This is unfortunate:

According to multiple sources, the iconic cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris was evacuated today after a far-right Catholic activist shot himself in the mouth in front of the altar in front of hundreds of tourists, in what appears to have been a protest against same-sex marriage.... Dominique Venner, age 78, was a well-known essayist and a former member of a paramilitary group known as the Secret Army Organization (OAS), which waged a bombing and assassination campaign in the early 1960s to protest France giving Algeria its independence. Mr. Venner was also close to the anti-marriage equality movement and an outspoken critic of France’s new marriage equality law, which President François Hollande signed on Saturday. He made no verbal statement before he shot himself, but a letter was found on his person. The contents of Mr. Venner’s letter have not yet been released.

The vote is supposed to come around 10 AM our time. The Minnesota state house has already approved the bill, and the state's Democratic governor has pledged to sign it. If the Minnesota senate approves the bill, Minnesota would become the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage—and the third since the Supreme Court heard arguments in cases challenging the federal "Defense of Marriage Act" and California's Proposition 8.

Conservatives complained about ads like the one above before Prop 8 passed in 2008, and they complained about protests outside Mormon temples after it passed. But those protests worked. Mother Jones:

It's remarkable what has happened in the marriage fight since the Mormons decided to abandon it. Consider that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the single biggest funder and organizer of the 2008 campaign to pass California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in one of America's most liberal states. The church is estimated to have directed at least $20 million to that effort, along with significant organizing clout. Documents unearthed by activist Fred Karger showed that the Mormons had 77 people working full time at the church's Salt Lake City headquarters to get Prop. 8 passed.

The church, in fact, had been a crucial (if not always visible) player since the 1990s, when it helped fend off efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Hawaii and California. As far back as 1996, high-ranking LDS officials were coordinating behind the scenes and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to orchestrate what became the first state-level vote to ban gay marriage in Hawaii. Top church officials were also heavily involved in the creation of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the primary player over the last decade in the fight to outlaw gay unions.

But after the Mormon involvement in Prop. 8 was fully exposed, the backlash was severe—and apparently unexpected. The church became a target for public protests, and lost a considerable number of members who were unhappy with its involvement in a political issue that had caused individual LDS families a lot of grief. In the campaign's aftermath, a top church leader even apologized to gay church members for the pain they'd suffered.

This is not to say that the Mormons have had a change of heart about gay marriage. The church is still adamantly opposed to it.

No one was asking the church—the Mormon church or the Catholic church or any other church—to change its doctrine and embrace gay marriage. (No one who isn't a member, perhaps I should say.) All non-Mormons want from the Mormon church is to be left alone. The Mormons and the Catholics and the Batshits are free to impose their own religious beliefs on their own members. They don't have a right to impose their beliefs on non-members. And Mormons and Catholics are not being oppressed—or persecuted for their faith—when their religious beliefs are not given the force of law. Married gay people don't oppress Mormons and Catholics anymore than divorced straight people do. (Via JoeMyGod.)

BREAKING: Key vote puts Minnesota in line to become 1st Midwestern Legislature to pass gay marriage law. -SS
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 9, 2013

Freedom To Marry:

Today, the Minnesota House of Representatives voted in favor of the freedom to marry by a vote of 75-59! The bill will now be heard by the full Senate next week. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the marriage bill on Monday, May 13.

UPDATE: HA HA HA HA HA! Stupid haters!

Minnesota voters went to the polls last November and rejected a constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage, the first electorate in the nation to do so. In years past, Republicans placed anti-gay amendments on the ballot as a means of motivating their voters, but that tactic backfired in Minnesota in 2012. Not only was the Republican-backed amendment rejected 52.6% to 47.4%, but voters returned control of the state legislature to the DFL, Minnesota’s Democratic party.

Hoist with their own hatetard.

Now that nearly one out of every four states has legalized gay marriage, and now that the Supreme Court is on the verge of releasing its decisions on Prop 8 and DOMA, US Catholic bishops are sending out an insert to drop in bulletins in Catholic churches nationwide, ThinkProgress reports. The insert reads, in part:

The Court is expected to rule on both cases by the end of June. A broad negative ruling could redefine marriage in the law throughout the entire country, becoming the “Roe v. Wade” of marriage. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has joined with many other organizations in urging the Supreme Court to uphold both DOMA and Proposition 8 and thereby to recognize the essential, irreplaceable contribution that husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, make to society, and especially to children.

The insert includes information about what Catholics can do to fight gay marriage, including "PRAY, FAST, SACRIFICE," and "ADVOCATE FOR MARRIAGE." The thing that strikes me about this insert is how helpless it sounds. The avenues for doing battle with gay marriage are quickly closing up, and all the fasting in the world isn't going to change anyone's mind on the matter.

Zach Ford at ThinkProgress sees this language as the Church preparing to take action against gay marriage the way it has done battle with abortion, by slowly stripping rights away, piece-by-piece. But I just don't think that's going to be possible with same-sex marriage. Once the world doesn't end in states that legalize gay marriage, and once more examples of happily married gay couples are seen in the media, this is going to be a dead issue for all but the wingnuttiest of Jesus freaks.

Both houses of the legislature in Delaware have now voted to legalize gay marriage. The governor of Delaware has already pledged to sign the bill into law. But don't be sad, Minnesota! You'll make it an even dozen!

UPDATE: The governor of Delaware is signing the bill right now:

Same sex marriage is legal in the state of #Delaware #de4m twitter.com/DoverDelDeniso…

— Doug Denison (@DoverDelDenison) May 7, 2013

Congrats, Delaware!

