Martha Stewart Weddings to feature GoodAsYou’s Hooper’s gay wedding

Martha Stewart Weddings to feature GoodAsYou’s Hooper’s gay wedding

Ohio Episopalians open door to gay church weddings

The Columbus Dispatch reported last week that gay Episcopalians in central and southern Ohio will be able to marry in churches beginning Easter 2010.

Bishop Thomas E. Breidenthal of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio announced at the 135th diocesean convention that he would lift the prohibition of same-sex unions in …

Gay protest weddings in Australia

New England economy could see gay-marriage boost

The expansion of legal gay marriage across New England could deliver an economic windfall by attracting a youthful “creative class” of workers to a region with an aging population.
In the past year, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine have joined Massachusetts, which in 2004 became the first U.S. state to allow same-sex weddings, in blessing gay and lesbian weddings.
That makes the region the first in the United States where same-sex couples can move from one state to another while retaining marriage benefits.
New arrivals include John Visser and Nick Keffer, who recently moved to Hartford, Connecticut, from Raleigh, North Carolina. They plan to wed later this month.
“The sole, only reason why we moved was because it was now legal for us to get married here,” said Visser, 42. “No other reason whatsoever other than marriage equality. We were perfectly happy in North Carolina.”
New England has long burnished an image of tolerance. Early European settlers in the 17th-century escaped religious persecution, although they imposed their own stern doctrines and sometimes expelled dissenters. Later, the region led the right for the abolition of black slavery.
Five out of the region’s six states now endorse gay weddings after New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage on Wednesday, leaving Rhode Island as the sole holdout.
The spread of gay marriage could serve as a recruiting tool for universities, health care companies and financial services firms that dominate the region’s economy, experts said.
“It will be a selling point when it comes to trying to lure people with same-sex partners who are being wooed for a job,” said M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economist See New England economy could see gay-marriage boost
Reuters

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Methodist Court Rejects Gay Marriage, OKs Bush Library

The United Methodist Church’s highest court has ruled that clergy may not officiate at same-sex unions, even in states where such marriages are legal, and gave the final OK for the George W. Bush Library to be built at Southern Methodist University.

The church’s nine-member Judicial Council rejected separate resolutions passed by the California-Nevada and California-Pacific Conferences that voiced support for clergy who officiate at such unions.

Last year, the 8.3 million-member church upheld rules in its Book of Discipline, or constitution, that Methodist churches cannot be used to host same-sex unions and clergy are prohibited from officiating at them.

The latest court ruling rejected a California-Nevada resolution that supported retired clergy who volunteered to conduct gay weddings, and a California-Pacific resolution upholding the “pastoral need and prophetic authority” of clergy to do so.

Between May and November, 2008, California allowed same-sex couples to marry until voters banned the practiced with a constitutional amendment.

“An annual conference may not legally negate, ignore or violate provisions of the Discipline with which they disagree, even when the disagreements are based on conscientious objections to the provisions,” the court ruled, according to United Methodist News Service.

In a separate case, the court said it found no reason to halt construction of the planned George W. Bush Presidential Center at the church-owned school in Dallas.

Critics contend the library complex and affiliated policy center will promote policies that the United Methodist Church officially opposed, including the Iraq War. The former president and his wife, Laura, are both United Methodists.

See Methodist Court Rejects Moves to Support Gay Marriage, OKs Bush …

Beliefnet.com

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Gay marriages begin tomorrow in Iowa

Beginning Monday, same-sex couples will be allowed to legally marry in Iowa. Committed gay and lesbian couples from neighboring states, including Illinois, are planning trips to the Hawk Eye state.

Iowa becomes the third state offering same-sex marriage, following the state’s Supreme Court decision in March. Massachusetts and Connecticut already allow same-sex marriage and Vermont has passed a law that will take effect in September.

Iowa counties will begin processing same-sex marriage applications tomorrow morning. County recorders offices will open at 8 a.m.

The first day that Iowa will allow gay marriage is on April 30 because the state requires a three-day waiting period, but a judge can waive that delay and allow an immediate wedding. Many speculate the first gay weddings could happen within hours tomorrow. See Gay marriages begin tomorrow in Iowa ChicagoPride.com

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How Dumb IS THis? Church: Florists Should Be Allowed To Say No To Gay Weddings

So CT lawmakers are considering some changes to old state laws that were passed before the state supreme court made gay marriage legal. Unable to overturn that action, the “Connecticut Catholic Conference” are now embarrassing themselves with arguments like the one below. Like any of us would want to pay an anti-gay florist to do flowers for our wedding! DO these so-called Catholics realize how dumb they look?

Concerned that the state’s new same-sex marriage law would infringe on religious liberties, the Connecticut Catholic Conference today proposed some broad exemptions which it believes are necessary to protect those rights.

The law does not require Catholic priests — or any other clergy member — to preside over same-sex weddings.

However, the church is seeking additional exemptions. For instance, it wants to ensure that a florist opposed to gay marriage on religious grounds not be forced to sell flowers to a same-sex couple.

“Same-sex couples have their liberties protected fully. Religious people are wondering ‘how is this going to effect me?”‘ David Reynolds, lobbyist for the Catholic Church, told members of the legislature’s judiciary committee. Ee Church: Florists Should Be Allowed To Say No To Gay Weddings

Hartford Courant

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Greenwich is top destination for gay weddings Norwalk Advocate

GREENWICH – With its proximity to New York and quiet sophistication, Greenwich has emerged as the apparent epicenter for gay marriage in Connecticut a month after it became legal here.

“It’s amazing, the requests for same-sex marriage,” said Justice of the Peace Betty Bonsal, who has married four gay couples in the last 30 days. “It’s really quite wonderful.”

Since Nov. 12, when a state judge gave the final go-ahead for gay marriages, 25 same-sex couples have been married in Greenwich. That is more than in any of the state’s four largest cities, according to data obtained from vital records officials. Seven gay marriages have taken place in Bridgeport; 16 in Hartford, 17 in Stamford and 20 in New Haven. Of the couples married in Greenwich, all but one were from out of state. Fifteen came from the New York City area; three from Long Island, N.Y.; two from Westchester County, N.Y.; one from New Jersey; and one each from Chicago, North Carolina and Kentucky.

See Greenwich is top destination for gay weddings Norwalk Advocate