EDGE on the Net

A anti-gay marriage group in Maryland was successful in collecting enough signatures to put the state’s gay marriage law on the November ballot, which means voters will ultimatly decide the issue.

Washington state officials on Monday released copies of signature petitions that forced a vote on a 2009 domestic partnership law, disclosing the names of signers after a judge rejected arguments that supporters could be harassed.

California’s largest gay rights group has decided against trying to have the state’s voter-approved ban on same-sex unions overturned next year.

GetEQUAL responded to yesterday’s vote by the North Carolina State Senate to send a homophobic state constitutional amendment to the voters in May 2012, by issuing lawmakers and leaders a blunt warning: "We will no longer accept state-sponsored hatred."

The North Carolina Senate on Tuesday, Sept. 13, approved an anti-gay ballot initiative that would not only place legal marriage out of reach for gay and lesbian families, but deny them domestic partnerships and civil unions as well.

North Carolina is the only state in the Southeast without a gay marriage ban in its constitution. The idea has gone nowhere in the last decade because Democratic leaders quashed Republican efforts to debate amendment referenda.

A ballot initiative promoted by anti-gay groups in North Carolina would not only deny gay and lesbian families marriage if approved by voters; it would also remove civil unions and domestic partnerships from the realm of legal possibility in the state.

California’s same-sex marriage ban faces its next legal test Tuesday when the state’s highest court attempts to shed light on whether the voter-approved measure’s backers have legal authority to appeal the federal ruling that overturned Proposition 8.

Anti-gay activists are trying to paint California’s new gay history law as a measure that will expose young children to homosexuality, much as proponents of Proposition 8 claimed in 2008.

In 2007, Tim Hardaway, an NBA star who played with the Heat, responded to news of a fellow hoops star coming out as gay with vitriol; now Hardaway is supporting three El Paso city officials who face punitive action from anti-gay activists.