Gay/Lesbian News

The Get Engaged Tour is meeting at town halls across California to share polling results, and information on how to win marriage equality back.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is considering bringing the battle over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to the Senate this week, by introducing an amendment that would put an 18-month moratorium on the discharge of gays serving in the military, The Daily Beast has learned.

Category: Editorial , Images , National , News , Top Story

Meet Hersband & Wife, a comedic lesbian advice column team with a twist. Hersband is a visionary butch lesbian, who came out in the years just after Stonewall. Wife is of the more feminine variety and carries out Hersband’s vision. Wife realized she was a lesbian around the time she met Hersband and the two fell in love. So when Wife’s husband moved out, Hersband moved in. The couple have been together ever since and six years later, they are still going strong.

Hersband & Wife’s sense of humor is not only unique but all the buzz as they seem to have captured quite a following. Although there is an ever-present edge of humor in most everything they say and do, there is one thing these women are dead serious about and that is marriage equality.

Hersband & Wife talked to PrideDEPOT.com about a rather unique and ambitious vision they have had in the works for three years that is now becoming a reality. “I come up with these bizarre ideas,” says Hersband, “and Wife makes them happen.”

And so the Hersband & Wife Marriage Equality Tour was born.

The duo will be traveling across the United States in a forty foot RV clad in sponsorship advertising where at each stop they will conduct a mass same-sex wedding. The tours slogan is; “50 Weddings, 50 States, 50 weeks, Bringing Awareness to 1138 rights and privileges GLBT marriages, civil unions & domestic partnerships are DENIED.”

It took less than 48 hours for neighbors to turn negative words into a work of art. And when they say a picture is worth a thousand words, this gallery will get a lot of people talking

Did You Just Shake Hands With a Homo?

Governor David Paterson will push the State Senate to vote on same-sex marriage during a special session in early September.

A spokesman for the governor said on Friday that the State Senate is currently not in the right mindset to take up the issue.

The governor said he believes that marriage equality is an important civil rights issue and he will work with Senate leaders to move the process forward in the fall.

On Friday, in an attempt to bury the news yet again, the Inspector Generala s office released a report that President George W. Bush authorized the largest effort to spy on American citizens in US history...According to one former Congressional aid and National Security expert, the ability to gather information has never been the problem given that we are more than capable of intercepting information without a problem...The Bush Administration made the problem of interpretation and analysis of information that much more difficult by expelling from the ranks of America’s intelligence services many qualified people because they were openly gay or lesbian.

Bruno hit movie theaters yesterday and has already caused a frenzy in the gay community. With some arguing the movie is funny, and others saying it re-enforces homophobic fears.

There is something insidious and disconcerting when self-appointed men of god, be they Hindu sadhus, Christian priests, Muslim maulvis, Jain munis or Sikh granthis, come together in the name of religion to denounce a section of humanity – the homosexuals – for professing deviant behaviour.

This is as disturbing as a place of worship not opening its doors to eager faithfuls because someone doesn’t fit the caste, others don’t match the colour and yet others don’t hold up to the desired class. It is as disconcerting as saying individual faith, religion, belief has to snuggle itself into a broader preset mould or spiritual template just to survive.

It is so ironic that in a country which can trace a majority of its most persistent ills to periodic narrow, insular, non-secular and outright communal ranting of its various religious leaders, those carrying the torch on behalf of their respective flocks should come together on one platform to denounce gays. Had they been so united in talking about the real diseases that afflict our country – intolerance, nepotism, corruption, indiscipline, regionalism and even an indigenous brand of racism – India would have been a far better, and safer, place to be in.

On February 12, 2008, Brandon McInerney walked into his eighth grade classroom and put two bullets in the back of classmate Larry King’s head. His reason? Because Larry King dared to flirt with him.

Ever since that date, his defense has sought every opportunity to portray McInerney as the victim and King as the aggressor. Brandon was just a poor tormented kid who couldn’t take it any more. Newsweek contributed by running a hit-piece on Larry King. He has even been helped by King’s previous guardians who think that by portraying Larry as a threat to all that is heterosexual, they can get money from those who were actually caring for him.

