After a tumultuous legislative session in Vermont, and a tons of legal rigmarole in Iowa, each of those states have added to the handful that grant full marriage equality to its citizens. All consenting adult citizens.

Freaking awesome.

Vermont was the first state to do so using the legislative route — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and ill-fated California were all mandated by state supreme courts.What’s phenomenal is the crazy majority that supported this in the senate (23-5) and house (100-49).

So gay Iowans will be able to get married by the end of April. Vermonters will have to wait until September, but New England in the fall is beautiful, so yay.

And if you didn’t know, Vermont has already been a pioneer in this arena: in 2000, it became the first state to grant civil unions to gay and lesbian couples. Booyah.

I write about gay news. Alot. It’s actually my job.

This morning I came across this website, which a bunch of people from Maine set up to counter the pending marriage bill that is about to make its way through the state’s legislative system.

Here’s the message on their front page:

Yeah, it’s not about fairness. Let’s eschew fairness.

Well, if legislators decided to stop working on the basis of fairness of all people, we would have

• institutionalized racial segregation
• women and poor men, especially those of color, couldn’t vote
• discriminatory pay practices
• no interracial marriage
• say bye bye to those wheelchair ramps: no ADA

So basically, doing what’s right is ALSO doing what’s fair. It makes me so angry and sad that we allow groups like this to separate the two concepts.

Photo by Puja

I grew up in New York, and one of the things you do as a New Yorker is make fun of the states around you, particularly Connecticut and New Jersey (especially New Jersey). But, as it turns out, Connecticut has become the third state to legalize same-sex marriage, sort of ahead of New York. I say sort of because Governor Patterson issued an order in May to recognize gay and lesbian marriages performed outside of the state, though same-sex couples still can’t actually, legally get married there (there are domestic partnership benefits, though).

So here’s the breakdown on statewide recognition of same-sex relationships. Some states with laws (not constitutional amendments) restricting marriage to heterosexual couples do offer domestic partnership and civil unions. Because of this, there are 17 states where the constitutional amendment’s language does not allow for even domestic partnerships or civil unions in lieu of marriage.

Full-on Marriage:
Massachusetts, California (pending Proposition 8 fails in November 8), Connecticut

Civil Unions:
New Jersey, Vermont, Washington D.C., Oregon, New Hampshire

Domestic Partnership Registry:
Hawaii, Maine, Washington

New York:
Recognizes marriages from different states and countries.

States that ban same-sex marriage by law or Constitutional Amendment:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona (current law; Constitutional Amendment proposed for Nov. 4) Arkansas, Colorado, Florida (current law; Constitutional Amendment proposed for Nov. 4), Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Source: Human Rights Campaign.

“]More than 35 Sudanese women wearing tight pants were arrested for “disturbing the peace” in Juba, Sudan on Sunday. They were taken by police, but then released without being charged on Monday after appearing in court.

Some of the women were able to avoid arrest by hiding in the Sudanese Gender Minister’s office.

“We saw about 30 girls in two trucks piled up like animals. One girl was just picked up and thrown into the truck,” government worker Nok Duany told Reuters.

Shockingly, the region is seen as a more liberal part of Sudan than the largely Muslim north.

According to SudanForum.net, eyewitnesses saw many women leave the court in blood-stained clothing, clearly beaten…

Virginia senators Jim Webb (D) and John Warner (R) introduced the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act on Monday, that would allot four weeks of paid leave for federal workers (fathers and mothers) for the birth or adoption of a child.

Can I just say that right off the bat, the fact that John Warner and Jim Webb introduced this bill is interesting it itself. Warner is a Republican, and providing discrimination protection tends to be a very non-Republican ideal. And 30 years ago, Webb wrote this very long essay in the Washingtonian about why women should not be in the military.

According to NOW, 1.8 million federal workers would be affected by this bill. The act would also let workers use up to 8 weeks of accrued sick time while they’re on leave trough the Family and Medical Leave Act (which is available to all workers in the U.S., and not just federal employees).

On a related note, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, introduced to Congress back in April, was written after a Ledbetter attempted to claim unequal pay at her company.

“Late in my career, someone left a note in my box at work showing my pay versus three males,” she told NPR in a report this morning. “We four were doing the exact same job, and their pay was drastically higher than mine.”

The Supreme Court ruled against her, that she passed the statute of limitations for when she filed the claim (which is 180 days after the unequal pay takes place). The argument, however, is that at most companies, employees aren’t allowed to talk about their salaries, so how would they necessarily know? This puts the responsibilities on managers who probably have a reason to pay some people less than others…

Here in California, our Legislature just passed a bill to ensure equal pay for equal work for both sexes (according to the census, women still only earn only 78 cents / dollar that men earn). Now we just need governor Schwarzenegger to sign it and *wham* us California ladies get equal pay… well, I guess that’s the hopeful version of what may come…

If you feel so inclined, contact your Senators (you get 2 of them, you know) and urge them  to vote.

Photo by Joguldi

While the Senate was deciding on a bill to ensure equal pay for women, Republican presidential nominee John McCain stayed on the campaign trail. While he wasn’t able to vote, he asserted his thoughts on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:

“I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems,” McCain told reporters yesterday. “This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system.”

He also said that women should simply have more training and education. You know those women with the college education and 5 years of work? Well, they need more training in order to be paid the same as a dude with the same credentials, apparently.
The “more education” argument probably does not apply in the case for the act’s inspiration, Lilly Ledbetter, who spent 19 years at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
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