"Service in the Peace Corps is a life-defining leadership experience for Americans who want to make a difference around the world," Peace Corps Deputy Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet said in a statement. "I am proud that the agency is taking this important step forward to allow same-sex domestic partners to serve overseas together."

News of the reform comes only weeks after Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced the Peace Corps Equity Act, a measure to extend insurance coverage to Peace Corps volunteers for abortions in instances of rape. As Salon's Irin Carmon notes, the Peace Corps is currently the only federal agency that doesn't have insurance coverage for rape survivors seeking abortion care.

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The illustrated posters feature slogans like, "We won our right to marry, now it's time to defend our right! And we sure as hell aren't going to take shit from homophobes in the process!" and, "Some people dislike gays. Others dislike guns. We should not base our laws on personal dislikes."

A QR code on the ads directs curious readers to an anti–gun control website that calls armed self-defense a human right and offers quizzes with questions like:

The proper response to an arson is ...

1) prohibit you and other law-abiding citizens from buying gasoline.
2) prohibit you and other law-abiding citizens from buying any flammable fluids, matches and lighters.
3) prosecute the perpetrator of the crime.

As the Stranger reports, the campaign's origins remain something of a mystery:

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"When we have a queen who is a lesbian and she marries another lady and then decides she would like to have a child and someone donates sperm and she gives birth to a child, is that child heir to the throne?" he asked. "It’s like one of my colleagues said: We've got to make these same-sex marriages available to all. It would lift my worries about (the) inheritance tax because maybe I'd be allowed to marry my son. Why not? Why shouldn't a mother marry her daughter? Why shouldn’t two elderly sisters living together marry each other?"

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Keep setting an example for what it means to be a man. Be the best husband to your wife or your boyfriend or your partner. Be the best father you can be to your children. Because nothing is more important.

He went on to urge the students to "care about justice for everybody":

As Morehouse Men, many of you know what it’s like to be an outsider, know what it’s like to be marginalized, know what it’s like to feel the sting of discrimination. And that’s an experience that a lot of Americans share. Hispanic Americans know that feeling when somebody asks them where they come from or tell them to go back. Gay and lesbian Americans feel it when a stranger passes judgment on their parenting skills or the love that they share. Muslim Americans feel it when they’re stared at with suspicion because of their faith. Any woman who knows the injustice of earning less pay for doing the same work -- she knows what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.

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A decade later, the present is still contaminated by the crimes of that era, but so much has changed. Not necessarily for the better -- a decade ago, most spoke of climate change as a distant problem, and then it caught up with us in 10,000 ways. But not entirely for the worse either -- the vigorous climate movement we needed arose in that decade and is growing now. If there is one thing we can draw from where we are now and where we were then, it’s that the unimaginable is ordinary, and the way forward is almost never a straight path you can glance down, but a labyrinth of surprises, gifts, and afflictions you prepare for by accepting your blind spots as well as your intuitions.

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1) Mitt Romney would win in 2012 and go on to be a two-term president. One week before the 2012 election, Pat Robertson assured viewers that Romney would not only beat Barack Obama for the presidency, but go on to be a two-term president. “Because the Lord told me,” he confidently explained to his guest. So either the Lord is lying to Robertson or Obama is more powerful than God. Or, I suppose, it could be that Robertson himself is a liar, though it’s considered impolite to say so directly.

2) If Obama wins in 2008, the Bible will be classified as “hate speech” and banned from the airwaves. In 2008, Focus on the Family sent out a letter from a fictional Christian in 2012 describing the decrepit, destroyed America that would be sure to exist in four years if Obama won in 2008. Some predictions, such as gays in the military and universal healthcare legislation, came true, but somehow the predicted arrests of people reading the Bible on the airwaves have not come to pass.

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The advocacy arm of the nonprofit has launched an online campaign urging the show's producers to marry Cameron Tucker and Mitchell Pritchett, the gay couple who comprise one-third of the hit ABC sitcom's Pritchett clan. Until now, the two have been living in unwedded sort-of bliss along with a daughter; gay marriage is not legal in California, where the characters live.

"Modern Family" has been, in its first four seasons, an unusual cultural flashpoint. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both claimed the show as a favorite, while Cameron and Mitchell, specifically, have been criticized by cultural observers for their relatively loveless union. Before the current ACLU campaign, there was an online petition asking the two characters to kiss on-air. An NPR critic described the pair as sharing a "hateful dynamic," adding, "Surely, the show can find a way to let them occasionally just be nice to each other." They don't particularly seem like a pair ready to commit to one another further.

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Erin Hanson and Katie Pugh asked Pam Regentin of Fleur Cakes to provide the cake for their Mount Hood wedding, but were turned away after Regentin realized they were gay, as Pugh told KATU News: "I mentioned Erin in passing, and said a 'she' in passing too, in the email. A few days later she called back ... and verified it was a same-sex wedding."

Shortly after, Regentin told the couple she would not bake the cake.

Oregon law mandates that businesses provide "full and equal accommodations without any distinction on account of race, color, religion, sex, or sexual orientation," and a similar case is still being investigated by the state Labor Bureau.

