In May 2008, the California State Supreme Court ruled that gays in California must be able to legally marry, or it would violate the state’s laws.  18,000 couples were married before the very public Prop 8 vote took that right from us.  It was ruled that those 18,000 couples would be allowed to keep [...]

  Washington will get its gays married, by Joe!  And Starbucks, one of the longest supporters of gay rights, publicly announced last month that they supported this bill (along with other Washington-based corp giants like Microsoft, Nike and Google).  As well they should!  The company knows to keep its one trillion sassy gay baristas happy, [...]

“Someone is on your side, someone else is not.” I had myself a big gay day back in November 2008 when I drove to a No on Prop 8 campaign while sobbing to Stephen Sondheim’s “No One is Alone.”  The song, to the uninitiated, is from the musical Into the Woods, and it’s about reconciling [...]

  D.C. State of the Union time!  It’s like Presidential New Year’s Resolutions.  A lot of news people have blathered that Obama isn’t going to get done practically any of the things he says he’ll get done.  Exactly!  Just like a New Year’s resolution.  But every President does this, promise a whole batch of stuff, [...]

It doesn’t get more personal than marriage.  A personal decision that has serious life reverberations should have a master chef’s balance of seriousness and frivolity.  It’s a marriage, not a land deal (anymore).  A marriage is a song that’s somewhere between the extremes of Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be” and Harry Belafonte’s “Man Smart, Woman Smarter”. [...]

  If the wind doesn’t change in the next month, Washington State will join Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa, New York and Washington D.C. to become the seventh state that holds gay marriage laws.  The House has the votes to approve it, the Governor will sign it, and the Senate yesterday found their 25th [...]

  At 10:00 am Pacific time, the Washington Marriage Equality bill will go before the Senate Committee, followed by its encore appearance at 3:00 pm for the cheap seats in the back (aka the House Committee).  Then, we’re off to the races.  The Seattle Times believes that the one-two-three of this bill’s passage will be fairly [...]

  Washington State is now poised to become the 7th state to have the benefits of Marriage Equality (8, if you count Equality-riddled D.C.).  Governor Gregoire has pushed for the bill, set to be introduced in front of the state congress this Monday.  The house will very easily pass this.  The senate is the last [...]

  Okay, here we go… MARYLAND! –baton pass– The Governor-backed marriage amendment in the land of crabs, Ravens and shitloads of crack has a long road ahead, as The Washington Post reports today.  The area is seen as a natural soft spot for Marriage Equality.  It’s adjacent to what is rapidly becoming the 13 colonies [...]

  Throughout 2011, 2012 promised to be a big, volatile year for Marriage Equality, and, less than two weeks in, it hasn’t disappointed.  With state legislative sessions beginning all over the country, jump starts on social bills like these are causing a stir.  Here are up to the minute updates on all your favorite (or [...]

  In addition to New Jersey, the next state at the forefront of marriage equality is Washington State.  Governor Christine Gregoire said this month that “It’s time, it is the right thing to do, and I will introduce a bill to do it.” “Not so fast,” said everyone. Even though the potential bill has overwhelming [...]

  With New Jersey fast-tracking its gay marriage bill, other states are not far behind (Washington State is prepping one as we speak– a full run-down of that tomorrow).  NOM, the National Organization for Marriage, is the leading money-making machine out to kill all these gay marriage bills, outside of the Catholic and Mormon Churches. [...]

  Last Summer, when New York voted in Marriage Equality in a landslide win, New Jersey had nothing to do but look over the Hudson River, mope and watch Bridesmaids again.  Determined to land their legal man this summer, New Jersey is taking a two pronged approach: swift Democratic leadership in the senate and assembly, and [...]

  Where does civil rights meet Occupy Wall Street?  Income inequality.  I was treated to a proper stack-blowing this morning with the release of a study at UCLA’s Williams Institute.  The report, titled “Restoring Shared Prosperity: Strategies to Cut Poverty and Expand Economic Growth” (a helluvun innocuous title for such an upsetting topic), details how [...]

  Glenn Beck left his Fox News show last year with as much ceremony as Fox was willing to give him.  Now he’s doing the same thing but on radio, a show that began on January 6th.  He opened the show while talking about the shiny new penny in the GOP debate, Rick Santorum.  A [...]