News

The decision by the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics to block a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage reverberated on Capitol Hill and in the courts Wednesday as the battle continued over whether voters should have a say in the debate, reports the Washington Post. Bishop Harry Jackson (pictured), represented by lawyers from a […]

ALBANY — The state’s highest court on Thursday upheld policies giving some government benefits to same-sex couples who are legally married outside the state, but did not rule on whether gay marriage should be legal in New York, leaving that issue for the Legislature to decide, the New York Times reports. Though the majority in […]

A gay rights group has filed suit seeking damages for state employees whose families will lose their health-care coverage following the elimination this year of domestic-partner benefits.

As LGBT advocates around the country are planning candlelight vigils in memory of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado — the 19-year-old boy who was burned, dismembered and decapitated last week in Puerto Rico — word comes out of Baltimore about another murdered gay teen. Jason Mattison Jr., a 15-year old openly gay sophomore at the Vivian […]

A federal judge today ordered compensation for a Los Angeles couple denied spousal benefits by the federal government because they are gay men, reports the Los Angeles Times. U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt deemed the denial of healthcare and other benefits to the spouse of federal public defender Brad Levenson to […]

The suspect in the brutal slaying of a gay teenager in Puerto Rico will be charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and four other counts, the prosecutor in the case told CNN. Juan A. Martinez Matos was arrested late Monday in connection with the slaying of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado (pictured), whose decapitated, dismembered and partially […]

A suspect has been arrested in the slaying of a 19-year-old Puerto Rican man, police said Tuesday. Jorge Steven López Mercado (pictured) was found decapitated, dismembered and partially burned Friday in a wooded area near Cayey on the island of Puerto Rico. “The brutality of the slaying and the fact that he was openly gay […]

Austria’s government agreed a new law Tuesday allowing civil partnerships for homosexual couples, although ceremonies at the civil registry’s office will still be banned, AFP reports. The compromise, achieved after weeks of wrangling between the ruling Social Democrats and their conservative coalition partner in government, will give gay couples equal rights to heterosexuals with regards […]

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled Tuesday that a proposed ballot initiative defining marriage as between a man and a woman cannot go forward, reaffirming an earlier ruling that such a vote would be discriminatory, reports the Washington Post. The elections board said allowing residents to vote on a ban would conflict with […]

The Washington Blade, the weekly newspaper that chronicled the coming-out of the capital’s gay community, was born amid the idealism of 1960s street protests. Monday, the paper died, victim of the unforgiving realities of the nation’s sagging newspaper industry, reports The Washington Post. The paper’s nearly two-dozen employees arrived at their downtown offices Monday, only […]