ALBANY, N.Y. — Advocates for same-sex marriage are hitting New York's state capital hard, trying to sway the few votes needed for final legislative approval of the bill in a special session Tuesday. This comes a week after a Maine referendum soundly repealed that state's new same-sex marriage law. What appears to be a likely vote in New York is being forced by Gov. ...

... DC venue the Rock N Roll Hotel last Saturday and convinced them to perform an impromptu rendition of their 2004 anthem "Ban Marriage," in honor of the disappointing decision in Maine overturning the samesex marriage law. The full video is after the jump. Also, I'm excited to announce that !! omg blog !! is co-promoting the upcoming Hidden Cameras concert in Toronto on December 5, ...

Until they are nixed again by Kevin Rudd's government, civil partnerships are again legal in Australia's Capital Territory: "In a long-running case of legal leapfrog, the Australian Capital Territory legislative assembly yesterday amended its civil partnerships scheme to let same-sex couples hold a legally sanctioned ceremony. But the decision, moved by the Greens and backed by ...

... Carlson (Pajiba) The Box review by Devin Faraci (CHUD) House of the Devil review by Dustin Rowles (Pajiba) Avatar: The Budget Battle (CHUD) Five Movies that might encourage narrowminded assholes to vote for Samesex Marriage (Pajiba) The Wolfman Clusterfuck (CHUD) The Top Eight Werewolf Movies of the Last 30 Years (Pajiba) The Devin's Advocate: My Ten Favorite Movies (CHUD) The Top 10 Doomsday ...

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington D.C. is threatening that Catholic Charities will  withdraw from city contracts that fund services to homeless and other poor people in the dead of winter if D.C. approves same sex marriages. The bill would not require that the Church marry same sex couples or make space for such marriages, but D.C. law requires that recipients of funds not ...

                      Available at Magers & Quinn Booksellers 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis 612/822-4611   Fred Hertz will discuss his book Making It Legal: A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnership & Civil Unions, Monday, November 23, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Uptown. The ...

Nov. 16, 2009 Bishop Paul V. Marshall To Clergy of the Diocese of Bethlehem In accordance with General Convention 2009 observation that that “the discernment of The Episcopal Church is that there are no theological barriers to blessing … same-sex relationships that are based on love, fidelity and lifelong commitment …” I offer the following interim measures ... Download below " ...

From Kentucky Equality Federation, Marriage Equality Kentucky, and Kentucky Equality PAC. Kentucky Equality Federation applauds legislation pre-filed by Representative Mary Lou Marzian (BR 93) to place the issue of same-sex marriage or civil unions back in the hands of Kentucky citizens. Earlier this year, Kentucky Equality Federation and Marriage Equality Kentucky began collecting ...

... Court doesn t do its job. I am thankful to live in a place that takes measures to protect people from the tyranny of the majority most of the time, anyway. I am not arguing that samesex marriage is right. Believe what you will about that. But to make same-sex marriage illegal deals a serious blow to democracy. We don t regulate morality in the U.S., because there is not ...

Excerpt from Wealth Strategies Journal: (click for entire article) When does a condition on a bequest become impermissible as against public policy by attempting to limit marriage in some way? "To my darling daughter, I leave my summer cottage unless she remains married to a pirate."  This clause encourages divorce and would most likely be struck down. Yet another more specific ...

Room 300 on the fifth floor of the John A. Wilson building was packed as D.C. Council members discussed various bills, but the biggest issue was bill 18-142, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009. Although the Catholic church highly opposes the legislation and threatened to end its contracts for social services, the council agreed to vote next month on the ...

As reported by TaxProf Blog, Michael Steinberger recently released a paper on the federal estate tax disadvantages for same-sex couples.  While it only effects about 73 couples in the Unites States, this paper is an interesting addition to an earlier post Everything But Marriage Bill - Tax Perspectives I wrote in mid November refering reader's to a blog post by the Jensen Law Office. 

During its extraordinary overnight session convened to consider the deal worked out by the legislative leaders on a revised budget in face of a massive cashflow problem for the state government, the Assembly voted again to approve the pending Marriage Equality Bill last night, thus paving the way for a first-ever vote in the Senate today after that house reconvenes this morning to take up the ...

It’s always fun to report on church-state victories, and yesterday, we had a big one. The District of Columbia Council voted 11-2 to permit same-sex couples to marry in the nation’s capital. And despite threats from the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, the council refused to unduly broaden the measure’s religious exemption, which already adequately protected religious

A special session of the Liberal caucus is under way this morning so that MPs can figure out how to vote on the harmonized sales tax legislation. The basic political calculation will be: who's going to pay the price for this -- the federal government, which  proposed the "modernization" move in its last budget, or the provincial governments, who will have to collect the tax?  In ...