LGBTQ news and entertainment
The Irish pro-equality group LGBT Noise gives us this terrific, over-the-top parody video playing out the fears of paranoid straight folks who think marriage equality will change their world bringing about a dreaded “Armagayddon.”
Set in the near future of 2017, Mary and John have barricaded themselves (and boxed up their son – literally) to protect themselves from the “unbelievable weddings” that occurred after the passage of same-sex marriage in Ireland.
Pretty funny. Watch below.
According to Kristin Chenoweth – Tony and Emmy Award winner – she is a “shortie,” a Christian, an “Okie” and marriage equality supporter.
More on HRC’s Americans for Marriage Equality campaign here.
|
| (image via Buzzfeed) |
As expected, the US Supreme Court has issued a stay on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which struck down Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban.
The application for stay was filed with Chief Justice John Roberts who referred the request to the entire Court.
More from Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed:
Notably, the court stated that the stay will “terminate automatically” if it does not take and denies certiorari in the case — which is the process by which the court formally takes cases. If it grants certiorari, then its stay ends when it “send[s] down … the judgment of this Court.”
Sadly, this again postpones the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Justice delayed is justice denied.
The question now is: Which state’s case will SCOTUS take this fall? We shall see…
Bilerico has the details:
This afternoon, Judge Young sided with the plaintiffs in Bowling v. Pence, the last remaining same-sex marriage case in Indiana. The plaintiffs sued to force the state to recognize their legal same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
Young ordered the state to stop enforcing all Indiana laws preventing same-sex couples from equal treatment in marriage, allow married same-sex couples to file joint tax returns, and provide the same benefits and services to married same-sex couples as it does to married opposite-sex couples.
Judge Young stayed today’s order until the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rules in the case, or in any of the other Indiana marriage equality cases.
Read more here.
From the American Foundation for Equal Rights:
• Major news in Virginia this week, where the Fourth Circuit has refused to delay marriage equality for any longer. Now anti-gay defendants have asked the US Supreme Court to step in at the last minute.
• A judge in Tennessee has upheld that state’s marriage ban, on the basis of outdated arguments regarding procreation.
• And over a dozen couples successfully register marriage licenses in Mississippi during a coordinated day of action.
Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, gay and lesbian couples in Virginia will be able to marry on Monday after a ruling today from the Fourth Circuit court of appeals.
On July 28th, the 4th Circuit Court affirmed a lower courts ruling that Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional.
The court has now denied, by a vote of 2-1, a stay on the ruling, meaning marriage equality will begin as soon as Monday if SCOTUS doesn’t intervene.
More from the AP.
See the order from the 4th Circuit below:
In Florida, Broward County Commissioners have not only unanimously passed a resolution in support of same-sex marriage, they are now looking for legal ways to block sending any funds to the Tallahassee that could be used to fight marriage equality:
Along with approving the resolution decision unanimously, county commissioners are also asking the county attorney to research ways to withhold funding to Tallahassee that is used in the appeals process. The county commissioners do not want to waste taxpayer money fighting gay marriage. Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter said, “We want to show that opposition not just by submitting a resolution, but by withholding our donor county dollars that are quite frankly right now going to Tallahassee to fund this appeal process with which we are adamantly opposed.”
After appealing the recent rulings by South Florida judges, commissioners fear that Bondi will shelf the issue until the United States Supreme Court rules again. “The United States Supreme Court, they’re going to be the body who make this decision, and then we will have uniformity throughout the country,” said Bondi.
However, some commissioners are not sure that waiting for a decision by the Supreme Court would result in simplicity. “The problem with that is there is no guarantee that the United States Supreme Court is ever going to undertake this matter,” said Kiar.
A state judge has upheld the ban on recognizing same-sex marriage in Tennessee.
From Talking Points Memo:
Circuit Court Judge Russell E. Simmons ruled that Tennessee need not recognize the union of Frederick Michael Borman and Larry Kevin Pyles-Borman, who married in August 2010 in Iowa. The judge invoked Tennessee’s state laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
“Tennessee’s laws further provide that if another state allows persons to marriage who are prohibited from marriage in Tennessee, then that marriage is void and unenforceable in Tennessee,” he wrote in a ruling last Tuesday, which has now been published online by Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog.
In that this ruling was very narrow and only pertains to recognition for the purpose of divorce, most legal experts do not expect this decision to make an impact on current appeals to the US Supreme Court regarding marriage equality.
|
| Click image to enlarge |
On Friday, August 8, 2014 the Commonwealth of Virginia asked the United States Supreme Court to review the federal appeals court ruling in Bostic v. Schaefer (docketed as Rainey v. Bostic) that found Virginia’s discriminatory Marriage Amendment unconstitutional.
Virginia’s Marriage Amendment has been ruled unconstitutional twice: first in a U.S. District Court and then by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Defendants’ request for Supreme Court review, known as a petition for a writ of certiorari, is only granted upon an affirmative vote of four Supreme Court Justices.
The next Supreme Court term will begin in late September, 2014. A Supreme Court Term usually runs until late June or early July. Of the approximately 8,000 cases that appear on the Court’s docket each Term, the Justices hear and decide only between 70 and 80 cases after full briefing and oral argument.
From the Miami Herald:
Charlie Crist, Florida’s former governor and attorney general, says current Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi don’t have to defend the state’s 2008 gay marriage ban in court.
Crist, who is running to become governor again (this time as a Democrat), spoke Thursday as he accepted LGBT-rights group SAVE’s endorsement at City Hall the Restaurant in Miami.
“It’s unfortunate that Rick Scott and Pam Bondi feel this way about gay marriage and are not embracing or tolerant of it. It’s embarrassing, frankly,” Crist said. “The rest of America is moving forward and they’re still on the wrong side of history on this issue. But we can fix it and they call it an election. Only 89 days away, so help is on the way.
“What would I do differently as governor? Everything. To this issue, specifically, he shouldn’t be fighting it through the attorney general’s office. They should cease and desist on fighting gay marriage — same-sex marriage — and equality. The time has passed to do that.”