and this fire needs to keep spreading-.. congress.. is a bunch of hacks... middle of the road.. con. and lib... are the same.. we need more fires ..

Senate majority leader blames S.F. for setting a same-sex 'wildfire'
Frist wants 'wildfire' of marriages stopped
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Washington -- San Francisco has ignited a "wildfire" of same-sex marriages across the country that must be stopped by amending the U.S. Constitution, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist declared Wednesday in prelude to a Senate hearing to explore doing just that.

The hearing was packed with lesbians and gays with children as witnesses declared that activist judges and renegade mayors are sending traditional marriage into a tailspin, creating a "legal domino effect'' that will force the entire nation to accept same-sex marriages barring a last stand by changing the nation's founding document.

"Same-sex marriage is likely to spread through all 50 states in coming years," Frist said. "We're going to act."


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Mayor may wed, too
By GREG CLARY, SULAIMAN BEG AND STEVE LIEBERMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Nyack Mayor John Shields jumped into the national same-sex marriage debate yesterday, vowing to help gay and lesbian couples go to court to get marriage licenses and offering to join the fight alongside his partner


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Wairarapa MP Georgina Beyer is quitting politics at the end of this parliamentary term, saying the "discipline and rigours" of life as an MP have become more and more difficult for her.


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go NY... we need more folks going to every single town and city trying to get married-.. and doing it every single day.. line up by the thousands, hundreds... or are just a single couple go today.. try to get married..

NYC rejects gay marriage applications
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
3/4/2004, 9:59 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP)-— Dozens of same-sex couples lined up outside the city clerk's office to obtain marriage licenses Thursday morning but were turned away with a letter explaining that gay marriages are illegal in the state.

On Wednesday, the city's top lawyer ruled that local law prohibits gay marriage, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed to enforce the law. New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer also said Wednesday that gay weddings are illegal, though one small-town mayor has conducted gay marriages and another plans to try to obtain license.


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City council aide blames firing on anti-gay bias
The president of the Birmingham NAACP said he was fired from his job as a City Council aide as punishment for being openly gay, a charge officials denied. Hezekiah Jackson said many of the council members resent his homosexuality.


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Gay-marriage amendment is on its way to the ballot
By Rebecca Walsh
The Salt Lake Tribune
    Utah voters will decide whether to amend the state Constitution to block gay marriages in November.
    Ignoring a crowd of more than 200 gay and lesbian couples and their supporters gathered in the Capitol rotunda and House and Senate galleries, lawmakers late Wednesday endorsed amending the constitution to stop same-sex unions.
"We're taking a dangerous step. We're opening up our constitution," said Stansbury Park Democratic Sen. Ron Allen. "What we're about to unleash is a very divisive wedge into our constitution."



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Supreme Court to hear transgender, transsexual case
Jennifer Hamilton
Pacific Business News
The Hawaii Civil Rights Commission is seeking to extend the state's sex-discrimination laws to protect workers who behave as the opposite sex.

A four-year-old dispute over whether the commission can investigate complaints from transgender and transsexual individuals will be heard next week by the Hawaii Supreme Court. The key is whether illegal sexual stereotyping is limited to a person's biological sex or also applies to a person's chosen sex.



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Finneran proposes pair of gay marriage ballot questions
(Boston-AP) -- Another twist in the gay marriage debate.
According to published reports, House Speaker Thomas Finneran has floated a proposal to split a possible gay marriage ballot question into two separate questions. One question would ask if the state should ban gay marriage.


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go LA!!!

LA Supervisors Slap Bush On Anti-Gay Amendment
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: March 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET
(Los Angeles, California)  As Air Force One was touching down in Los Angeles Wednesday County supervisors were planning a special welcome, voting to officially oppose the President's call for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage


The 3-2 vote is mostly symbolic but it is first time a major municipality has gone on record opposing the amendment. Supervisors did not, however, consider a call from the West Hollywood city council to follow San Francisco's lead and allow same-sex couples to marry.  That motion is slated to come up at a later meeting.


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this guy is going out of the way for us queers, give kerry a hand... to to bad kerry can not see us worth of marriage...truly this is a meaningless gesture to woo queers back into the folk...



Thursday, March 04, 2004
Kerry backs federal benefits for gay unions
By Evelyn Nieves and Jim VandeHei
The Washington Post
SAN FRANCISCO —
Sen. John Kerry, under fire from gay Democrats for opposing same-sex marriage, has promised that, if elected president, he would grant state-sanctioned gay couples the same 1,049 federal benefits married heterosexuals enjoy, according to people who met with Kerry on Friday.


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In just 30 days, aisle is cleared for gay marriage
Eric Zorn Published March 4, 2004
On Wednesday, Feb. 4, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that the state's constitution required same-sex couples be granted full marriage rights. Thus began Our Big Fat Gay Month, the wildest 30-day ride a social issue has taken in modern memory: