Colorado Governor Signs Civil Unions Into Law

When the law takes effect May 1, Colorado will join eight states that have civil unions. Nine others and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. ...

NPR • Mar 22, 2013

New Zealand Gay Marriage Bill Passes Critical Test

New Zealand lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill allowing same-sex marriage Wednesday, all but assuring that it will soon become law. Lawmakers supported the bill 77 to 44 in the second of three votes needed for a bill to be approved. The second vote is typically the most crucial one. The third and final vote is likely to be little more than a formality and could be taken as early as...

NPR • Mar 13, 2013

Scalia Says Abortion, Gay Rights Are Easy Cases

"The death penalty? Give me a break. It's easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state," Scalia said at the American Enterprise Institute. ...

NPR • Oct 5, 2012

Obama Saw Immediate Fundraising Spike After Same-Sex Marriage Announcement

In the days following President Obama's announcement that he supports same-sex marriage, anecdotal evidence suggested that the political position had a financial payoff. But without public financial disclosures, news sources relied on anonymous quotes saying that Obama's re-election campaign took in $2 million in the 24 hours following the announcement, or $1 million in the first 90 minutes. ...

NPR • Jun 28, 2012

Same-Sex Marriage May Hinge On Supreme Court

With New York's legalization of same-sex marriage effectively doubling the number of Americans living in states where gays can marry, gay advocates like to say 2011 was a big year. It's hard to imagine another doubling this year, but proponents are still hoping to build on last year's success. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in six states plus Washington, D.C., and it may come up for a vote ...

NPR • Jan 25, 2012

Nigerian Senate Approves Anti-Gay Marriage Bill

Under the proposed law, couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. That's an increase over the bill's initial penalties, which lawmakers proposed during a debate Tuesday televised live from the National Assembly in Nigeria's capital Abuja. ...

NPR • Nov 30, 2011

Data On Same-Sex Couples Reveal Changing Attitudes

As bans on gay marriage and civil unions spread across the majority of America in the past decade, new U.S. Census figures reveal a starkly different trend: The number of same-sex partnerships skyrocketed even in the most prohibitive states. Some 646,464 gay couples said they lived together in last year's census, an increase of 80 percent from 2000, according to revised figures released this week...

NPR • Oct 2, 2011

Census: 131,729 Gay Couples Report They're Married

The Census Bureau released a revised estimate Tuesday of the number of same-sex married couples living in the United States: More than 130,000 same-sex households recorded themselves as married. Another 500,000 same-sex households indentified themselves as unmarried....

NPR • Sep 28, 2011

Lesbian Couples Boosting Gay Marriage Numbers

In Boston, experience suggests that pent-up demand for marriage among gays and lesbians will drive a wedding windfall, but it's usually short-lived. "When marriage is new in a state, there's a surge at the beginning, but then after about a year, that rate starts to slow down. So you see patterns in which same-sex couples are marrying at roughly the same rate as different-sex couples," UCLA demogr...

NPR • Jul 12, 2011

'Marriage Equality' And The Civil Rights Movement

When Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot in November 2008, exit polls reported that seven in 10 African-American voters supported the ban on same-sex marriage. Many gay rights activists cast what they call marriage equality as a civil rights issue. Many black Americans disagree. In a new documentary short, director Thomas Allen Harris tells the story of a Massachusetts politician striv...

NPR • Apr 28, 2011

Boehner: House Will Defend DOMA; Courts, Not Obama, Should Decide

Boehner said: "I will convene a meeting of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group for the purpose of initiating action by the House to defend this law of the United States, which was enacted by a bipartisan vote in Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. It is regrettable that the Obama Administration has opened this divisive issue at a time when Americans want their leaders to focus on jobs ...

NPR • Mar 6, 2011

New Republic: DOMA Decision Was Bold And Lawful

It is easy to sit on the sidelines and say that the government should always "defend the law." But those who would defend this law, perhaps including even the House leadership, will find that doing so requires them to argue that discrimination against individuals or couples on the basis of their sexual orientation is generally reflective of merit, not bias. The courts ought to hear that view from...

NPR • Mar 2, 2011

Where's The Change? Gay Activists Ask

Vermont on Tuesday joined five other states that have given same-sex couples the right to marry. That situation was almost unimaginable a decade ago, when, after rancorous debate, the state became the first in the union to enact same-sex civil unions. But despite the historic gains made by the nation's gay community, this year has largely been one of disappointment for many whose hopes were pinne...

NPR • Sep 6, 2009

With The 'Gay Tax,' Love Doesn't Come Cheap

DOMA defines marriage as being the legal union of a man and a woman. On that basis, the federal government denies to legally married same-sex couples the 1,138 federal protections and benefits it extends to all other married couples. So I'm not surprised that a March 2009 report from UCLA found that same-sex partners are more likely to be poor than our heterosexual counterparts -- in large part be...

NPR • May 15, 2009

Big Wins Re-Energize Gay Marriage Activists

Same-sex marriage advocates have racked up big recent victories in Iowa and Vermont, where legislators on April 7 approved a same-sex marriage measure by overriding a gubernatorial veto. They joined Connecticut and Massachusetts as states where gay marriage is recognized. Similar efforts are well under way in a handful of other states, including New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine and New York, wher...

NPR • Apr 16, 2009

Calif. Attorney General Pushes To Overturn Prop 8

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NPR • Jan 7, 2009