CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Alphonso David, 48, Named President Of HRC, Largest LGBT Lobby In The USA

Alphonso David, a 48-year-old Liberian refugee and civil rights attorney who served as counsel to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been named the next president of the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest LGBT political advocacy organization.


I haven't given HRC a red cent since they endorsed a Republican senator (Al D'Amato) instead pf a Democratic challenger (Liz Holtzman) in 1992! This decision may cause me to reconsider my boycott.

CRIME: Black Lesbian Couple (And 2 Kids) Slaughtered In Troy, NY

I spent 8 years living in upstate New York attending college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. So when I see Troy in the news it catches my attention. This week I saw a story about the horrific murder of a Black lesbian couple and their two kids.

The New York Times reported on the story:

The police identified the victims as Shanta Myers, 36; her children Jeremiah, 11, and Shanise, 5; and her partner, Brandi Mells, 22. Jackie Robinson Sr., the pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church, told The Times Union that Ms. Myers also had an older son who was not home when the killings happened. 

[...] 

The family was found dead on Tuesday afternoon in their basement apartment at 158 Second Avenue, in a neighborhood of subdivided Victorian houses along the Hudson River. Chief Tedesco said the number of victims, their age and the way they were killed — which he declined to describe — made the crime the worst he had seen in more than 40 years in law enforcement.

The latest news is that two suspects have been arraigned in the case: Justin Mann and James White.

I will be following this case closely to find out what the reason for the vicious murder of this family was. The youngest child was 5!

Hat/tip to Pink News

QUEER QUOTE: Paul Feinman Is 1st Openly LGBT Member of New York's Highest Court

Paul Feinman joins an unfortunately small list of openly LGBT people who are members of their state's highest court. Feinman was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to the New York Court of Appeals in June 2017.

Today's Queer Quote is from Brad Hoylman:

Senator Brad Hoylman, one of five openly gay members of New York's State Legislature who urged the governor to appoint an LGBT person to the Court of Appeals, called the confirmation "an important perspective that has been missing on the court." 

"It is a watershed moment for the LGBT rights in the state of New York," said Hoylman. "It comes at a time when gay rights are under assault from Washington, DC and LGBT people and their families feel under siege." 

Two of the seven candidates recommended to take the open seat were openly gay. But it was 57-year-old Feinman whose seat was confirmed amid Pride Month celebrations of the progress the LGBT community has made. He is the first openly LGBT justice to be confirmed in the Court of Appeal's 170-year history.

Congratulations to Paul Feinman!

EYE CANDY: Yusuf Myers (Again!)

Yusuf Myers is one of my all-time favorite Eye Candy models. He has been featured here many times before(September 9, 2012, June 25, 2012, July 7, 2009) even when I did not what his name was, only that he was just one of the hottest member of the "City Gym Boys." According to his Model Mayhem profile, Yusuf is multiracial, black and latino (Blatino!) and is currently 31.

As you can see, a lot of his best work has been done with photographer Dallas J. Logan. He is on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I thnk you can see why he's one of my faves!

Florida Becomes 3rd Most Populous State in the Union, North Carolina Becomes #9

The news this week was that Florida surpassed New York to take the #3 spot in the list of most populous states in the country. However, there was little mention that North Carolina skipped past Michigan to take the #9 spot and #8 Georgia joined the 10 million people club.

Here is the official data from the Census:

The 10 Most Populous States on July 1, 2014

Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

State

California
Texas
Florida
New York
Illinois
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Georgia
North Carolina
Michigan

Population

38,802,500
26,956,958
19,893,297
19,746,227
12,880,580
12,787,209
11,594,163
10,097,343
9,943,964
9,909,877

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Supreme Court Rules Wrong Way In Public Prayer Case

The Town of Greece, New York has won its U.S. Supreme Court case about the right to have public prayers ("invocations") before meetings of the city council. The High Court ruled 5-4 (straight conservative-liberal split) in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway this week.

