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America’s best cities for same-sex weddings

Right in time for some summer weddings after the landmark SCOTUS  rulings comes this very handy-dandy and informative list of the best cities for same-sex weddings from the folks at Movoto:

We aren’t ashamed to say that we were more than happy with the highest court’s ruling. In fact, some of our LGBT co-workers are already planning their weddings.

With that in mind, we figured there’s never been a better time for us to discover which cities in the country are best for gay weddings.

What did we find?

The best cities for same-sex weddings, according to our criteria, are:

  1. San Francisco, CA
  2. Seattle, WA
  3. Boston, MA
  4. Minneapolis, MN
  5. Riverside, CA
  6. Washington, D.C.
  7. San Diego, CA
  8. Rochester, NY
  9. Los Angeles, CA
  10. San Jose, CA

We should make some clarifications to this list.

This list of 10 cities counted only cities in states in which same-sex marriage is legal. To be clear, these are the 13 states with full marriage equality, and the District of Columbia; this excludes states with equivalent rights.

If we looked at other large gay-friendly cities, excluding this important criteria, the list would look vastly different. In fact, Orlando and Atlanta, which are nowhere to be found on our list, would have placed second and third, respectively.

For more info on the criteria and rankings, head over to the fun folks at Movoto.

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Cher appears at NYC gay club to thank LGBT community for “always being there”

Cher made a brief appearance at Marquee in NYC, watching drag queens perform her songs, lip-syncing along to them, then warmly thanking gays for keeping her “in sequins forever.”

Matthew Rettenmund of Boy Culture has the details:

After 2:30 a.m., Cher magically appeared not on stage but up in the mezzanine, accompanied by her/Madonna’s publicist Liz Rosenberg and Andy Cohen. She looked fantastic, and was wearing an outfit strongly reminiscent of Madonna’s Super Bowl get-up. She did some photo ops and then watched the stage below as drag queens and others paraded in Susanne Bartsch-curated outfits and lip-synched to a bevy of Cher’s greatest hits, including “Half Breed,” “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves,” “Strong Enough” and “Believe.”

Charmingly, Cher—beaming!—was mouthing the words to her imitators and flashing devil horns (she’s still so rock ‘n’ roll, even when in disco-diva guise). After the show, she came down the stairs like a normal person (a normal person who was being photographed by every device known to man) and re-emerged, this time on stage with a DJ. Cher thanked us all, said it was great to be back in NYC and then told the gays:

“From the bottom of my heart, I mean this: I’ve had ups and downs in my career, and you guys have never left me. I was out, I was uncool, I was—whatever—a has-been. Whatever! But you guys have always been there, y’know?”

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Pennsylvania: Rep. Brian Sims plans to introduce marriage equality bill in state House

Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims has announced his plan to introduce a same-sex marriage bill.

Rep. Sims, who is openly gay, says his bill will be similar to SB 719 filed in the Pennsylvania Senate by State Senator Daylin Leach last March. The bill will be cosponsored by Democratic Rep. Steve McCarter.

“About two hours ago, I shopped around a co-sponsorship memo for a marriage bill, and I’m going to introduce an LGBT marriage equality bill,” he says, adding the Supreme Court cases “helped light the fire under my colleagues to do it now.”

The co-sponsorship memo, which is sent out to House members for additional support, notes it “would re-define the definition of marriage as a civil contract between two people who enter into matrimony, and eliminate the current prohibition against same-sex marriage in our Commonwealth.

It is important to note that this bill provides protections for religious organizations and entities that do not wish to sanction, perform, or in any way recognize such marriages.”

Same-sex marriage is banned by state statute, but a state constitutional amendment banning marriage equality isn’t on the books in Pennsylvania.

(source)

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Don’t miss TV – ABC News’ “This Week” this Sunday

This Sunday only on “This Week,”

• WikiLeaks founder and international man of mystery Julian Assange speaks out on the latest on Edward Snowden’s run from the law after his blockbuster leaks on the NSA’s secret surveillance programs. How has Assange and WikiLeaks aided Snowden as he seeks safe passage from Russia? Should Snowden and WikiLeaks’ partners be considered whistle-blowers or law-breakers? And what is the future of WikiLeaks as its controversial efforts remain under scrutiny around the world?

• Following this week’s historic Supreme Court decisions on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin and National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown come to “This Week” to debate the future of same-sex marriage in the U.S.

• Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis reflects on her epic filibuster that drew national headlines and her fifteen minutes of fame.

(Via press release)

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Alec Baldwin deletes Twitter account after epic rant on UK press

Alec Baldwin apparently deleted his entire Twitter account after an epic Twitter rant against a Daily Mail reporter in which he characterized the reporter as a “toxic little queen” and threatened to “f**k [him] up” by inserting foot into said reporter’s ass.

