Figarelle wore a black suit provided by Men’s Warehouse, and McArthur wore a strapless white gown sent from Kleinfeld, setting of Say Yes to the Dress and it’s myriad offshoots.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Figarelle said:

‘It’s unfortunate it’s not more understood or accepted in our country. Love is genderless. It’s two souls, that’s it,’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101001/Lesbian-couple-Alaska-sex-pair-wed-Empire-State-Building.html#ixzz1mesndXX3

I couldn’t agree more.

In all, four couples won weddings in the Empire State building. Aterwards, all four couples’ weddings will be voted on again to decide which had the nicest one. That couple will win a $100,000.00 cash prize.

I hope you’ll join with me in wishing the very happiest of marriages to all four couples: McArthur and Figarelle, Phil Fung and Shawn Klein (the first male/male couple to marry in the Empire State Building), Angela Vega and Lubin Masibay, and Paula Cubero and Enrique Cattler. Whoever wins the prize money, you have all begun an amazing journey. Best wishes!

When wedding photographer Jerry Tomko survived stomach cancer in 2007 thanks to the excellent care he received at Thomas Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, he wanted to give back to those who had saved his life. And so it was that he asked the center to find a cancer patient or survivor who needed some nice wedding pictures.

For quite a while, the center didn’t have any ideas who Tomko could help. Then along came social worker and mother of four Melinda Muniz.

Muniz thought little of it when she began to feel tired every day last spring. After all, she was juggling a demanding career and four children as well as spending time with longtime love Christopher Jones, who is the father of her two younger children.

But then a tooth infection lead to dizziness, then fever, and she went to the emergency room for help. Doctors took a blood sample and discovered leukemia.

Late in may, she was transferred to Thomas Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in dire condition. Jones, a maintenance worker,quit night school to take care of the children and Muniz started around the clock chemotherapy. The couple had been engaged since 2009, but decided they didn’t want to wait anymore. With Muniz too weak to even make it to the hospital chapel, they were married in her room. Pictures were taken, but Muniz describes them as ‘grim.’

Thanks to some amazing medical advances and great care, Muniz managed to beat her cancer. Using her twin sister as a half match bone marrow donor, she’s doing better. Muniz and Jones decided to have a more traditional ceremony – hopefully with happier pictures.

An oncologist remembered Tomko’s offer and told him Muniz’s story… and a wedding album was born.

In addition to the photographs, Tomko provided the happy couple with a bouquet and limo. As you can see above, Muniz and Jones have beautiful photographs to contrast with the grim hospital room ones.

May they have many years to share their joy and their love.

In fact, Gregoire issued a statement after the vote that it is:

“a major step toward completing a long and important journey to end discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

It was passed without proposed amendments that would have allowed bakers and photographers a waiver from providing services to same sex couples due to religious belief, such as are granted to churches. Since the last time I heard, bakers weren’t churches, I think this is only right and fair. After all, in my bookselling days I had to sell books to people who were homophobic, racist, sexist, and all kinds of other things I find wildly offensive. As long as they weren’t breaking the law or strongly disrupting the business I was engaged in, I had to serve them to the best of my ability. I didn’t have to enjoy it, but I had to do it.

The new law is scheduled to go into effect ninety days after the end of the session next month, but opponents are already working to put a measure on the next ballot that would negate this vote.

Still, this signals a major turnaround in state marriage politics since the state legislature passed a Defense of Marriage Act in 1998. While the state Supreme Court upheld the act in 2006, it was overturned that same year by a gay civil rights measure. In 2007, a domestic partnership law was passed which the voters upheld.

Washington state legislature, I salute you! And may the voters of your state be more fair-minded and less paranoid than the ones in mine.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court has declared Proposition 8 a violation of the rights of gay Californians.

In his write up of the decision, Judge Reinhardt wrote:

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

Reinhardt was quick to say that this decision is only about this issue in this state, but the court’s decision that denying same sex couples the right to marry violates their rights as human beings and as citizens could well add weight to the case for marriage equality when it comes before the Supreme Court.

Sometimes justice is slow, but I firmly believe it will come for all of us. Today, I got another proof that my faith is justified. It is my fond hope that California will rejoin the ranks of those who offer full rights to all its citizens soon.

Since they got engaged in November, he and his partner, Aaron VanderYacht, have been finding they have a lot of questions about getting married as gay men. Naturally, they turned to the internet.

One frustrating Google search later, they had found a certain number of wedding-related services run by heterosexuals featuring rainbow flags that assured them they were welcome as customers, which was fine… as far as it went. What they couldn’t find was practical advice on how to throw a wedding with two grooms and zero brides.

So what do two guys looking for answers and not finding them do? They create the resource they’re looking for themselves. And so they started The Best Gay Wedding Blog Ever to document their wedding planning over the next year. As Kristen-Alexander says in his inaugural entry, dated January 10:

I thought it was time to hear stories and advice straight from the horse’s mouth, that horse being your’s truly!! So over the next, I dunno, year or so you and I will go on a journey. A journey to the big day: our wedding. I will share with you all the juicy experiences as my lovely groom and I try to figure out how the hell we are going to pull of a fabulous wedding on a budget. I am sure this experience will be full of hilarious stories, tears of joy, tragic tuxedos and terrible wedding cake! But best believe, by the time we are done you and your future Mr. or Mrs. will certainly know one thing: What not to do when planning your wedding!