SCOTUSblog reports:

Narrowly defining what is not allowed in such prayers, the Court said they may not be used to praise the virtues of one faith and may not cast other faiths or other believers in a sharply negative light.  Courts have no role in judging whether individual prayers satisfy that test, but can only examine a “pattern of prayer” to see whether it crossed the forbidden constitutional line and became a form of “coercion.” 

The majority clearly moved the “coercion” test to the forefront of analyzing when government and religion are too closely intertwined.  The alternative test — whether government action “endorsed” a particular faith — was nearly cast aside as taking too little account of the role of religion in America’s history and civic traditions. 

[...] 

The four dissenters complained that the new ruling will strike a heavy blow against the nation’s tradition of religious pluralism, and will lead to prayers that will actively promote a single faith’s religious values.  Justice Elena Kagan wrote the main dissent, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor.  Justice Breyer also wrote a dissenting opinion speaking only for himself; that opinion focused more narrowly on the facts in this specific case.

Godless heathens like myself were outraged by the decision, but the godless have a plan to respond:

So, the Humanist Society, a supplemental arm of the American Humanist Association, launched a website that offers atheists information on secular invocations, including a definition of what these non-theistic prayers consist of, examples of these invocations and an interactive U.S. map showing where individuals who are qualified to deliver them reside. 

“In a way, the concept of a secular invocation is quite simple: It is essentially a short speech that calls upon the audience’s shared human values for assistance and authority in their public discourse,” explains a description on the American Humanist Association website. 

It continues, “Unlike a traditional invocation, a secular invocation does not call upon a supernatural entity as a guide. It redirects our attention away from those supernatural entities towards those common human values that we do in fact share for guidance.”
The American Humanist Association is also offering a program to approve those who wish to begin delivering secular invocations. 

“Non-religious people are often asked to contribute to a ceremonial event, but some struggle to find an alternative to religious wording,” Roy Speckhardt, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “We want to make it easier for anyone who wants to give a secular invocation so that legislative meetings can be nondiscriminatory.”

Sounds good to me!

SATURDAY POLITICS: New York Joins NPV Movement To Bypass Electoral College

Big news in the world of electoral politics. If you hate the idea of swing states and the idea that some state's matter more in deciding the presidency, you should like the idea of the National Popular Vote. I endorsed this idea nearly 3 years ago when California signed on in 2011.

From the website's explanation:

Under the U.S. Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state's electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

The big news this week was that New York has joined the compact, which means that there are now 12 states with 165 electoral votes (61% of the way to 270) that have agreed to vote with whomever wins the national popular vote.

The New Yorker reports:

On Tuesday, the State of New York took a baby step—or maybe a giant leap!—toward making the United States of America something more closely resembling a modern democracy: Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill joining up the Empire State to the National Popular Vote (N.P.V.) interstate compact. 

As I’ve explained many times (fifty-one, to be exact), N.P.V. is a way to elect our Presidents the way we elect our governors, our mayors, our senators and representatives, our state legislators, and everybody else: by totting up the voters’ votes—all of them—and awarding the job to whichever candidate gets the largest number. And it does this without changing a word of the Constitution. 

Impossible, you say? No. Quite possible—even probable—and in time for 2020, if not for 2016. 

Here’s how it works: Suppose you could get a bunch of states to pledge that once there are enough of them to possess at least two hundred and seventy electoral votes—a majority of the Electoral College—they will thenceforth cast all their electoral votes for whatever candidate gets the most popular votes in the entire country. As soon as that happens, presto change-o: the next time you go to the polls, you’ll be voting in a true national election. No more ten or so battleground states, no more forty or so spectator states, just the United States—all of them, and all of the voters who live in them.

The electoral college is an abomination of the idea that each person's vote should count equally to the result of the election. The sooner it is gone, the better for democracy.

GRAPHIC: The Flag of Equal Marriage

This is what the flag of the United States would look like if you only included the states where marriage equality is currently law. This ongoing online protest is a project of MakeItEqual.org.

