Star Tribune: The Minnesota Senate has voted 37-30 to legalize same-sex marriage. The vote took place on the heels of a vote last week in the House. The measure now moves to Gov. Mark Dayton, who sign it in a ceremony at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Once it is signed, Minnesota will become the twelfth state to legalize same sex-marriage.
AP:
Rhode Island senators put the state on the path Wednesday to becoming the 10th state to allow same-sex couples to marry.
The gay marriage legislation easily passed the Rhode Island House in January, and the Senate vote was seen as the true test. The bill passed 26-12, and now returns to the House for a largely procedural vote, likely next week, before going to Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who supports the legislation.
Clashes, riot police at French anti-gay marriage protest
AP:
Paris riot police fought back crowds who pushed their way onto Paris’ landmark Champs-Elysees avenue as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.
Hundreds of thousands of people — conservative activists, children, retirees, priests — converged on the capital Sunday in a last-ditch bid to stop the bill, many bused in from the French provinces.
Photo: Demonstrators sing around a fire during a protest on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on March 24, 2013 against France’s gay marriage law in an attempt to block legislation that will allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt children. (Thomas Samson / AFP - Getty Images)
Hillary Clinton announces support for gay marriage
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just announced her support for gay marriage in an online video released today.
WSJ/NBC News poll: Majority of Americans support gay marriage
In a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 51% of Americans said they favor allowing same-sex marriages, up from 30% in 2004 and 41% just three years ago.
The Wall Street Journal reports that some of the sharpest swings in acceptance come among African-Americans and suburbanites.
In 2009, less than a third of blacks and 37% of Americans living in the suburbs said they approved of gay marriage. A majority of both of those groups now favor the unions.
BBC News: Britain’s Church of England and Church in Wales will be banned by law from offering same-sex marriages, the government has announced.
Other religious organizations will be able to “opt in” to holding ceremonies, Culture Secretary Maria Miller said. But she added that the Church of England and Church in Wales had “explicitly” stated strong opposition and would not be included.
BREAKING: US Supreme Court will hear gay marriage cases
The US Supreme Court has agreed to take up two gay marriage cases in their first serious look at the issue.
The court today granted review of the Defense of Marriage act, a federal law which says marriage can exist only between a man and a woman, and Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in California, NBC News reports.
More updates on BreakingNews.com.
Photo: Gay marriage advocates cheer during a rally outside a federal courthouse in San Francisco moments before hearing that judges had struck down Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, on Feb. 7, 2012. (Beck Diefenbach / Reuters file)
Pro- and anti-gay protesters clash in Paris
AP: Controversial Ukrainian group Femen taunted a march in Paris Sunday by Catholics who oppose France’s draft law to legalize gay marriage. Several Femen activists turned up topless, chanted ‘‘in gay we trust’’ and sprayed white powder from bottles.
That prompted several anti-gay marriage protesters to hit the Femen members and push them to the ground.
Several thousand people also took to the streets on Saturday in cities across France to protest the draft law, which could see marriage and adoption legalized for homosexual couples early next year.
Photo credit: AFP - Getty Images
BREAKING: Voters in Washington state have approved gay marriage, joining Maine and Maryland as the first states to pass same-sex marriage by popular vote, AP and NBC News confirm.
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for the Supreme Court to consider California’s gay marriage ban, declining an appeal to revisit the case, Reuters reports.
Read more about same-sex marriage in California on breakingnews.com.
UPDATE (1:45 p.m. EDT): Sponsors of California’s same-sex marriage ban plan to take case to US Supreme Court, AP reports.
[AP]
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[AP]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly9q2kHJYZ1qj5rqko1_500.png)
