Today, surrounded by friends and family, the first same-sex couples in Washington D.C. to receive marriage licenses are celebrating their legal marriages. D.C. now officially joins the five states and eight countries that have ended exclusion from marriage. Marriage in our nation's capital marks a significant victory not only...

The first full trial on gay people's freedom to marry, complete with evidence and cross examination of witnesses, prominent lawyers squaring off over a state's discrimination, experts testifying on the history of marriage and the well-being of children, concerns and debate over timing, and television coverage of the trial spurring...

When President Obama speaks to gay and non-gay supporters of equality at the Human Rights Campaign's dinner this Saturday, he has a lot of ground to cover. I don't just mean the number of subjects to address, given the many ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in...

When Mark McNealy was laid off from his job in April, he lost his employer-provided health insurance. He could still pay a reduced rate for insurance through COBRA for 18 months, but his partner, Robert Meredith, a cancer survivor, could not. Because the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" ("DOMA")

Computer-generated clouds roil on an apocalyptic backdrop as fake lightning flashes. Actors stiff as zombies recite horror stories, punctuated by protestations that they are animated by love. Is this new political ad warning of the economic hardships confronting families, a call to action on health care or job loss? Is...

If the March 5 oral argument before the California Supreme Court was any guide (which oral argument isn't always), Chief Justice Ronald George may be on the verge of making a terrible, heartbreaking mistake.

The Court is due to rule soon on a set of challenges to Proposition...

Abraham Lincoln may have been the first American to write about a same-sex couple getting married. His 1829 poem recounting the marriage of Nate and Billy was "perhaps the most explicit literary reference to actual homosexual relations in 19th century America." Lincoln's most important early biographer, William Herndon, initially included...

"Teenagers travel in droves, packs, swarms…. To the librarian, they’re a gaggle of geese. To the cook, they’re a scourge of locusts. To department stores they’re a big beautiful exaltation of larks…. all lovely and loose and jingly."  So spoke Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, Director of Advertising for Macy's, in 1960, explaining...

It’s been a week since the highest court in our nation's most populous state, California’s Supreme Court, handed down its persuasive ruling upholding the freedom to marry.  A week since fairness and equality won out and many are wondering: what do we do now? 

The answer: We defend...

As Americans across the country celebrate Freedom to Marry Day today, seizing the opportunity to have conversations with family members, friends, and coworkers about the importance of ending same-sex couples' exclusion from marriage, hopefully they'll talk a lot about gay couples and why marriage matters -- without saying

Once again, Al Gore gets it exactly right.

On January 17, just before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the country's celebration of, and recommitment to, the work of winning civil rights, the Nobel Laureate and former Vice President posted a video on Current TV entitled "Gay men...

One woman has people talking across California.

They've seen her on TV, looking lovely in her wedding dress. She tries, over and over, to walk down the aisle to her groom, but again and again is blocked by obstacles in her way. She's the nameless centerpiece of a new...

A Republican from California stood up for the values he believes in -- fairness, equality, love, commitment -- and explained in a powerful, emotional press conference why he now has come to support the freedom to marry for same-sex couples.

No, it wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger (yet), but...

In the last several weeks, there were a few strong reminders that discussion about ending gay people's exclusion from marriage will not just disappear. Just last week, the California legislature passed a bill for the second time, picking up votes, to remove the different-sex restriction on couples seeking to...

Thursday night the country will get the opportunity to hear Democratic presidential candidates discuss the lives and needs of gay and lesbian Americans during the forum hosted by Human Rights Campaign and Logo. The forum comes in the midst of a year that has seen record advances...

On Monday in the first-ever CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential debate, Americans directly challenged candidates to address the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage. The questions posed by people sharing their stories and truly looking for answers were clear and concise. The candidates' answers, on the other hand, while affirming, were still...