News

The D.C. City Council drew national attention this week as it made final preparations for the first of two votes on a same-sex marriage bill Tuesday that observers say was expected to pass by a margin as wide as 11 to 2, reports DC Agenda. Council insiders said there was no surge in phone calls […]

Puerto Rican authorities have agreed to investigate Jorge Steven López Mercado’s murder as a hate crime after they met with local representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Catholic bishops in the state are instructing priests to read or distribute a letter this weekend asking Catholics to pray that lawmakers in New Jersey not allow same-sex marriage in New Jersey, reports the New Jersey Star-Ledger. The bishops’ letter restates Catholic teachings that marriage should be allowed only between a man and a woman. […]

Out Word Bound, Indianapolis’ only gay and lesbian bookstore, will close its doors after Christmas, reports the Indianapolis Star. “It has been a good run,” owners Mary Byrne and Tammara Tracy wrote in an e-mail to customers Wednesday. For more than a decade, the downtown store has served as a center of gay and lesbian […]

VALLEJO, CA – Vallejo’s Mayor Osby Davis is coming under fire for comments he recently made about gays and lesbians. Davis (pictured, left) finds himself in the middle of a controversy after an interview published this weekend in the New York Times. The article, titled “Faith and Tolerance Collide in Vallejo,” quotes Davis talking about […]

New Jersey voters now oppose gay-marriage legislation by a slim margin, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this week, reports the New Jersey Star-Ledger. The poll, conducted between Nov. 17 and Nov. 22, found 49 percent of adult residents are opposed to giving gay couples the right to marry while 46 percent are in […]

Footage from the funeral of Jorge Steven López Mercado in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, on Monday shows his grief-stricken mother remembering the moment she accepted her son as gay. According to a translation provided by the blogger Blabbeando, Myriam Mercado recalls the moment an emotionally upset Steven told her he was gay. “Aw, son … […]

A national gay rights group has filed a lawsuit against the Atlanta Police Department on behalf of 19 people who say they were forcibly searched and detained during a raid on an Atlanta gay bar. Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, the Chief of Police and forty-eight individual officers of the […]

Hundreds of gay marriage supporters took to the Statehouse in Trenton today as lawmakers began their first day of a lame-duck session, reports the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, rallied several hundred protesters on West State Street, directing them to take advantage of legislative committee meetings and speak with their […]

A Republican political hopeful interested in serving as governor of Massachusetts announced Monday he has chosen Richard R. Tisei, an openly gay state legislator, to be his running mate in the 2010 gubernatorial election, reports CBS News. “Want you to be the first to know: I’ve chosen State Senator Richard Tisei as my running mate,” […]