NewsWrap for the week ending June 29, 2013

SUMMARY

Wedding Planners Field Day - California lesbian and gay couples doubly benefit from the U.S. Supreme Court's two marriage equality rulings on June 26th, as the high court rejects the legal standing of the supporters of the state's marriage equality-banning Proposition 8 to defend it in court – followed in less than 48 hours by the first post-ruling legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples in the state – and in the case of 84-year-old New York widow Edith Windsor rules as unconstitutional a key provision of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, that denies federal recognition to same-gender couples married in states where they're legal ...

Change Partners - newly pro-marriage equality and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd unseats anti-equality Julia Gillard to again take the country's helm in a snap election at the Labor Party caucus ...

Too Late to Discriminate - Australian lawmakers add sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex  status – with worrisome religious exemptions – to the country's Sex Discrimination Act ...

Legislative and Literal Rocks - to no one's surprise, the upper chamber of Russia's parliament approves a bill criminalizing "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations," a ban on the adoption of Russian orphans by foreign same-gender couples, and a three-year prison term for blasphemy, while dozens of outnumbered activists are assaulted by nationalist extremists and then arrested at an unsanctioned LGBT rights rally in St. Petersburg ...

Pride Endures - Macedonia Pride is marred by a mob assault on the building housing the Skopje LGBT Centre, and a mob spewing anti-gay obscenities and throwing objects at the house where a well-known openly gay Macedonian TV star cares for his ailing, elderly mother ...

Contraindications - thousands march to protest and mock a proposed "gay cure" bill in Brazil ...

Poster Boys - Bert and Ernie's Moment of Joy covers The New Yorker to celebrate the demise of Prop 8 and DOMA ....

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