President Bush reauthorized the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which allocates $48 billion over the next five years to treat people living with HIV and fund prevention programs in poorer countries for men who have sex with men. The reauthorization also contains changes that should remove legal roadblocks for HIV-positive immigrants wishing to […]
It’s official. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has signed a repeal of the 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state couples from marrying in the state if their home states forbid the unions. At the same time, he signed the MassHealth Equality bill, granting equal benefits to married same-sex and opposite-sex couples through MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program. MassHealth,
Out-of-state same-sex couples could marry in Massachusetts later today. Lawmakers have attached an emergency preamble to the bill lifting marriage restrictions on out-of-state couples, stating that it will take effect as soon as the governor signs it, rather than after the usual 90 days. The bill could go to the governor today, according to the
The Massachusetts House just voted to repeal the 1913 law that prevented most out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in the Bay State. The bill now goes to Governor Deval Patrick, who has said he will sign it. Massachusetts was, of course, the first state to legalize marriage for same-sex couples, although California was the first
The U.S. Senate voted to drop travel and immigration restrictions on persons who are HIV-positive. The House Armed Services personnel subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy for July 23. The Washington Blade reports, though, that “as of Wednesday, the subcommittee was not scheduled to hear from even one
Four retired officers, each from a different branch of the U.S. military, recommended that the military repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and let gay men and lesbians serve openly. In the “Report of the General/Flag Officers’ Study Group” released by the Michael D. Palm Center of the University of California at Santa Barbara,
Two days ago, California became the second state to legalize marriage of same-sex couples. Today marks the fourth anniversary of the first legal marriages of same-sex couples in Massachusetts; the 54th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, and the 18th anniversary of when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental
Some good, some bad, and some ugly this week: The federal First Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments on March 7 in Cook v. Gates (formerly Cook v. Rumsfeld [Ha! -Ed.]), a constitutional challenge to the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on LGB service members. Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton also
Lots of new in advance of the U. S. elections this coming Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights: An Alaska Superior Court will order the state to change its proposed requirements for benefits given to same-sex partners of state employees. Among other things, it ordered that partners who are jointly responsible for a child