Hat/tip to LGBT Think Progress.

33% Of U.S. Population (100+ Million People) Living With Marriage Equality

One decade ago there were exactly zero states that had marriage equality, even though the Defense of Marriage Act had been federal law for seven years. In November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state constitution required equal marriage rights for same-sex couples under the law and issued an order to go in effect on May 17, 2004. Note that the second state, Connecticut did not have marriage equality until November 2008 (and for a brief 173 days starting in June 2008 Californians had access to same-sex marriage prior to the passage of Proposition 8). So, really in a little over 5 years marriage equality has increased from roughly 10 million to another order of magnitude.

With New Jersey becoming the 14th state to enact marriage equality this week there are now well over 100 million people who live in states with marriage equality, about 33% of the entire U.S. population.

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) summaries the astonishingly rapid progress:

State	Date Effective	Population	Percent
Massachusetts	May 2004	6,547,629	2.12%
Connecticut	Nov. 2008	3,574,097	1.16%
Iowa	Apr. 2009	3,046,355	0.99%
Vermont	Jun. 2009	625,741	0.20%
New Hampshire	Jan. 2010	1,316,470	0.43%
Washington, D.C.	Mar. 2010	601,723	0.19%
New York	Jun. 2011	19,378,361	6.28%
Washington	Dec. 2012	6,724,540	2.18%
Maine	Dec. 2012	1,328,361	0.43%
Maryland	Jan. 2013	5,773,552	1.87%
Delaware	Jun. 2013	897,934	0.29%
California	Jun. 2013	37,253,956	12.07%
Minnesota	Aug. 2013	5,303,925	1.72%
Rhode Island	Aug. 2013	1,052,567	0.34%
New Jersey	Oct. 2013	8,791,894	2.84%
	Total	102,216,846	33.11%

Any predictions for when the United States will hit 50%? Remember Illinois, Hawaii, New Mexico and Oregon are widely expected to legalize civil marriage for same-sex couples sooner rather than later.

EYE CANDY: Victor Cruz

Victor Cruz is a 26-year-old football player of African-American and Puerto Rican descent (Blatino!) who plays for the New York Giants. He first came to my attention thanks to the discerning eye of Rod 2.0. This summer he recently signed a huge contract worth over $45 million for the next five years.

As you can see from the pictures above his 6-foot, 204-pound looks good in uniform. However, you can also see how Victor looks phyne in just about anything, by looking at these pictures below.

Victor is today's Eye Candy, demonstrating that not all sweet packages that catch one's eye need to be unwrapped!

Federal Judge Rules NYPD's Racial Profiling Policies Illegal

Whoa! Good news on the civil liberties front out of New York City. Yesterday a federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the case Floyd v. City of New York, declaring that the NYPD's controversial "stop and frisk" policy is unconstitutionally violating the Fourteenth and Fourth Amendments. This was a huge victory by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR):

In her thorough, 198-page ruling, Judge Shira Sheindlin found the NYPD’s practices to violate New Yorkers’ Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and also found that the practices were racially discriminatory in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To remedy the widespread constitutional violations, the judge ordered a court-appointed monitor to oversee a series of reforms to NYPD policing practices and also ordered a Joint Remedial Process which will solicit input from a variety of stakeholders, including New York communities most directly affected by policing. The court’s ruling follows a 10-week trial that concluded on May 20. The class action lawsuit, Floyd v. City of New York, was brought by the Center of Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the law firms of Beldock, Levine, and Hoffman and Covington & Burling, LLP. 

Said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Darius Charney, “This historic victory is the result not only of our 14 years of litigation, but of decades’ worth of efforts by activists, grassroots and legal organizations, and affected communities. The NYPD is finally being held to account for its longstanding illegal and discriminatory policing practices. The City must now stop denying the problem and partner with the community to create a police department that protects the safety and respects the rights of all New Yorkers.” 

