LGBTQ news and entertainment
• The lawsuits are piling up in Pennsylvania, where a judge has put marriages on an indefinite hold.
• It’ll be at least a month and a half before the New Mexico Supreme Court will decide whether the state can issue marriage licenses.
• And the New Mexico clerk who first issued licenses has started a fundraising campaign — he now needs tens of thousands of dollars to defend against an anti-gay lawsuit.
Sweet story.
Together 20 years, WWII vet John Banvard, 95, and 67-year-old Vietnam vet Gerard Nadeau, said they wanted to have their ceremony among friends, so they chose to have it at the Veteran’s Home, where they’ve lived for the last three years.
“We were waiting on the Supreme Court to make that decision,” said Banvard.
Many of the couple’s friends who live at the veteran’s home attended the small and simple ceremony.
“The world is changing, we have to go along with it,” said one guest.
Facility director Neal Asper said news of two men getting married at the VA home wasn’t well received by everyone. A town hall meeting was held at the VA home to address concerns from other residents.
“It’s been somewhat controversial,” said Asper. “I told them, they have the right to get married here just like everybody else.”
Video had auto-play, which I hate. You can view the video at this link.
(source)
A Pennsylvania judge has issued a ruling ordering a suburban Philadelphia court clerk to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying it was a clear violation of his legal authority.
From CBS Philadelphia reports:
Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini on Thursday issued an order that said Montgomery County Register of Wills Bruce Hanes didn’t have the power to decide on his own whether the same-sex marriage ban violates the state constitution.
Judge Pellegrini said last Wednesday that he would rule quickly on oral arguments in the lawsuit filed by Governor Tom Corbett against Montgomery County Register of Wills Bruce Hanes with regard to the 174 same-sex marriage licenses Hanes has handed out since July.
The judge did not rule on whether those same-sex couples who have married are legally married or if the state can and will annul their marriages.
Courtney Schmelling and Sr. Airman Natalie Throckmorton married on August 28 in New Mexico. New Mexico is currently in flux regarding marriage equality as 8 counties have recently begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. There is no specific law banning marriage equality in the state.
After initially being told ‘no’, she could not have a spousal military ID card based on her marriage in New Mexico because it was “not one of the states that have statewide legislative or judicial decisions allowing for same-sex couples to marry,” Schmelling said that officials at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque changed their position and issued her the card.
Buzzfeed has an email by the American Military Partners Association confirming the change:
“Effective Sept. 3, the Secretary of Defense announced that all military departments will extend benefits to same-sex spouses of military members and retirees. On Sept. 5, military members and their same-sex spouses came into the 377th Force Support Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base with marriage certificates issued in New Mexico. Because civil authorities in New Mexico have only recently begun to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the guidance in hand for Department of Defense identification cards didn’t address jurisdictions in New Mexico. The issue of those ID cards was delayed while Air Force officials sought clarification,” spokeswoman Meredith Mingledorff wrote.
“Based on information received Sept. 6 from Headquarters Air Force Personnel Center on jurisdictions not covered in previous guidance, officials at Kirtland are issuing dependent ID cards to same-sex spouses of military members and retirees with valid marriage certificates from jurisdictions within New Mexico,” she continued.
(via Towleroad)
Marriage continues to expand one county at a time in New Mexico, and one couple at a time in Ohio. But a state Supreme Court ruling may soon change all that.
We had oral arguments in Pennsylvania, there’s a new southern lawsuit, and a controversial voter initiative in Arizona seems to have died before it could make it to the ballot.
Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie WILL call a special session of the state legislature to consider marriage equality.
The special session will convene on October 28th. From Advocate:
“This is now the 20th year of discussion that has taken place on the issue and associated issues with it,” Abercrombie told reporters at a press conference. “I feel very, very strongly that the votes are there to pass this because it is time for marriage equity to take place.”
The special session will last about five days, and the proposed bill will include a religious exemption to quell the fears of those who worry marriage equality will be forced upon any church, Abercrombie said. If the bill is approved, same-sex marriages could begin in the state as early as November 18.
Good luck, Hawaii. Get out there, do that community outreach and get some “aloha.”
New Mexico’s highest court has scheduled a hearing next month in a case that could resolve whether same-sex marriage is legal in the state.
The state Supreme Court on Friday set the hearing for Oct. 23.
The five-member court took the step a day after New Mexico’s counties and county clerks statewide filed a petition asking the justices to decide whether a judge in Albuquerque was correct in declaring it unconstitutional to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
More than 900 marriage licenses have been issued in New Mexico since Aug. 21, when the Dona Ana County clerk decided independently that gay marriage was allowed in the state.
Seven other counties have started issuing licenses to same-sex couples or plan to do that, several in response to court orders.
(via LGBTQ Nation)
Congratulations to the happy couple – marriage equality is happening in Mexico!
A gay couple in Chihuahua, Mexico, who first filed for a marriage license in April can legally wed after the state declined to file a challenge to the petition, a local judge ruled Monday, according to Spanish-language news site El Pueblo.
Tony and Tomás tried to marry April 30 but were denied a license by the Civil Registry of the State of Chihuahua. On August 22, a district judge ruled that the state must provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and gave government officials ten days to file a formal objection to the order. The government made no such move, so Tuesday, the state legal adviser confirmed to press outlets that the couple can be married.
(source)
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| Minneapolis Mayor Rybak (center) |
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak is in Chicago today to launch “Marry Me In Minneapolis,” a campaign that invites Illinoisans to visit his city for their gay marriages.
Mayor Rybak unveiled the campaign at a press conference at Center on Halsted Sept. 5.
“Chicago is my kind of town, but right now, it’s a second city in human rights,” Rybak told reporters.
Chicago is missing out on tourism and entertainment dollars, Rybak said, money that Minneapolis would welcome.
The new ad campaign invites Chicagoans to tie the knot in Minneapolis.
“Hey Chicago!” one ad reads. “I want to marry you in Minneapolis!”
Rybak’s pitch aims to highlight the economic urgency of passing same-sex marriage in Illinois as well as bolster his city’s tourism industry.
A recent Williams Institute study found that marriage equality in Illinois could generate $103 million in spending from Illinois couples alone. Out-of-state marriages could add to that number. Windy City Times found that 70 percent of Iowa’s same-sex marriages were between out-of-state couples. Those numbers are expected to increase as the effective repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act has opened up a laundry list of rights to married same-sex couples, not available to Illinois civil union couples.
That is a reality Rybak wants to capitalize on.
He wants Chicago couples to hop a flight to Minneapolis and spend their wedding dollars there, he said.. He is making the same pitch in Milwaukee, Madison and Denver as part of a tour targeting midwest cities without marriage equality.
(source)