Gay Wedding Plans At 2014 Rose Parade Spark Controversy

A small backlash is brewing over plans to include a gay wedding ceremony at the 2014 Rose Parade, which this year is themed "Dreams Come True."

Long-term gay couple Aubrey Loots and Danny Leclair are to be married atop the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's wedding cake-shaped float. Sharon Raphael and Mina Meyer, a recently-married lesbian couple who have been together for 42 years, will also join Loots and Leclair on the float.

San Diego resident Karen Grube launched a Facebook page campaign against the planned wedding ceremony, asking people to stay home and keep the TV off on the day of the Rose Parade to boycott the marriage equality message. Grube also encouraged people to contact Rose Parade sponsors like Disneyland, the Los Angeles Times and Taco Bell to voice their opposition.

"Now gay activists want to destroy the Rose Parade by performing a Gay Wedding[emphasis hers] on one of the floats," says the Facebook page's cover photo. "I guess that's what they mean by 'Dreams Come True' or is it nightmares?"

She defended her campaign to local paper Pasadena Star-News.

“Gay marriage is illegal in over 30 states, why would they promote something that is blatantly illegal?” Grube said to Pasadena Star-News. “That’s just stupid.”

Rose Parade Gay Wedding

At this year's Rose Parade, attendees can expect to enjoy the usual array of flowers, floats and marching bands, as well as an unexpected surprise to ring in 2014: a same-sex wedding ceremony.

With this Rose Parade the first since marriage equality passed in the Golden State, one Los Angeles gay couple will celebrate by marrying each other on top of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's wedding cake-shaped float. 

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GAY SON OF SF MAYOR GEORGE MOSCONE, WHO WAS SLAIN WITH HARVEY MILK, MARRIES PARTNER

Jonathan Moscone (left), the son of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, who was assassinated in 1978 with SF Supervisor Harvey Milk, married his partner on the mayor's balcony of SF City Hall on Friday, the NYT reports:

Mr. Moscone (left), 49, is the artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley. He graduated from Williams College and received a Master of Fine Arts in directing from Yale...Mr. Carbonaro, 46, is the associate general counsel of Clean Power Finance, a company in San Francisco that manages and makes investments in residential solar power. He graduated from Drexel University and received a law degree from Pace.

Mayor stripped of duties for declaring June LGBT pride month

An ongoing clash in Porterville, Calif., between the mayor and city council members over a proclamation designating June as LGBT Pride month, has cost the mayor and vice mayor their jobs.

Mayor Virginia Gurrola and Vice Mayor Pete McCracken were stripped of their largely ceremonial titles earlier this week after the other three council members — Brian Ward, Greg Shelton, and Cameron Hamilton — voted to strip them of their positions.

Under the city charter, the duties of mayor and vice mayor are rotated among elected council members, who select from their peers who will fill those positions. The charter also allows for council members to strip the mayor and vice-mayor of their duties by simple majority.

Gurrola and McCracken will remain active city council members, without their mayoral titles.

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Calif. governor Jerry Brown signs landmark transgender student rights bill

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the School Success and Opportunity Act into law, a landmark bill to ensure transgender youth have equal opportunities to fully participate and succeed in schools programs across the state.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D-Calif.)

The law, which goes into effect on January 1, 2014, is the first of its kind in the country, and requires that California public schools respect students’ gender identity and makes sure that students can fully participate in all school activities,sports teams, programs, and facilities that match their gender identity.

California Supreme Court Rejects Bid To Stop Gay Marriages

California's highest court refused Tuesday to block the state from sanctioning same-sex marriages while it considers a petition arguing that a voter-approved gay marriage ban remains valid in all but two counties.

Without comment, the California Supreme Court rejected a request from the elected government official in charge of issuing marriage licenses in San Diego County for an order halting gay marriages, which resumed in the state last month for the first time since the ban passed in November 2008.

County clerk Ernest Dronenburg Jr. sought the stay on Friday. He also asked the seven-member court to consider his legal argument that same-sex marriages still are illegal in most of California, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision widely regarded as having authorized them and the state attorney general's assertion that clerks throughout the state must issue licenses to gay couples.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriages to return to the nation's most populous state last month when it ruled that the sponsors of Proposition 8 lacked authority to appeal a federal trial judge's decision that the ban violated the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian Californians.

San Diego County clerk seeks end to Calif. gay marriages

A San Diego County government official in charge of issuing marriage licenses asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to stop gay marriages.

Ernest Dronenburg Jr. urged the state high court to immediately halt same-sex weddings while it considers his legal arguments that gay marriages remain illegal in California despite a U.S. Supreme Court’s decision widely regarded as authorizing gay weddings.

Ernest Dronenburg Jr.

Dronenburg asked for the halt Friday while the state Supreme Court considers his petition, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court decision applies only to the two couples named in the original federal lawsuit, and to the clerks in Alameda and Los Angeles counties where the couples applied for marriage licenses.