In 2011, the NYPD reported a record 685,724 stops -- a 600 percent increase since Raymond Kelly took over as NYPD Commissioner in 2002. Eighty-four percent of those stopped were Black or Latino, and 88 percent of the people stopped were neither arrested nor received summonses. Despite the stated purpose of the policy, weapons and contraband were recovered less than 2 percent of the time.

As Joe Biden would say, this is a B.F.D!

Battle Over Marriage Equality in Pennsylvania Heats Up

One of the latest fronts in the nationwide battle for marriage equality is the 6th largest state in the country, Pennsylvania. Openly gay legislator Brian Sims has introduced a bill to legalize marriage equality in the state. And the state is being sued by a number of same-sex couples who wish to marry but can not do so because of a homophobic marriage statute. The Attorney General has refused to defend the statute, and one particular county, Montgomery County, started issuing marriage licenses about a week ago.

Today comes word that the state Department of Public Health is suing Montgomery County to prevent it from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Apparently, marriage licenses have been issued to 31 same-sex couples so far.

However, Montgomery County says that it is not going to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, according to Philly.com:

"While it comes as no surprise that the Corbett Administration has filed an action seeking to enjoin marriage equality in Montgomery County, the petition filed today in Commonwealth Court by the state Department of Health has serious flaws," county Solicitor Ray McGarry said. "Montgomery County will be filing a response shortly. In the meantime, the Register of Wills office will continue to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples."

[...]

The lawsuit against [Mongtomery County Registrar] Hanes and the letter to Kane's office signal the first blows by the Corbett administration to subdue what could become growing challenges to Pennsylvania's version of the federal DOMA law. The Health Department lawsuit could become an important precedent to determine whether public officials have the right to interpret the legality of the state's Marriage Law on their own.

[...]

The Health Department lawsuit claims he is not only derelict in his duty to uphold state and local laws, but also is misleading those couples he issued licenses to. "It appears that same-sex couples are proceeding with the marriage ceremonies that are not permitted by Pennsylvania law, marriage certificates are being illegally filed, and the same-sex couples are left to believe erroneously that they have entered into a valid marriage," the suit said.

Unfortunately, I think that the Pennsylvania Department of Public Health is probably going to win this battle (but lose the war). A very similar thing happened in California nearly a decade ago, and the 4,000 marriages that occurred when San Francisco County started issuing marriage licenses were eventually invalidated and nullified. However, Pennsylvania's statute does violate the federal constitution guarantees of equal protection and substantive due process and sooner rather than later the Pennsylvania Department of Health will be registering marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples.

Until that day, though, it is useful to raise awareness about the issue and I agree that local officials who believe that their state's marriage law is unconstitutional should speak out about it, but the correct legal action is to join the lawsuit striking it down, not ignoring the law on the books, regardless of how odious it is.

WATCH: History Of Marriage Equality Laws In United States

With Delaware's dramatic movement yesterday to become the 11th state to enact marriage equality since 2003 (and the second state this year after Rhode Island) it's a good time to look back at how far the issue of marriage equality has come in the last four decades. The cool graphic created by The Atlantic (shown above) does just that.

For the record these are the years and states that have enacted marriage equality:

• 2013: Delaware, Rhode Island
• 2012: Maine, Maryland, Washington
• 2011: New York
• 2009: New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa, District of Columbia
• 2008: Connecticut (and California*)
• 2003: Massachusetts

*California had marriage equality from June 15, 2008 to November 5, 2008. California is the only state where same-sex couples have had the right to marry and then have had that right revoked by the passage of Proposition 8. Whether Proposition 8 is constitutional is a question the United States Supreme Court is currently considering, in the case Hollingsworth v Perry. 

As I reviewed the 11 states that have enacted marriage equality I noticed that the only Republican governor to sign a marriage equality bill into law was Jodi Rell of Connecticut, and she did so after the state Supreme Court had already enacted marriage equality and the legislature passed a bill codifying the Kerrigan decision. Republican governors in California (2005 and 2007), New Jersey (2011) and Vermont (2009) have all vetoed marriage equality bills. Only Governor Jim Douglas's veto has been over-ridden. Chris Christie's veto is subject to override until January 2014 and may happen.

