GXR GAY NEW

The Assembly took a big step toward getting gay marriage legalized in New York Tuesday by passing the watershed Marriage Equality bill.

The bill passed the Assembly floor by a solid margin with a vote of 85 to 61.

The vote came after advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes in Brooklyn as well as around the state bandied together to get their local Assembly members to approve the measure, which was initiated by Governor Eliot Spitzer.

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Some 300,000 people filled Midtown Atlanta Sunday for the final day of the 37th annual Gay Pride weekend.

This year’s parade called attention to a pastor’s fight to keep his job. The Grand Marshal was the Reverend Bradley Schmeling, the senior pastor of St. Johns Lutheran Church in Atlanta. He is openly gay and in a committed relationship

“Well, the gay and lesbian community has been so supportive of me this year,” said Rev. Schmeling.

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Apologizes For Less Evolved Husband

Elizabeth Edwards made a much-publicized appearance at San Francisco’s gay pride this weekend. Elizabeth got all political and shit when she lent her support to gay marriage:

I don’t know why somebody else’s marriage has anything to do with me. I’m completely comfortable with gay marriage… It seems to me we’re making issues of things that honestly… don’t matter.

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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) A big flap over a yearbook photo at Newark’s East Side High School. Staff used markers to black out a picture of a male student kissing his boyfriend from all copies of the school’s yearbook before they were distributed to students this week.

Marion Bolden, Newark’s superintendent of schools, says the photograph of 18-year-old Andre Jackson kissing David Escobales in the yearbook was “illicit” and looked provocative.

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The California Supreme Court has issued an unusual request in its hearing of a lawsuit for marriage equality: each side has been asked to answer three straightforward questions.

According to a story posted on 356Gay.com yesterday, California’s highest court posed the questions because the justices felt that the briefs filed by both sides earlier this year had failed to address several basic points on the matter.

The first answer the court required from both sides was a specific and detailed explanation of how California’s existing domestic partnership law–one of the most comprehensive in the country–and legal marriage differ from one another in terms of legal rights for families.

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    Sacked Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington has found an unlikely supporter – a gay activist has launched a petition to have him return to the hit show.
The actor was being fired from the medical drama earlier this month (Jun07), following public outrage after calling castmate T.R. Knight “a faggot” last October (06) – a comment he then repeated at the Golden Globe Awards earlier this year (07).

But gay activist Jasmyne Cannick, who worked with Washington at the Pan African Arts Festival, has spearheaded the campaign to clear the star’s name and have him reinstated on the show – and now has 1,233 signatures of support.

The petition believes Washington’s sacking “further adds to a disturbing new trend at Abc wherein minority actors have been dismissed at an alarming rate over the past two years.

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Conservatives can’t stand the recent gay victor in Massachusetts, where legislators voted 151-45 to dismiss a right-wing plot to place a gay marriage amendment on the 2008 ballot.As part of their never-ending battle to right the “wrong

In November 1978, arriving back in Katmandu after a long Himalayan trek, an envelope full of news clips from home caused me to utter an exclamation not printable in this family newspaper.

A headline across the top of the Seattle P-I front page carried big news: Seattle had just become the first town in America to vote AGAINST a bid to repeal its city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Anita Bryant and her ilk were turned back by a civic campaign, chaired by Mayor Charley Royer’s then-wife Rosanne, arguing the right to privacy.

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CHICAGO – Nevermind that Chicago hosted the 2006 International Gay Games. Or that it has the country’s first government-recognized gay neighborhood. Or that up to 400,000 people attend the city’s Gay Pride Parade each year.

When most people think of gay-friendly cities, Chicago – hog butcher to the world, home of the Blues Brothers, legendary playground of Al Capone – isn’t even on the map. While New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles long ago established themselves as America’s gay meccas, Chicago’s reach has seldom extended beyond the Midwest.

But city officials, including Mayor Richard M. Daley, and members of the gay community are hoping a new community center – the largest in the region – establishes Chicago as a national destination for gays, with resources geared toward both residents and tourists.

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Australian Prime Minister John Howard Thursday ruled out legalizing same-sex marriages despite a new survey showing that most Australians support giving homosexuals the right to tie the knot. “There’s no possibility of our attitude in relation to gay marriage changing,” the conservative leader told a radio interviewer.

Howard’s remarks came as national opinion poll found that 57 percent of Australians support same-sex marriage.

The Galaxy survey of 1,100 Australians also found that 71 percent believe same-sex de facto couples should be entitled to the same legal rights as their heterosexual counterparts. The leader of the Australian Greens party, who is gay, said the poll illustrated that the government and the main opposition Labor Party lagged behind voters in their attitudes.

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