The San Jose Mercury News reports that week one of the federal trial challenging the constitutional validity of Proposition 8 came to a close Friday, the defence cross-examining two of the witnesses for the plaintiffs, Helen Zia, a San Francisco writer who managed to marry her partner mere months before Proposition 8 returned the state’s ban on gay marriage, and Cambridge University professor Michael Lamb, whose research concludes that same sex couples can raise children equal to or better than opposite sex couples. Testimony will commence Tuesday, the plaintiffs confident that they rest their case by Wednesday.
The Los Angeles Times editorial on the marriage test, writing that “not because we believe there is necessarily anything different about same-sex relationships, but because it doesn’t matter if there is. Same-sex couples shouldn’t have to prove that their marriages would be as “normal” as those of heterosexuals or meet some kind of artificial bar – a bar that many heterosexual couples fall short of – for an ideal marriage,” concluding that “only in a hearing on same-sex marriage would we hear arguments judging whether a relationships between two adults is loving and committed enough to gain legal and social standing – evidence on its own that homosexuals, who have long faced unreasoned hatred and abuse in many forms, and being singled out for the withholding of this basic societal right.”
NPR on the Justice Department’s move to intervene in a lawsuit on behalf of a gay 15 year old high school student known as Jacob, who was repeatedly beaten up for being too effeminate, the suit itself a novel interpretation of the Title IX statute that prohibits discrimination against students based on gender, attorneys for the Obama administration arguing that the law also covers discrimination based on gender stereotypes – boys being beaten up for being effeminate.
An update on an early posting, as Billboard magazine reports that Lady Gaga has postponed upcoming performances, including one tomorrow in Atlantic City, New Jersey, as well as an appearance at a Hands Up for Marriage Equality benefit that was to follow, but that all appearances will be rescheduled. Thursday, Gaga passed out before a concert at Purdue University in Indiana, suffering from dehydration and exhaustion.
Adam Lambert tells PopEater that he has acting ambitions, and wants to appear on Gossip Girl, if only to be close to Chace Crawford.
Gorgeous Garrett Neff stars in the Trussardi 1911’s spring and summer 2010 collection campaign.
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