Christie, of course, governs a state that, polls indicate, supports establishing same-sex marriage and protecting a woman’s reproductive rights. So how does he walk the fine line, governing effectively in a state whose constituents have progressive social values, without disqualifying himself from the 2016 Republican primaries in which conservative Tea Party activists are the gatekeepers to the nomination?

In 2003, New Jersey was one of the first states to pass “domestic partnerships,” but the state’s Supreme Court struck them down. In 2006, the New Jersey Legislature voted to permit “civil unions.” In 2009, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine committed to sign a marriage equality bill if the Democratic Legislature sent one to his desk. They weren’t able to make it happen in the few remaining months of Corzine’s term.

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On his blog, Scott wrote that "I was literally yanked backstage and told that my look from head to toe 'wasn’t acceptable'":

It’s not just about the fact that BET forced me to pull my hair back, asked me to take off my makeup, made me changed my clothes and prevented me from wearing a heel. It’s more so that from the mentality and environment created by BET made me feel less than and that something was wrong with who I am as a person.

In a statement released to the AP, BET has apologized:

"BET Networks embraces global diversity in all its forms and seeks to maintain an inclusive workforce and a culture that values all perspectives and backgrounds," the statement read. "The incident with B. Scott was a singular one with a series of unfortunate miscommunications from both parties. We regret any unintentional offense to B. Scott and anyone within the LGBT community and we seek to continue embracing all gender expressions."

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"As my LGBT fans and friends always said to me, 'I knew Laday Gaga when,'" Gaga said. "Well, look who the star is now. Now I get to say that I knew you when. Now I get to say that I knew you when you suffered, when you felt unequal, when you felt there was nothing to look forward to."

Waving a rainbow flag, Gaga then sand the national anthem:

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USA Today isn't exactly a bastion of profound insight – it's best known as the newspaper you find outside your hotel room door in the morning. But it still deserves a very special shout-out for condescending, heterosplaining crap anyway. In the story, Sharon Jayson says that "Just because same-sex couples can legally marry doesn't mean they will" and that "marriage isn't for everyone." Whoa whoa whoa SLOW DOWN, USA Today. The Supreme Court didn't just make marriage mandatory for every homosexual in America? Jayson goes on to quote a University of Minnesota researcher who observes, "Some gays and lesbians clearly want to get married, but others are unsure or reject marriage for themselves." I feel a "The more you know" rainbow coming on here.

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While the ACLU previously pushed for a marriage between the show's gay couple, Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell’s (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), who together have adopted a girl named Lily, the show didn't want to cave into "political pressure," Lloyd told EW.

Now, however, “It’s certainly something we are contemplating on the show in ways we wouldn’t have in prior seasons," said Lloyd.

Lloyd told EW, “As you can imagine in Cam [Eric Stonestreet] and Mitchell’s [Jesse Tyler Ferguson] life, they would be feeling that a door has opened that was closed to them. Wouldn’t it be pretty tempting to think about walking through it? We imagine a lot of gay couples today are deciding whether to get married now that it’s open to them. From our standpoint, that’s something to explore.”

“It’s a funny thing, sitting around and celebrating for your characters on a day like this,” said Lloyd. “We were happy for Mitch and Cam today!”

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Don’t misunderstand me: This was a great day. Same-sex marriage came to California, and DOMA, a stupid, nasty law, is history. The Court acted well. But the judges’ opinions leaven the heroic tale with some comic relief.

DOMA declares, in pertinent part, that the word "marriage," wherever it appears in the U.S. Code, "means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." The rule applies indiscriminately across all federal laws, producing some weird results. Federal ethics rules bar officials from participating in matters in which their spouses have a financial interest — but not if they're same-sex spouses. It is a federal crime to assault, kidnap or kill a member of the immediate family of a federal official in order to influence or retaliate against that official — but not if you do that to a same-sex spouse. Ditto Social Security, federal pensions, taxation of inheritances (which was the issue in today's case), and over a thousand other provisions.

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But then the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and dismissed a Proposition 8 appeal, clearing the way for same-sex marriage in California.

Bell is far from the first straight person to boycott the institution in the name of marriage equality. Back in 2003, the Village Voice ran a piece about the trend of doing just that among progressive heterosexual couples. The National Marriage Boycott has gotten more than 15,000 signatures from gays and straights alike who have pledged to wait to marry until "full federal marriage equality" is achieved. Shortly after Bell's announcement, a straight couple that had "always said we wouldn't marry while our queer friends couldn't" took to MetaFilter to ask whether they should marry now, given the SCOTUS news.

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In response -- with a tip of the hat to New York magazine's "approval matrix" -- we presented our gay marriage "courage-meter." On the x-axis is timing -- who was ahead of the curve, and who came to the party late. The y-axis represents who showed guts and risked political capital for their support.

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“If Bill Clinton was ‘the first black president,’ Anthony Kennedy has now firmly secured his place in history as ‘the first gay justice,'" said former Kennedy clerk Michael Dorf, who now teaches law at Cornell.

Kennedy has often confounded liberals and conservatives alike with his unpredictable decision-making. "On most cases of great moment, the intellectual battlefield of the Supreme Court has shrunk to the space between this one man's ears," Time magazine's Massimo Calabresi and David Von Drehle wrote in their 2010 profile of the justice.

