legal case

A federal appeals court in San Francisco is set to hear arguments in the case of California's same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, one of the most contentious and hard-fought legal battles in the history of marriage equality. Arguments before the U.S. court of appeals for the ninth circuit will begin today at 10 a.m. pacific time. Unlike the trial in the case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the appeal proceedings will be nationally televised. Watch live now!

A Texas state appeals court in Dallas rejected a decision by a lower court that a gay couple who legally married in Massachusetts could get divorced in Texas. State District Judge Tena Callahan ruled, in October of 2009, that the couple had the right to legally end the marriage and the state's same-sex marriage ban was a violation of the federal constitutional right to equal protection. The 5th District Court of Appeals in Dallas reversed the decision on Tuesday, and instructed Callahan dismiss the case.

Lisa Reid and Joy Gosse, a lesbian couple that has been together nearly two decades, became one of the first same-sex couples in Newfoundland and Labrador allowed to legally adopt a child. In their case, two: on Thursday the two women adopted a son and a daughter — children they have been fostering since last year.

The same judge who ruled against the state's ban on marriage equality affirmed that decision Tuesday in a separate case, requiring Indiana to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Nearly a month after a decisive ruling from the Supreme Court declaring a key section of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, the Republican-led congressional committee that's been defending the law in court announced today that it is abandoning its support for DOMA and legislation like it around the country.

Government attorneys have agreed to suspend deportation proceedings in the case of a binational lesbian couple in New York pending their marriage-based immigration case. Monica Alcota and Cristina Ojeda of Queens are the first married LGBT couple to argue in court that a pending deportation should be terminated since the Obama administration’s February announcement that it would no longer defend Section 3 the Defense of Marriage Act, according to their attorney. Alcota, a citizen of Argentina, wed her American wife last year in Connecticut but has continued to face removal proceedings.

Members of the House leadership decided Wednesday that they would defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal lawsuits, stepping in for the Department of Justice, which announced a halt to defending such cases, under the direction of the president. 

But the state will continue to defend its ban on such unions at the Supreme Court this spring.

King and Spalding, the law firm tapped to represent House Republicans' defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, announced Monday that it is withdrawing from the case. Paul D. Clement, former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush and a partner at the firm, had been picked as lead outside counsel in one or more cases challenging DOMA. "Speaker Boehner is likely to pursue continued defense of this odious law. However, law firms that value LGBT equality should remain committed to those values."

Equal rights for everyone, including gay and lesbian people wanting to marry, might already be encompassed in the Constitution, in the 14th Amendment. 

The high court decided Wednesday that same-sex couples in Kansas should not have to wait any longer to get married.

A New Yorker is filing a lawsuit alleging she was shoved to the ground and subjected to homophobic remarks by a Sizzler manager at one of the chain's restaurants in Forest Hills, Queens.

Which states will be the next to institute marriage equality — and how will it happen?

Why this Kaitlyn Hunt saga scares the crap out of me.

A federal judge said the state of Indiana must recognize the same-sex marriage of a woman who has been battling stage four ovarian cancer for five years.

More and more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people of African descent are marrying. An idea that was once thought of as an anathema to black queer identity, marriage, in our LGBTQ communities, is being celebrated and on the rise.

Two lesbian couples in Virginia have filed a federal class action lawsuit seeking to overturn the state's constitutional and statutory prohibitions on same-sex marriages and recognizing such unions performed outside of the state.