All 11 states that have passed marriage equality are "blue states," i.e. states that consistently vote for Democratic candidates for president. Iowa is probably the least blue of these states, and is primarily a red state at the state level. New Hampshire is probably purplish-blue, and has had a Republican legislature since marriage equality was enacted. These are probably the two states where marriage equality is the most vulnerable to repeal efforts. However, in the last few years the movement has been in the direction of more marriage equality. In fact, since 2004 every year has ended with more people living in jurisdictions that allow same-sex couples than the year before. Does anyone think that process is going to be reversed? Only bigoted heterosexual supremacists, but they are quickly receding into a vortex of delusion, denial and demagoguery.

All eyes are now looking at Illinois and Minnesota where there are Democratic majorities in the legislature and Democratic governors eager to sign marriage equality bills into law. And California may have marriage equality after June's Supreme Court decision. In 2014, there will be ballot measures on marriage equality in Oregon, Nevada (and possibly California).

New sources say that Minnesota may enact marriage equality as soon as next week!

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

GRAPHIC: Current Map Of Marriage Equality

USA Today published an update on the current state of marriage equality and published the above graphic so that readers could visualize the changes.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Saturday Politics: Majorities In 12 States Support Marriage

In 2012, there was majority support for marriage equality in 12 states and the District of Columbia, according to a recent report released by UCLA's Williams Institute. Those states were Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Maine, Washington, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Colorado and California. (The District of Columbia had the largest support, at 62%.) The seven jurisdictions in bold already have marriage equality, while Hawaii (54%), Oregon (54%), New Jersey (51%), Rhode Island (50%), Colorado (50%) and California (50%) all have either civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships. Hawaii, Oregon, Colorado and California all have voter-approved state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. However, Oregon and possibly California and New Jersey may be voting to enact marriage equality at the ballot box in the near future.

The Williams Institute report's analysis indicates that ballot measures in several states (including Oregon, California and New Jersey) may be successful in the very near future.

This research brief identi ed that there 12 states plus the District ofColumbia presently with a majority (50% or above) in support of same-sex marriage. And, given current trends in public opinion on this issue, an additional 8 states will join this group by 2014. 

[...] 

Finally, there are 10 states that have previously passed constitutionalamendments to not introduce same-sex marriages that now have a majority or are within five percentage points of a majority in favor same-sex marriage (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). These states may be the future political arenas where existing constitutional amendments may be repealed in order to perform marriages for same-sex couples in those states.

This does put the poll question I previously asked back on the table: now that majority support is indicated for marriage equality, should those in favor of it use the ballot box to enact our public policy aims of enacting the civil right to civil marriages in those states? The dilemma is that it has long been a policy position of civil rights activists that "civil rights should never be subject to the tyranny of the majority." So, to now say that we will use the majority now that it is in our favor could be perceived as hypocritical. However, there are clear real and tangible harms to LGBT citizens by sticking to principle and not using every available means to end discrimination against same-sex couples as soon as possible. What do you think? Vote now:

Should New Jersey LGBT activists agree to allow a referendum on marriage equality in November 2013?
	Yes, since polls indicate a wide majority support marriage equality, the measure would pass easily.
	No,because allowing a vote on marriage equality violates a core principle of civil rights.
	Unsure, this is a tough question!
pollcode.com free polls

The Williams Report gives the level of support for marriage equality in every state in 2004 (numbers in green) and 2012 (numbers in blue) and uses that data to conclude that the rate of support is about 1.6 percentage points per year, on average, in every state. (It should be noted that that is the average rate; in some states the rate of increase of support for marriage equality is increasing at a more rapid rate, in some it is doing so at a slower rate. The key point is that support for marriage equality is increasing in every state.) This is shown in the figure below:

I think the proper thing to do is probably wait for the United States Supreme Court to weigh in on the civil rights of LGBT people in the Hollingsworth (California's Proposition 8) and Windsor (Defense of Marriage Act) cases. If the judiciary branch refuses to play its traditional role in our democracy of protecting the civil rights of minorities, then going to the ballot box to enact those rights seems perfectly justifiable.