As Salon has previously reported, bakeries have become an unlikely battleground in the equal marriage debate:

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"Not only has the IRS retaliated against conservative, small-government and tea party groups as they apply for recognition of tax exemption AND lied about it, but it has criminally released our confidential tax return including the identity of dozens of major donors to a political enemy," said Brian Brown, NOM's president, in a statement. "In addition to being our principal combatant in the war on traditional marriage, the HRC's president at the time was serving as a Co-Chair of President Obama's reelection campaign. This is a chilling set of circumstances that should ring alarm bells across the nation."

As Politico explains, NOM has been calling for an investigation into who leaked information about its donors:

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Congressional efforts to pass a measure legalizing gay marriage have faced strong opposition from the country's religious conservatives, but, according to a statement from the judicial council, that is no reason the country's licensing offices should wait to recognize gay marriages.

As reported by Agence France Presse:

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As reported by Nintendo Life, after news broke about the feature, "there were indications [from Nintendo] that it was an unintentional bug in the game":

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As reported by ABC News:

Senator Scott Dibble, the bill's architect, has said the stronger-than-expected vote from representatives was very encouraging and urged same-sex marriage supporters to continue active lobbying for the bill right up to Monday's vote.

Hundreds of supporters and opponents of the proposal to legalize same-sex marriage demonstrated at the Capitol on Thursday. A similar atmosphere was expected on Monday.

The vote on Thursday was a sharp reversal for Minnesota's legislature. Two years ago, Republicans controlled both chambers and bypassed the governor to put forward a ballot measure that would have made the state's current ban on gay marriage part of the state constitution.

Minnesota voters in November rejected that measure and also voted in Democratic majorities in both the state House and Senate, setting the legislature on the path toward Monday's vote.

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And at the same time, as the world around us seems to change more often than my daughter changes outfits, it can be hard to not lump Mother’s Day with some nostalgic, soft-focus-sense of June Cleaver as the idealized mother image toward which we all strive.

Somewhere between the good and bad of modern society lies the real Mother’s Day — in which we must simultaneously celebrate the wonderful diversity of families in the 21st century while condemning the real violence and harm done to so many of those families every day.

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The new letter from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will be distributed in church newsletters throughout May and June. In it, the bishops unsurprisingly state their support for the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, and call Catholics "to prayer, penance and sacrifice for the sake of renewing a culture of life, marriage and religious liberty."

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The Senate's 12-9 vote sends the bill to Democratic Gov. Jack Markell, who supports the measure and planned to sign it later in the day. It would go into effect July 1.

"I think this is the right thing for Delaware," the governor said after the vote, while posing for pictures with supporters outside his legislative office. "It took an incredible team effort."

Gay rights activists and their supporters in the chamber erupted in cheers and applause following the Senate vote.

Delaware's same-sex marriage bill was introduced in the Democrat-controlled legislature last month, barely a year after the state began recognizing same-sex civil unions. The bill won passage two weeks ago in the state House on a 23-18 vote.

While it doesn't give same-sex couples any more rights or benefits under Delaware law than those they have in civil unions, supporters argued same-sex couples deserve the dignity and respect of married couples. They also noted that if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars married gay couples from receiving federal benefits, civil unions would not provide protections or tax benefits under federal law to same-sex couples in Delaware.

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Brady announced his resignation on Tuesday in a letter to the state Republican party's central committee, telling the Associated Press that it was due to his wife's cancer, and not calls for his resignation over gay marriage.

From ABC7 Chicago:

In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Brady says his wife has been battling "very serious" cancer for two years and he wants to focus on her and their four children.

He declined to discuss divisions within the party since its poor showing in last year's elections, but said persistent calls for him to step down had nothing to do with his decision.

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Recent data shows that support for marriage equality has risen among all age groups, a trend Pew attributes in large part to the millennials' influence:

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In a seriously buzzkill message, Bishop Thomas Tobin issued a pastoral letter to his brothers and sisters in the Ocean State suggesting they might want to decline invitations once same-sex marriage becomes official in August. "It is important to affirm the teaching of the Church, based on God’s word, that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2357)," he writes, "and always sinful. And because 'same-sex marriages' are clearly contrary to God’s plan for the human family, and therefore objectively sinful, Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others."

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Along with the bullets, the Sigolsheim mayor was sent a copy of the interview scrawled over with homophobic slurs. He called the threat "odious."

As reported by English-language French news site the Local, Speitel is not the only French politician to receive death threats as the opposition to marriage equality in France becomes increasingly vocal -- and threatening:

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Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed the bill into law on the Statehouse steps Thursday evening following a final 56-15 vote in the House. The first weddings will take place Aug. 1, when the law takes effect.

"I've been waiting 32 years for this day, and I never thought it would come in my lifetime," said Raymond Beausejour, a 66-year-old gay North Providence man who has been with his partner for 32 years. "For the first time in my life, I feel welcome in my own state."

After Chafee signed the bill, the hundreds of people who gathered on the Statehouse grounds erupted into cheers as a chorus sang "Chapel of Love."

"Now, at long last, you are free to marry the person that you love," Chafee told the crowd.

The day was bittersweet for Deborah Tevyaw, whose wife, state corrections officer Pat Baker, succumbed to lung cancer two years ago. Months before she died, Baker, relying on an oxygen tank, angrily told lawmakers it was unfair that Tevyaw wasn't considered her wife in Rhode Island despite their marriage in Massachusetts.

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