Gawker reports that the meltdown happened after the Daily Mail published a report that Baldwin’s wife had tweeted throughout Gandolfini’s funeral service.

UPDATE – Alec Baldwin has given this statement to Gothamist:

“The idea of me calling this guy a ‘queen’ and that being something that people thought is homophobic, a queen to me has a different meaning. It’s somebody who’s just above. It doesn’t have any necessarily sexual connotations.

“To me a queen – I know women that act queeny, I know men that are straight that act queeny, and I know gay men that act queeny. It doesn’t have to be a definite sexual connotation, or a homophobic connotation. To me those are people who think the rules don’t apply to them.

“This guy could blatantly lie, I mean blatantly lie about my wife on the internet and there are just no rules that apply to him, but that’s outrageous to me.”

(viaTowleroad)

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Kansas congressman plans to introduce anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment

Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) on Wednesday pledged to overturn the Supreme Court’s marriage rulings with a constitutional amendment.

“This radical usurpation of legislative and popular authority will not end the debate over marriage in this country,” Huelskamp said. “Congress clearly must respond to these bad decisions, and as a result, I plan to introduce the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) to amend the United States Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

The proposed constitutional amendment has NO CHANCE of passing.

Amendments to the US Constitution must be ratified by two-thirds of the House and Senate and then sent to the states for a vote. Then, three-fourths of the states must affirm the proposed Amendment. 

Three-fourths of the country means 38 states would have to approve the amendment. We already have 13 states that have marriage equality.  So – it’s not happening.

(via Raw Story)

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Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s staff scrubbed positive Facebook comments about same-sex marriage

Indiana Governor Mike Pence issued an apology on his official Facebook page today after accusations that he and/or his staffers had scrubbed  pro-equality comments from his FB page following the Supreme Court decision this week.

From Pence’s Facebook page today:

“I believe that civility and respect for the opinion of others is essential to the democratic process. I also believe in the Freedom of Speech. Over the past 24 hours, I became aware of concerns that comments responding to my statement of support for traditional marriage were being deleted from this Facebook page because they disagreed with my stated position.

Our longstanding policy, on this and other social media sites, has been to delete inflammatory comments that include name-calling, vulgarity or comments personally insulting to others. It was my understanding that the comments which were deleted all met this standard.

On careful review, it appear that this was not always the case and some comments were being deleted simply because they expressed disagreement with my position. I regret that this occurred and sincerely apologize to all those who were affected.

I have instructed our staff to review our policy and develop a standard of conduct similar to that of other elected officials and news organizations in the days ahead. We will post that policy prominently on this site. Hoosiers expect our public debate to be open and respectful and we will ever seek to live up to that standard. In agreement or disagreement, I respect the opinions and the freedoms of all the people of Indiana.”

The censorship is still being documented by an online site called Pencership.

(via Towleroad)

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Rick Santorum can’t see the direction of history

As little Ricky marches to irrelevance…

Rick Santorum thinks the tide of marriage equality can still be turned back, and that the Supreme Court ruling overturning DOMA renders marriage in its current form “unconstitutional.”

But don’t worry. He’s wrong about things all the time. He’s used to it.

So, there.

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Pop culture series on young LGBT generation – “Young Americans”

The above video is from a new pop culture series presented by Scion AV and Vice called Young Americans.

The most recent episode of the show was titled “LGBT,” and focused explicitly on sexuality.

Young Americans is directed by renowned filmmaker Lance Bangs (known for his experimental music videos for artists like: Nirvana, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, The Shins, The Black Keys, Odd Future, Kanye West). The eight-part documentary series captures real viewpoints and opinions directly from today’s younger generation about sensitive and taboo issues.

After tackling issues that resonated in 2012, from college debt to social networking, season two of Young Americans sees ethnicity as the overarching lens through which Lance and his team focused in on some targeted topics such as body image, socializing and media representations.

Check out the video above and find more on their YouTube channel here.

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Michigan: Court strikes down domestic partner ban due to “targeting” gay families

Via press release the ACLU announced that a federal judge has ruled the Michigan law barring domestic partner benefits is unconstitutional:

A federal judge today ruled that a state law that would have barred many public entities from providing health insurance to the domestic partners of their employees is unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union and Kirkland & Ellis LLP challenged the law on behalf of five gay and lesbian public employees, as well as their long-term domestic partners, who either lost their health insurance or would have lost their insurance as a result of the law.

“We’re breathing a sigh of relief right now,” said Peter Ways, an Ann Arbor teacher whose partner would have lost his benefits. “This law was clearly meant to target families like ours and to make us feel as though we didn’t count.” In striking down the law, U.S. District Court Judge David M. Lawson found it discriminated by forcing cities, counties, school districts, and community colleges to cancel family benefits for gay and lesbian employees in committed relationships while heterosexual employees had the ability to marry their partners to maintain health insurance. Same-sex couples cannot marry in Michigan.