But District Attorney Maeve Fox is refusing to allow Brandon McInerney’s attorneys to portray him as an innocent or to trash the name of Lawrence King and seek to blame him for his own murder.

Well, if you can’t get married here, you can get married elsewhere and have it recognized here. That seems to be the new push out of the California legislature at least. SB 54 was introduced by San Francisco Senator Mark Leno. The Democrat is hoping to codify what the California Supreme Court has already stated when the refused to rule on issues regarding the out of state marriages in the challenge to Prop 8.

It seems that Anderson was filling in for Regis when he got his fill. Yeah double meaning there but go with it. Who would have thought a rich guy discovering whip cream could be so hilarious

It was announced on July 6 that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has named Brent Adams—who is openly gay and HIV positive—as the Acting Secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR). Adams’s appointment makes him the state’s first openly HIV-positive cabinet member. “Time and time again, Governor Quinn has demonstrated his commitment to progressive values, and I’m honored to play a role in promoting his vision of a state that strives to project and promote equality of life for all people, including persons living with HIV,” Adams, 36, told POZ. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1999. “I think it’s an encouraging step forward for all of us.” With IDFPR, Adams has chaired the Mortgage Fraud Task Force, coordinated the Mortgage Relief Project, and drafted legislation to advocate on behalf of state consumers. He has previously served as policy associate for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, a premier AIDS service organization in the state, and he was policy director for Citizen Action/Illinois, the state’s largest public interest organization that fights for social and economic justice.

From the beginning of July 2009, bakeries in Cologne will be supporting the "Gay Games VIII Cologne 2010" with the new "Cologne Coins" . In the future, "Gay Games VIII, Cologne 2010" will be represented at the bakeries of Cologne on red and white shortbread coin cookies! The sale of the "Cologne Coins" started with the Cologne Pride on 3 July 2009.

Governor Sarah Louise Heath Palin quits, but she is not a quitter. She is, of course, leaving office in order to pursue the higher goal of uniting Americans behind Conservative values such as energy independence and other such items...Likely those “Conservative Values” will include things like homophobia, racism, and a return to the era of unabashed sexism that made this country the “paragon of virtue” it was in the past. The past where men were free to cheat on their wives and go beat up gays, blacks, and Hispanics without fear of ever having to be tried for their crimes.

Rockstar Energy Drinks was coming under increasing pressure by LGBT activists and others who were concerned about the alleged connection between the company and racist, homophobic, right-wing radio personality Michael Savage. The company has now donated $100,000 to LGBT orgs and is instituting change.

An engineering professor is treating her husband, a loan officer, to dinner for finally giving in to her pleas to shave off the scraggly beard he grew on vacation. His favorite restaurant is a casual place where they both feel comfortable in slacks and cotton/polyester-blend golf shirts. But, as always, she wears the gold and pearl pendant he gave her the day her divorce decree was final. They’re laughing over their menus because they know he always ends up diving into a giant plate of ribs but she won’t be talked into anything more fattening than shrimp.

Quiz: How many biblical prohibitions are they violating?

In an effort lead by Maine’s Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, the anti Marriage-Equality organizers of a people’s veto campaign to repeal Maine’s new same-sex marriage law say they have collected enough signatures to get the measure on the November ballot. Stand for Marriage Maine, a coalition which includes the Diocese of Portland and other church groups, said today it has collected more than the 55,087 signatures needed for a people’s veto question, according to a statement from the group.

Perry vs. Schwarzenegger plaintiff attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies, after filing a US Constitutional challenge to Prop 8 in federal court to the dismay of some of the top legal minds in the fight for GLBT equality, have now said they want to go it alone and are fighting to keep the top gay rights legal groups OUT of the process.

Two gay men kissed at a Chico's Tacos restaurant, prompting guards to eject them and a police officer to endorse their ouster.