But on gay rights, Kennedy is atypically consistent. "As the author of Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas and now United States v. Windsor, Justice Kennedy makes clear that he not only accepts, but welcomes the task of writing majestic opinions affirming the dignity of gay persons and couples," Dorf added.

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Shortly after midnight on June 28, 1969, police in New York raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, arresting and harassing the gay clientele. It was like countless previous police raids on gay clubs until a series of escalating events led to open rebellion in the Village, and sparked the beginning of the gay equality movement. A year later, June 28 marked the first Gay Pride protests in a handful of major cities. To this day, most Pride rallies, including those in other countries, are still held at the end of June in honor of Stonewall, and this weekend's festivities in San Francisco, New York and other cities promise to be all the more buoyant, given the Supreme Court's rulings.

Coincidentally, today also marks the 10-year anniversary of the day the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down anti-sodomy laws. It was an early victory in a string of legal advances for LGBT equality, leading to today's.

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The California National Guard will have two booths at this weekend's event, tabled by gay soldiers who have volunteered to answer questions about military life for out service members.

The military has loomed large over the city's 2013 pride, as organizers recently stripped Pfc. Bradley Manning of an honorary role as Grand Marshal following backlash among conservation and military-affiliated LGBT individuals and groups. The event board released a statement this spring rescinding Manning's honorary title, and reaffirmed their position earlier this month:

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The announcement came as a shock to some, but the end of Exodus had been a long time coming, as Chambers told Salon. "In my gut I knew that would actually come to fruition at some point during my leadership," he said of the decision. "We've modified as much as we can modify; this organization still holds a lot of negative connotations and a lot of bad memories for people, and we needed to just simply close the doors."

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In a recent interview with The Washington Blade, the 44 year-old LGBT advocate spoke about his vision for an a more LGBT-friendly Air Force:

“My view about government is you should always use those resources that are available to you first before you move up to the next level, so I think there are a number of things we can do inside this building for the Department of Defense,” Fanning said. “If the president wanted to do that for the government at large, that’s a different issue, but we have the ability within the Department of Defense to codify this without having the president issue an executive order.”

Fanning also said he backs the idea of openly transgender service in the military. Currently, openly transgender people are unable to serve in the armed forces and face a medical discharge if their gender identity becomes known.

“I think that the military is stronger, institutions are stronger, and society is stronger the more inclusive that we are,” Fanning said. “So, wherever we can root out discrimination, I think it’s a positive thing.”

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Sixty percent of Americans now say they have a close friend or family member who is gay, an 11 percent jump from 2010. In the 1990s, most Americans said exactly the opposite.

Essentially, a progressive societal shift has taken place — what was once considered taboo has now become polite dinner table conversation in a good number of American households. And while civil rights advancements almost always provoke some societal tension, this trend toward a humanization of the subject may largely insulate the LGBT equality movement from the setbacks that have sometimes befallen the reproductive rights movement.

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McCain credits her daughter Megan with opening her eyes and "challenging" her to do more to support gay rights -- and that may not be the only case of familial influence going on in the McCain household.

When asked about her husband Sen. John McCain -- who is currently working pretty hard to keep protections for LGBT individuals out of immigration reform -- McCain said a change of heart (and policy persuasion?) may be on the horizon: "I think he's coming around," she said. "My husband and I have differed on many issues over the years … I think down the line we'll see our country changing … on this issue I know he believes what's right."

You can listen to the full podcast here.

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"May a lesbian marry a gay man?" he told the crowd. "My answer is 'yes,' because in that instance the capacity to consummate the union is there. The anatomy is there. The possibility of conception is there." Apparently in Cruz's mind, "consummation" is limited strictly to those activities which can result in conception, and conception is good enough to call it a marriage. Cruz went on to to discuss marriage equality, saying, "For the Church, even if you turn it upside down and call it by another name, it would still not be marriage. For the Church, even if a hundred [judges] bless a same-sex wedding, it would still not be effective." Who needs love or even a like-minded orientation to get the Church's blessing anyway, when you've got straight up anatomy?

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"Senator Carper believes it is important for federal law to explicitly prohibit workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation -- in the same way that current law addresses race, sex or religion -- in order to ensure that all Americans are protected equally under the law," Ian Sams, a spokesman for Carper, told the Huffington Post.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid became the 50th co-sponsor -- including Republican Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine -- and has said the Senate will take up the legislation "soon." Only five Democrats -- Sens. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia -- have not yet signed on as co-sponsors.

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A bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would require the Department of Defense to conduct an internal review of policies and prosecutions related to military members living with HIV.

Currently the military can try service-members with HIV under a variety of charges, including failing to obey an order for having unprotected sex, not disclosing an HIV-positive status, or for aggravated assault, wherein HIV is the factor for the more serious charge.

The amendment would be the first time Congress has voted on HIV-criminalization matters since the passage of the 1990 Ryan White CARE Act, which required states to certify they had a process to prosecute deliberate transmission of HIV.

Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) are expected to introduce the amendment Thursday evening, Lee’s spokeswoman, Carrie Adams, said in a phone interview.

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