President Barack Obama said today that getting involved in the Proposition 8 case to be heard by the US Supreme Court this month was not something his administration 'could avoid.'

Obama met with reporters a day after his Justice Department filed a 'friend of the court brief' in the case which challenges the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8, a referendum approved by voters in 2008 banning gay marriage.

Openly gay congressman Mark Takano has only been in office for less than two months but he's already showing that he's not afraid to speak up when it comes to LGBT equality.

The freshman from California is asking President Barack Obama to get involved in the upcoming Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 which bans gay marriage in Takano's state.

President Barack Obama has nominated Todd Hughes, an attorney with the Justice Department, to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

If approved by the Senate, Hughes would be the first openly gay justice to sit on the federal appeals court bench.

But Obama, quickly becoming the most pro-gay president in US history, has been down this road before.

The Republican leadership of the US House of Representatives, currently locked in a major budget war with President Barack Obama, has quietly raised the limit it had set for itself to defend the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act in court to $2 million.

The 1996 law that keeps the US government from recognizing same-sex marriages will be reviewed by the US Supreme Court next year. Obama asked the Justice Department not to defend the constitutionality of the law in courts last year so the Republicans stepped in and hired a private law firm to handle the appeal.

A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Thursday (18 October) ruled 2-1 that the US Defense of Marriage Act, defines marriage as between a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

A federal appeals court in Boston also found DOMA unconstitutional earlier this year and the issue is expected to be taken up by the US Supreme Court during its current term.

The New York case was filed by Edith Windsor who sued because she was required to pay a $350,000 federal estate tax bill. The government does not recognize her marriage to her late wife Thea Spyer.

The Brazilian state of São Paulo organized a collective ‘gay partnership day’ in which 46 couples had their relationship registered as a civil union, followed by a religious blessing and an all night party.

The event was a partnership between the government of the state of São Paulo, its department of justice and the leisure centre of northeastern traditions (CTN) in the city of São Paulo.

While the US is divided over a fast food chain, President Barack Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney, have kept away from the culture war skirmish.

With politicians and talking shows hyperventilating over Chick-fil-A, neither candidate is wasting campaign energy over the dust-up.

A 3 August article in Politico noted that while the chicken debate was tasty fodder for  the conservative and liberal bases, it didn't help either candidate.

In two separate cases that test the law as never before, a three-judge panel on the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has found that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

DOMA prevents the US government from recognizing same-sex marriages even in states where such marriages are legal so couples cannot file joint federal tax returns or receive survivor benefits if one spouse dies.

The judges found that denial of federal benefits that opposite-sex couples automatically enjoy violates the guarantee of equal protection under the US Constitution.

Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar winning screenwriter and LGBT activist, is taking President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to task for their positions on gay marriage.

Obama, who famously said he is still 'evolving' on the issue, gets credit from Black for his Justice Department's progress on LGBT issues. But Black points out that many are 'frustrated with Obama's sluggish, self-described 'evolution.''

With a federal courtroom in Boston packed with more than 100 inlookers, opening arguments took place Wednesday (4 April) in a case that challenges the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for the first time.

DOMA defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. It was passed by both houses of Congress by wide margins in 1996 and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton.

A three-judge panel on the First Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in two separate cases that test the law as never before.

Australian gay couples who married in Canada have 'nothing to fear' despite the legal status of thousands who tied the knot there being thrown into doubt this week.

Foreign couples who walked down the aisle in the North American country were seemingly divorced overnight after Canada's Department of Justice filed a document declaring same-sex marriages involving overseas couples are invalid.