Earlier this week, New York City announced that so many couples had expressed interest in getting married this Sunday — the first day that gay marriage is legal in the state of New York — that they would have to hold a lottery. Interested couples had until noon today to register, and now, Marc LaVorgna, deputy press secretary to Mayor Bloomberg, tells New York magazine that a total of 823 couples did so, 59 more than the 764 slots that the city had planned on making available. The clerk's office in each borough has its own limit, and while all couples who registered for the outer boroughs were able to secure a spot, 533 couples registered for the 400 spots at the Manhattan clerk's office. But there is good news: The city has decided to expand the number of couples that the Manhattan office can handle to 459, and staffers will stay as late as necessary to process them all. The remaining 74 Manhattan couples will be dispersed to clerk's offices throughout the other boroughs.
Meanwhile, according to The Sydney Star Observer, church groups, anti-gay politicians and anti-marriage equality organizations will all gather on Sunday to protest against the first official day of legal same-sex marriage in New York. The National Organization for Marriage will protest marriage equality around the state on July 24, including the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, as well as upstate in Buffalo and Rochester, while Democratic Senator Ruben Diaz, Senior – one of the biggest opponents to same-sex marriage in the state senate – called on “thousands” of New Yorkers to attend a protest at Governor Andrew Cuomo’s New York City office. That rally will culminate, oddly, in a march to the United Nations. “I am not keeping quiet on this,” Diaz said. “We will continue this fight and we will struggle to get what’s right.” Perhaps the most predictable of all the planned protests however, is a pledge by Westboro Baptist Church to target the offices where people will actually be getting married. In a change of tack for Fred Phelps’ notorious group – who usually picket funerals – the infamous ‘God Hates Fags’ protesters seem intent on turning their attention to same-sex weddings. The group’s website has listed its plans to picket numerous city government offices where people plan to wed on Sunday, right in the faces of same-sex couples. The post on their website reads: “WBC will picket the reprobates of fag-infested New York state to remind them that God defined marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman for life. That means NO fag marriage, no dyke marriage and no divorce + remarriage! For their defiance of their Lord, New Yorkers will suffer the wrath of God being poured out on them from the sky, just as others in history who have followed this path experienced.”
A group of glitter-wielding gay "barbarians" on Thursday paid a visit to a clinic owned by GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, The Los Angeles Times reports that the colourfully dressed group had scheduled an appointment at Bachmann & Associates and were demanding to be disciplined. The barbarians appeared to be taking Marcus up on his belief that gays and lesbians are in need of "discipline" to remedy their "sinful nature," a philosophy he espoused over a year ago on a Christian radio show. "We have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined," Marcus said on the "Point of View" radio talk show on May 12, 2010. "Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps." Bachmann & Associates recently denied using a technique of "praying away the gay" with gay people in order to make them straight, but undercover video appeared to show that the clinic believes that prayer can alter people's sexual orientation. Once the horde was notified that Marcus, a strategist for his wife's presidential campaign, was not at the clinic, their leader told the group, "All right, folks, Marcus isn't coming out so we're gonna have to act like barbarians." With that, the smiling group of about 10 showered the waiting room with glitter while chanting, "You can't pray away the gay, baby I was born this way." LGBT activist Nick Espinosa took responsibility for the actions via Twitter, Facebook and a statement that was posted online. “Michele and Marcus Bachmann think gay people are barbarians? I think it is clear to everyone who the real barbarians are, based on the Bachmanns’ archaic views on LGBT equality,” Espinosa, who was behind other glittery protests, said in the statement. Earlier this month, Michele Bachmann signed an anti-gay-marriage pact drafted by The Family Leader in Iowa that also suggested black children were better off during slavery than they are today.
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