Md. may recognize gay marriages
BaltimoreSun.com reports Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler is looking into whether the state can recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, and his office plans to issue an opinion in the coming weeks.
State law defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but Maryland also generally acknowledges couples married elsewhere.
Gansler, a Democrat, supports gay marriage. While Maryland has extended a variety of protections to same-sex couples in recent years, it has stopped short of legalizing marriages or civil unions.
Gay-rights advocates say the recognition of out-of-state marriages will strengthen relationships and confer hundreds of rights, benefits and responsibilities that same-sex couples currently lack.
Stonewall exhibit opens in N.Y.
Advocate.com reports in honor of this month’s 40th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, the New York Public Library opened “1969: The Year of Gay Liberation” on June 1.
The exhibit features photos, documents and other artifacts that trace the birth of the U.S. gay-rights movement. Included are photographs by activist Diana Davies and a letter to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller from the Gay Activists Alliance requesting a meeting to discuss gay rights.
The free exhibit will run at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan through the end of June.
Nev. lawmakers reject partnership bill veto
Yahoo News reports Nevada’s Assembly voted May 31 to override Gov. Jim Gibbons’ veto and to change state law so that domestic partners, gay or straight, will have many of the rights and benefits offered to married couples.
The Assembly’s 28-14 vote, the bare two-thirds majority needed, followed the state Senate’s vote a day earlier to enact the measure over the conservative Republican governor’s objections.
The bill provides that domestic partners have the same rights as married couples in matters such as community property and responsibility for debts. It also prohibits discrimination against domestic partners.
— Larry Nichols