S.C. bill would allow married same-sex couples to file joint state tax returns

The top Democrat in the South Carolina House says same-sex couples who are legally married in other states should be able to jointly file their state income taxes.

A bill filed Wednesday by House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford would mean the couples wouldn’t have to file separate tax returns.

The Columbia Democrat says the requirement to file excess paperwork is not only discriminatory, but a waste of time and money.

Same-sex marriages are legal in 17 states.

In 2006, South Carolina voters approved amending the constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. The definition was already in state law, but legislators argued the change was needed to bar recognition of same-sex unions from other states.

Rutherford filed separate legislation Wednesday aimed at deleting that amendment.

Dick and Lynne Cheney Voice Support for Marriage Equality on 'The View'

Wait for it... about 1.35

Gay Teen Graeme Taylor Speaks Out For Suspended Mich. Teacher

In honor of Anti-Bullying Day, Howell High School teacher Jay McDowell donned a purple shirt to show his solidarity with struggling gay teens after a spade of recent suicides nationwide.

According to a WJBK report, an inquisitive student asked McDowell why he had asked a fellow student to remove their Confederate flag belt buckle. The question prompted a discussion -- over the difference between Confederate symbols and gay rights symbols -- which ended in McDowell suspending two students who said they refused to accept their homosexual peers.

McDowell was reprimanded by school officials and suspended for a day without pay, according to the AP.

Fourteen-year-old Graeme Taylor, an openly gay student, came to McDowell's defense at a recent school board meeting.

The video of Taylor's speech went viral this week, posted on popular blogs and spread through social media websites. The "It Gets Better Project," an effort to offer support to bullied gay teens, also posted the footage of Taylor's defense on their website.

Moms of 'Daphne' and 'Princess Boy' Speak Out

The mothers of 'Daphne' and 'Princess Boy' sat down with Meredith Vieira today to talk about their children, and accepting them for who they are.

San Andreas fault giving off mysterious tremors

Findings suggest underground stress is building up faster than expected

Scientists have detected a spike in underground rumblings on a section of California's San Andreas Fault that produced a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in 1857.

What these mysterious vibrations say about future earthquakes is far from certain. But some think the deep tremors suggest underground stress may be building up faster than expected and may indicate an increased risk of a major temblor.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, monitored seismic activity on the fault's central section between July 2001 and February 2009 and recorded more than 2,000 tremors. The tremors lasted mere minutes to nearly half an hour.
Unlike earthquakes, tremors occur deeper below the surface and the shaking lasts longer.

During the study period, two strong earthquakes hit — a magnitude-6.5 in 2003 and a magnitude-6.0 a year later. Scientists noticed the frequency of the tremors doubled after the 2003 quake and jumped six-fold after 2004.

Tremor episodes persist today. Though the frequency of tremors have declined since 2004, scientists are still concerned because they are still at a level that is twice as high as before the 2003 quake.

The team also recorded unusually strong rumblings days before the 2004 temblor.

Results of the research appear in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The work was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey and National Science Foundation.

"The fact that the tremors haven't gone down means the time to the next earthquake may come sooner," said Berkeley seismologist and lead researcher Robert Nadeau.

Nadeau first discovered tremors deep in the San Andreas Fault in 2005. Before that, the phenomenon was thought only to occur in Earth's subduction zones, where one tectonic plate dives beneath another.

USGS seismologist Susan Hough found the latest observations intriguing, but said it's too soon to know what they mean.

"We don't have enough data to know what the fault is doing in the long term," said Hough, who had no part in the research.

From MSNBC