Demi Espinoza, Daniel Shad and Gabe Gonzalez, care so passionately about the issue that they’re giving up their vacation time to volunteer in Maine to preserve gay marriage there. Each is an organizer with Equality California and they’re helping get […]