All I can say is, I look forward to seeing what decisions messers Griffith and VanderYacht make.

Weir tweeted:

… he’s kind of everything that I’ve ever looked for and aspired to be in a relationship with.

That’s pretty much how I think people should feel about their life partners. Congratulations, Johnny and Victor! I wish you every happiness.

2012 has already brought happy news to more couples.

Basketball great LeBron James proposed on New Year’s Eve to his longtime love Savannah Brinson, the mother of his two sons. May they look that happy together for the rest of their lives.

Basketball legend Michael Jordan was ahead of the curve. He proposed to model Yvette Prieto, his girlfriend of three years, on Christmas Eve. Oh, in case you hadn’t heard, she said yes.

Last, but about a million miles from least, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin announced her engagement to longtime companion William ‘Willie’ Wilkerson. This will be the third trip down the aisle for Franklin, who is considering a summer wedding.

The sixty-nine-year-old bride assures us:

No, I’m not pregnant.

Rock on with your bad self, Queen Aretha! May you continue to delight us – and Mr. Wilkerson – for years to come.

While I admit I’ve never been that big on comic books so my knowledge may be somewhat lacking, this is the first time I’ve heard of a same-sex marriage in one. And the fact that it’s Archie, that inoffensive bastion of childhood innocence and suburban Leave it to Beaver golly gee whizness only makes this a more powerful statement, in my view.

So congratulations, Kevin and Clay! You may be imaginary, but your love is a big step along the way to marriage equality.

Now if only Archie would make up his mind between Betty and Veronica. You’d think seventy years would be plenty of time.

Oh, and see that huge head behind David? Yeah, that would be Scott’s boss, Conan O’Brien. Scott is the costume designer for Conan’s show. So when Scott and longtime love David decided to tie the knot while the show was in New York – where their marriage would be legal – Conan offered to marry them himself on the show. One quick ordination by the Universal Life Church later, he was legally empowered to do just that.

The grooms wore fabulous brocade jackets designed by Scott and – in Jewish tradition – were married under a chuppah. The one big question seems to have been which groom would smash the glass at the end of the ceremony. Two grooms, two glasses, no problem.

While the ceremony was largely light-hearted and did include several gentle ribs from O’Brien (You never designed me anything like that!), it was also a serious wedding ceremony. Both men got a bit choked up reciting their custom vows. When Scott vowed to “… fill your every day with so much love” I have to say I got choked up, too.

Go here. Watch the video, if you missed it on television. Bring a hankie.

Scott, David, mazel tov!

Traditionally, the form is ladies first. The bride’s parents were responsible for the entire celebration, and it was often the one day of her life that a woman got to be seriously celebrated. The world has changed, but ladies first is still the rule.

So how do we deal if there are two ladies getting married? What about when it’s two guys and there isn’t a lady to go first?

Well, at that point, we think back to kindergarten. Chances are that’s when you started learning about alphabetical order, right along with learning what an alphabet is.

Here’s how it looks:

Mr. and Mrs. Durward Elliot Bayless
request the honor of your presence
at the marriage of their son
Arthur Cyril
to
Mr. Abner Clayton DeVere

Or, if the happy couple is hosting their own celebration:

Mr. Arthur Cyril Bayless
and
Mr. Abner Clayton DeVere
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage

Two women marrying? It’s done just the same:

Miss Annabelle Daisy May
and
Miss Doreen Lola Ramsey
request the honor of your presence
at their marriage

But what if it’s not the happy couple, but a set of parents who are the same-sex couple? Not a problem! Here’s the drill:

Mr. Bernard J. Cummings
and
Mr. Barrisford Alan Greyson
request the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Gloria Daphne Greyson
to
Mr. Charles Leonard Hixon

See how easy that is?

Tune in tomorrow to see how to handle the question of wording the invitation when the celebration isn’t the wedding proper.

This morning, the United States became the thirtieth country in the world to allow gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members to serve openly in the military. And that means that after eleven years, Ross can tell people about his life partner, Dan Swezy.

Despite the fact that they live in Arizona, the couple decided to marry in Vermont. Only part of the reason was the fact that same-sex marriage is still illegal and unrecognized in the state where they live. The other reason was that Vermont is on the east coast, and therefore would allow them to marry at the very first possible moment after the ban against gays serving in the military was lifted.

And so at midnight, the pair exchanged vows, with Ross in his full dress uniform, just like any other military groom. Swezy, a civilian, wore a tux.

All the same, Ross doesn’t plan to make a big deal out of his marriage when he returns to his post at Fort Huachuca.

“Even though the law goes away, it will still be the white elephant in the room until everyone comes to terms with it.”

But he notes that the change in the law means that he no longer has to lie ‘several times a day’ to hide his sexual orientation.

I hope you will all join with me in wishing these two gentlemen every happiness and a long, loving marriage.

I only wish my father, a two-war Navy veteran, could have lived to see this day. He’d have been truly happy to see this.