American Indian lesbian couple say their rights not being honored

A lesbian couple in Oklahoma, who have not been permitted to file their marriage certificate with the Cherokee Nation, said Wednesday they deserve the same legal rights given to straight couples. Dawn McKinley and Kathy Reynolds said they will sue if the tribe does not lift a moratorium on same-sex marriages put in place a day after they received their marriage license application.

The Cherokee women were married Tuesday in a Cherokee ceremony at Mohawk Park in Tulsa, but the Cherokee Nation court clerk would not record the marriage amid a tribal dispute over same-sex marriages. The Cherokee couple received their license application from the court Thursday. The next day Darrell Dowty, chief justice of the Judicial Appeals Tribunal, ordered a moratorium on applications for same-sex couples.

"They issued it; now honor it," said McKinley, 32. "We are their people, and they shunned us. It's hard enough that we are shunned by everyone in Oklahoma, but to be shunned by our own people..."

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Mass. Senate Votes To Repeal Out-Of-State Gay Marriage Ban
by Michael J. Meade
365Gay.com Newscenter

(Boston, Massachusetts) The Massachusetts Senate voted Wednesday to repeal a 1913 law that Gov. Mitt Romney is using to stop same-sex couples from outside the state from marrying.

The overwhelming vote by the Democratic controlled Senate is a slap in the face to the Republican Governor, but it may not make it through the House, and even if it does, Romney has vowed he will veto it.

The law dates back to a period when interracial marriage was legal in Massachusetts but illegal in most other states.

This week same-sex couples began to get the first legally sanctioned marriage licenses in the country but Romney has warned that out-of-state couples cannot marry in the state.