26yo Gay Spouse of Facebook wiz eyes Congress

Sean Eldridge last made news when his marriage to Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, was featured on the front page of the New York Times last year. Eldridge, 26, was the political director of FreedomtoMarry.org until July 2011 and a Democraic political activist since, while Hughes, 29, recently re-launched The New Republic to great fanfare with an in-depth interview with President Obama.

Now comes word that Eldridge wants to follow in the footsteps of openly gay Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) and challenge sitting Republican congressman Chris Gibson in New York's 19th Congressional District. Presumably, Eldridge will have access to some of the estimated 500-million-dollar fortune of his husband. Eldridge has filed the necessary paperwork that allows him to further explore a run for Congress.

According to the filings, Eldridge, a Democratic activist and the head of an investment firm, will be seeking a House seat in New York's 19th District, currently represented by Representative Chris Gibson. Gibson, a two-term Republican and former West Point professor, was reelected in November by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. But the 19th District also broke for Obama; it is one of the dozens of vulnerable districts Democratic strategists are gunning for in 2014 in an effort to reclaim the House.

It will be interesting to see how serious Eldridge is about running. If he wins, that would most likely make New York the first state with two openly gay Representatives in Congress. (Of course, Wisconsin currently has a openly gay Congressman in Mark Pocan and an openly lesbian Senator in Tammy Baldwin.)

Speaker Boehner Meets Gay Congressman's Family

Charles Dharapak / AP

Last week the 113th Congress was sworn in and John Boehner was re-elected Speaker of the U.S. House. One of his ceremonial duties in that position is to take pictures with all of the newly sworn in members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Happily, 7 of the new Congressmembers are members of the LGBT community, including Sean Patrick Maloney, representing the 18th Congressional District of New York. Pictured above is Boehner with  U.S. Representative Maloney, right, with his legally married husband Randy Florke, and their two kids!

It's really 2013, y'all!

Hat/tip to Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed.

DOMA Ruled Unconstitutional By 2nd Circuit Panel!

For the umpteenth time this year, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has been ruled unconstitutional, this time in the Windsor v. United States of America case in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which covers the states of New York, Connecticut and Vermont, all of which have marriage equality as the law of the land.

Metro Weekly has the dish:

Specifically, the court ruled that "heightened scrutiny" must be applied in the case:

In this case, all four factors justify heightened scrutiny: A) homosexuals as a group have historically endured persecution and discrimination; B) homosexuality has no relation to aptitude or ability to contribute to society; C) homosexuals are a discernible group with non-obvious distinguishing characteristics, especially in the subset of those who enter same-sex marriages; and D) the class remains a politically weakened minority.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is aiding Windsor in her suit, this is the first federal appeals court ruling to state that government discrimination against gay people deservces heightened judicial review.

The appeals court's ruling comes three weeks after oral arguments were heard in the case. Windsor's case reached the 2nd Circuit Appeals Court after a federal judge sided with Windsor in June, ruling that the government must refund the more than $363,000 in taxes paid by Windsor following the death of her wife, Thea Spyer. Windsor is suing to recoup about $363,000, federal estate tax she was forced to pay on her inheritance from Spyer. The federal government does not tax inheritances that pass from one spouse to the other, but because of DOMA the federal government has refused to recognize Windsor and Spyer's marriage.

This is a "BFD"! Not only that DOMA has been struck down by another federal court (that is becoming commonplace), but that an appellate court has finally ackowledged that sexual orientation is a characteristic which can place people in a suspect class and requires heightened judicial scrutiny is the big news out of today's 2-1 decision in Windsor. It's pretty astonishing that the decision was released a mere 3 weeks after oral arguments were held

There are now four cases (all of which have ruled DOMA unconstitutional) from three circuits that are pending before the United States Supreme Court. And this is yet another loss from the Republican heterosexual supremacists on BLAG, who have spent $1.5 million of United States taxpayers money defending this discriminatory law.

New York Marriage Equality: $259M Impact on NYC

Getty

$259 million dollars would buy a lot of wedding cake! Last week a report was issued by New York City's marketing and tourism bureau estimating the impact of the first year of marriage equality in New York State at $259 million. After New York State enacted marriage equality last summer, New York City ran a "NYC I Do" campaign to encourage same-sex couples to marry in the city and just one year later it appears to have paid off handsomely for the nation's largest city.

Time magazine reports:

Over 8,000 marriage licenses were registered to gay couples in the last year, meaning more than 10% of the 75,000 wedding licenses issued in the city were for same-sex marriages. Beyond basic government money, the new law brought in over 200,000 tourists to celebrate the marriages. That meant 235,000 hotel rooms booked at an average rate of $275, the mayor’s statement said. And we have no idea if that includes all the fabulous wedding gifts people bought.

I love this quote from New York City Council President Christine Quinn (who married her female partner on May 19, 2012 and is the heir apparent of Mayor Mike Bloomberg to become the next Mayor of New York City):

“What you can’t quantify is just the joy that has happened in New York City,” Quinn told reporters. “What better thing could government do than pass laws that make people equal, repeal laws that say some of us are unequal, and give families the opportunity to have that once-in-a-lifetime moment when a father can walk his daughter down the aisle.”

Indeed!

Facebook and Same-Sex Marriage: Happy Together

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes (left) and former Freedom to Marry
political director Sean Eldridge were married this weekend at home in Garrison, NY

Lots of news combining Facebook and gay marriage today. First comes the news that one of Facebook's founders, Chris Hughes, got married to his longtime boyfriend Sean Eldridge at their home in Garrison, NY.

From the marriage announcement in yesterday's New York Times:

Mr. Hughes (left), 28, works from New York, Garrison and Washington as the publisher and editor in chief of The New Republic magazine. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. He founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin. Mr. Hughes also led the online organizing for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. He is the son of Brenda Hughes and Arlyn Ray Hughes of Wilmington, N.C. His mother retired as a mathematics teacher at Newton-Conover High School in Newton, N.C. His father retired as a sales manager at the Snyder Paper Company in Hickory, N.C. 

Mr. Eldridge, 25, is the founder and treasurer of Protect Our Democracy, an advocacy group based in Garrison that seeks campaign finance reform. He is also the president of Hudson River Ventures, an investment firm in Garrison. He was until July 2011, the political director of Freedom to Marry, a group that advocates same-sex marriage. He graduated from Brown.

Congratulations to Sean and Chris!

In other Facebook and gay marriage news today it was announced that the social media behemoth will include new icons that will allow users to indicate that their relationship status is that they are married to someone of the same sex. Last year Facebook made news when they added options like "in a civil union" and "in a domestic partnership" as possible relationship status selections.


GLAAD reports:

Facebook has rolled out a new feature providing additional recognition for its users who are married to a person of the same sex. Now these users who have indicated on their Facebook timeline that they are married will be recognized by new same-sex marriage icons, rather than the marriage icon used for straight married couples.

Of course, one of the first questions that comes to mind is "does anyone still use Facebook?" But besides that, this is an excellent demonstration that the good guys continue to win the ongoing kulturkampf over LGBT equality as one of the most visible companies in Silicon Valley (and really, the world). Facebook has previously demonstrated its bona fides on the side of LGBT equality by releasing an It Gets Better video by their employees, taken active steps to stop bullying and recognizing LGBT pride through a Facebook "hack."

Hat/tip to kenneth in the 212 and joe.my.god.