According to The New York Times, police interrupted the wedding, in the first place as an attempt to protect them from physical abuse by a disapproving mob.

Considering the homosexuality bill in Uganda and the closeness of the country to Kenya, this issue in Africa has been prevalent for a time.

A mob formed after they heard about the couple’s private ceremony. A few of the spectators told wedding attendants they should be burned for agreeing with these acts.

“It’s what you are taught when you are young and what you hear in church. Homosexuality is unnatural. It’s wrong,” said  Kenyan police spokesman, Eric Kiraithe.

To read more the story, visit www.nytimes.com

The gay Kenyan couple at their ceremony. Coutesy of kentv.net

~ Quara Gant

O’Donnell sat down for an interview  to talk about her upcoming TV documentary “A Family Is a Family Is a Family.” The series will air on HBO starting this month and will focus on dynamics in different families in America today, specifically her own.

The show will also feature O’Donnell’s recent relationship with Kelli Carpenter and the children they raise together. HBO’s Web site has a forum for the show where viewers can share stories about their own unique families.

Read the full Q&A.

By Ben Wolford

Their beds may be lofted, but Andy Sokolich, left, and Adam Schulte still sleep together in their Johnson Hall dorm room. The university doesn’t have a policy regarding same-sex students living with their partners on campus. (Photograph by Caitlin Sirse)

If Adam and Andy break up, they’ll probably just draw a line down the middle of the floor. They could request to switch roommates, but they can’t break Residence Services’ contract and leave their dorm room in Johnson Hall. They don’t think they’ll break up, though, and they haven’t had any problems yet. Well, they’ve had a few problems.

“I usually wake up with an arm under my head and the other arm shoved up against the wall …” says Adam Schulte, sophomore biotechnology and math major.

“I told you, they take four inches off the side and add it to the end. That’s exactly how they get an ‘extra-long twin,’” says Andy Sokolich, freshman business and math major.

Residence Services has no policy regarding guys rooming with their boyfriends and women living with their girlfriends. So basically, they don’t not allow it.

Then why can’t heterosexual couples live with their significant others in Kent State’s dorm rooms?

“That’s a good question,” says Jill Church, associate director of Residence Services, “and I think it’s more rooted in that’s how we’ve always practiced it.”

Church says she doesn’t have a personal opinion about gay people living with their boyfriends or girlfriends. When I tell her Adam and Andy are dating and living together, she says she has no interest or grounds to do anything about it.

So with no administrative pressure discouraging gay couples from living together, the decision falls with the couples, and you can find a range of opinions.

“I asked my friends if they thought it was a good idea,” Schulte says. “The ones who were single said it would be a bad idea, but the ones in relationships said it would be a good idea. Probably because the ones who were dating thought it would be nice to live with the person they were dating.”

Before 1984, there weren’t many co-ed residence halls at all at Kent State, says Kim Ferguson, coordinator of residential communities. Now all of them have at least male and female floors.

Church says it’s likely dorm rooms will never be co-ed at Kent State, at least not any time soon.

“The reality is we’re a state institution, and we’re in Ohio,” she says. “Ohio is pretty conservative in that area.”

Kent State’s policy regarding transgender and gender-neutral housing

(This article originally appeared in the Winter 2009-10 print edition.)

Justice Minister Claudia Bandlon-Ortner of the Austrian Parliament photo from www.nationalparks.or.at/. ../71657/1/26346

The bill is to become a law January first. This will include access to a pension if one partner dies and alimony in the event of a split.

“We are living in the 21^st century and I’m very glad step is being taken today,” said Justice Minister Claudia Bandlon-Ortner during parliamentary debate.

To read the full article go here.

-Katelynd Jarvis

Jose Maria Di Bello and his partner Alex Frevre photo from sivida.org/

Jose Maria Di Bello and his partner Alex Frevre are now able to get married.

This moment is a grounding-breaking event in the country, which lies in a region where laws ban gay marriage. “On December 1st we will become man and man,” said Di Bello, welling up in tears as a city clerk gave him the paperwork.

Mayor Mauricio Macri said that they would not be appealing the motion. “We have to live with and accept this reality: the world is moving in this direction,” Macri said Friday, adding that it is important officials “safeguard the right of each person to freely choose with whom they want to form a couple and be happy.”

Judge Gabriela Seijas granted the request and said that the laws excluding same-sex couples violated the rights of equality. The Argentine congress is now considering changing numerous articles in the civil code in order to enable same-sex marriage.

“Currently no country in Latin America allows gay marriage, though some jurisdictions allow gay partners to form civil unions with many of the same rights.”

To read the full article go here.

-Katelynd Jarvis

A SkyWest employee accuse the company of discriminating against him and his partner. Photo courtesty of www.answers.com/ topic/skywest-inc.

Gilbert Caldwell says that SkyWest is breaking the law by refusing to give his husband the same free fares heterosexual spouses receive. According to the airline, “Gilbert Caldwell’s husband is his ‘travel companion,’ entitled to fly at a discount but not for free.”

Caldwell’s case is one of the first discrimination complaints that have been made since the passage of Proposition 8. Though the state court is still upholding Proposition 8, it ruled that “couples who married before the election could remain legally wed.”

To read the full article go here.

— Katelynd Jarvis

Census data shows similarities between straight and same-sex couples. Photo courtesy of thefbomb.org/2009/ 08/back-on-track.

The data shows nearly one-third of same-sex couples are raising children and also share similarities with same-sex couples when it comes to household income.

“It’s intrinsically interesting that same-sex couples who use the term spouses look like opposite-sex married couples even with a characteristic like children,” said Gary Gates, the UCLA demographer who conducted the analysis. “Most proponents of traditional marriage will say that when you allow these couples to marry, you are going to change the fundamental nature of marriage by decoupling it from procreation. Clearly, in the minds of same-sex couples who are marrying or think of themselves as married, you are not decoupling child-rearing from marriage.”

Along with the Census data, there was a study released by UCLA which found that Utah and Wyoming had the highest percentage of gay spouses in 2008, even though they are both very conservative states and do not have any laws that “provide legal recognition of gay relationships.”

To read the full article go here.

— Katelynd Jarvis