Dronenburg also argues that county clerks aren’t bound by orders from the governor, the state attorney general and other state officials to marry gay couples.

“County clerks carry out their duties, including the issuances of marriage licenses, without supervision or control of the governor or attorney general,” Dronenburg wrote in his petition. “Indeed, no statute requires county clerks to report to the governor or attorney general.”

The state Supreme Court on Monday refused a similar request to immediately stop gay weddings made by backers of California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state when passed by voters in 2008.

The supporters have made the same legal arguments as Dronenburg.

Gay rights activists arrested after Calif. city rescinds pride month proclamation

Three gay rights activists are facing charges Wednesday morning after protesting a city council vote to reject a proclamation passed by the mayor last month that declared June as LGBT Pride month in Porterville.

Observers said the protestors — members of the activist group Get Equal — stage a peaceful civil disobedience, and were quickly arrested and detained by police who refuse to cooperate and allow for the peaceful protest when approached by the demonstrators prior.

Most law enforcement agencies work with protestors before an event, to discover what attendees plan, and to explain arrest procedures, reported the Visalia Times-Delta.

But Porterville police refused discussions before the event, and booked those arrested at county facilities. Most other jurisdictions cite arrestees to appear at court, and release them after processing.

It was reported that police dragged people out of the council chambers in a scene was referred to as “almost like a brawl.”

Oh, the Porterville City Council was the only city government in the state to support Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriage in California in 2008.

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Kennedy rejects ‘emergency’ bid to stop gay marriages in California

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Sunday denied a last-ditch request from the sponsors of California’s now-overturned gay marriage ban to halt the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in America’s most populous state.

Kennedy turned away the appeal with no additional comment just as San Francisco’s gay pride parade was getting under way in San Francisco, where dozens of couples have gotten married since Friday and where the clerk’s office was expected to issue more licenses on Sunday.

Same-sex marriage opponents asked Kennedy to step in on Saturday, a day after the federal appeals court in San Francisco allowed same-sex marriages to go forward.

The opponents said the appeals court had acted about three weeks too soon when it cleared the way Friday for same-sex marriages to be legal in California for the first time in 4 ½ years by lifting a hold it had imposed on such unions while a lawsuit challenging Proposition 8, the gay wedding ban, made its way to and through the high court.

Same-Sex Marriages In California Should Begin Immediately

California Attorney General Kamala Harris gave a triumphant press conference Wednesday morning in reaction to the Supreme Court's decision to effectively dismiss California's Proposition 8, which barred same-sex couples from marrying.

In an exuberant speech delivered in downtown Los Angeles, Harris said that all 58 counties in California must abide by Northern California Judge Vaughn Walker's 2010 ruling that declared Prop 8 unconstitutional.

She also strongly urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the stay on same-sex marriages as soon as possible -- even before the usual 25-day waiting period until the Supreme Court clerk notifies the lower court of its judgement.

"I am absolutely saying that if the 9th Circuit lifts its stay before the 25 days, that marriages can resume in California -- and shall resume in California," Harris said. "As soon as they lift that stay, marriages are on."

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Rev. Ed Bacon of All Saints Church Talks Same-Sex Marriage With Oprah Winfrey

The Rev. Ed Bacon of the 4,000-member All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., told Oprah Winfrey this past Sunday that, if same-sex marriage were to become a dominant force in the United States, the institution of marriage would be "enriched" and not crumble, as some might fear.

"So a lot of people were afraid that this meant that the institution of marriage as we know it would fall apart," Winfrey told her panelists on this past weekend's "Super Soul Sunday" program. "Does this mean if gay marriage is legalized in more than 12 states, if it becomes a dominant force in the United States, does that mean that the institution of marriage has to be reexamined?"

"It's gonna be enriched," said the Rev. Bacon, who told Winfrey in 2009 that "being gay is a gift from God."

"I've never had a straight couple come to me and say, 'My marriage is in trouble because of the gay couple living next door.' To the contrary, I've had people come to me and say, 'Because of the love between Bob and Joe, I have learned how better to love my wife or my husband," he added.

The Episcopal priest, who was joined on the OWN network program by fellow guests Elizabeth Lesser and Mark Nepo, said he has officiated wedding ceremonies for "lots of" gay couples. Citing examples from his own parish, Bacon added that he believes exposure, such as heterosexual and homosexual couples worshipping together, helps to facilitate acceptance of the "other," in this case, gays and lesbians.

"The institution of marriage is already in trouble, long before gays were getting married," added Lesser, with Winfrey adding that "maybe the gay people can help it."

Potential Supreme Court Rulings on Prop. 8 and Marriage Equality

The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of its term in June on whether Proposition 8, California’s ban on marriage for gay and lesbian couples, violates the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.