Good work, haters!

There's a livestream of Rhode Island's gay marriage bill becoming a law right now over at NBC 10.

Paul Ryan now supports gay adoption. He voted against it thirteen years ago. This means that maybe by 2026, he'll be on the right side of gay marriage, too!

Now that Rhode Island has become the 10th state to legalize gay marriage, the AP (by way of the Sacramento Bee) provides a useful look at the next same-sex marriage battleground states: Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Oregon. Who will be number 11*?

* Please remember that Slog polls are 100% scientifically accurate at all times, and because of that accuracy, you are not allowed to use Slog polls for wagering, as they will give you an unfair advantage in office pools and on InTrade.

UPDATE 2:54 PM: It's official: Gay marriage passed the Rhode Island Senate, 26-12. The governor has vowed to sign the bill into law.

ORIGINAL POST: The livestream is here.

As Joe My God explains, Rhode Island's Senate is expected to pass the law today, but the state's House and Senate bills will have to be reconciled, and then the whole thing will have to be signed by the state's gay-marriage-friendly governor. None of this is expected to be a problem, though, so this is the last major hurdle in Rhode Island's march to gay marriage.

Even the anti-gay-marriage activists look gay.

In what Gay Star News calls "the most homoerotic anti-gay protest ever," young men are "stripping off their shirts, writing slogans on their chest and parading across France against gay marriage." Hallelujah:

NOM really ought take cues from these guys.

It's been less than a week since Brian Brown at the National Organization for Marriage announced the formation of the International Organization for Marriage.... and New Zealand has legalized same-sex marriage. France, Colombia, and Ireland—Ireland—are likely to be next. Keep up the good work, NOM & IOM. (In the video above: a conservative member of parliament gives a hilarious speech addressing the fears—and the NOM-style fear-mongering—of opponents of equality. Watch.)

After the vote in New Zealand the entire parliament broke into song. "Seconds after the New Zealand Parliament passed marriage equality this morning, hundreds of spectators in the gallery—and even several MPs—burst into harmonious song," writes blogger John Becker. "The tune they sang is
'Pokarekare Ana,' a love song in the language of New Zealand’s indigenous Māori people." The song is New Zealand's unofficial national anthem. Watch:

The woman receiving all hugs and flowers is the bill's sponsor, Louisa Wall, a lesbian member of New Zealand's parliament.

UPDATE: And this just in...

Nancy Reagan's daughter says her mother supports the freedom to marry: huff.to/112QavQ #time4marriage #tcot
— freedomtomarry (@freedomtomarry) April 17, 2013

UPDATE 2: And Vietnam?

The New Zealand Herald notes:

New Zealand is expected to become the 13th country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage this evening as a bill to amend marriage law comes before Parliament for its final hurdle.

If you want to watch the vote, you can do so here, but it probably won't happen until well after midnight our time.

1. Montana's House of Representatives voted to decriminalize gay sex in that state:

The bill, which now heads to Gov. Bullock's desk, removes language in the state's deviate sexual conduct law that makes criminal homosexual acts between consenting adults and subjects those found guilty up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.... The vote was 65-34.

Thirteen other US states still have anti-gay sodomy laws on their books—laws that were declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court a decade ago.

2. Uruguay's House of Representatives voted to legalize same-sex marriage in that country.

Congress in Uruguay has voted overwhelmingly to legalise gay marriage, becoming the second country in Latin America to do so, after Argentina. The bill was approved by more than two-thirds of the lower chamber, despite opposition from the Catholic Church. The proposal has already been backed by the upper house. It is expected to be signed into law within two weeks. President Jose Mujica has been championing the bill. Despite opposition from the Roman Catholic Church in Uruguay, 71 out of 92 deputies have voted in favour of the measure.

Uruguay is the 12th nation to legalize marriage for same-sex couples. France looks like it'll be next.

I bet Glenn Beck lost one of his five hundred remaining fans with this little tirade.

"You've been painted into a corner of a bigot. That's why they won. Because the principle of it is right. The principle of it is easy to understand."

Here's the libertarian hope of the Republican Party, revealing his plan for preserving "traditional marriage."

I think right now if we say we're only going to [have] a federally mandated one man, one woman marriage, we're going to lose that battle because the country is going the other way right now. If we're to say each state can decide, I think a good 25, 30 states still do believe in traditional marriage, and maybe we allow that debate to go on for another couple of decades and see if we can still win back the hearts and minds of people.

Good luck with that one, Rand. (I honestly don't think Paul even believes what he's saying here. This is an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, and what he's doing is throwing some lip service their way to win their votes. This is as much of a sop as George W. Bush proposing an anti-gay-marriage amendment to win the 2004 elections and then forgetting all about that promise once he won office. Will Christian voters ever manage to realize they're being played by jokers like this?)

About time.

An interview with Patti Davis was in the New York Times yesterday. Things were said.

As Republican politicians wrestle with same-sex marriage, the daughter of a party icon — former President Ronald Reagan — said in an interview this week that she believes her father would have “been puzzled” by the political fuss and would have supported marriage for gay people.

I understand the need for kids to think the best of their parents, and she is basing this information on some anecdotal evidence—Reagan was friends with a lesbian couple, and he explained to Davis while watching a Rock Hudson movie that “some men are born wanting to love another man"—but I find it hard to believe that Davis really believes this. The president who refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic is going to be a gay marriage supporter? Come on. Reagan clearly was a believer in the common Republican sensibility that gay people are fine as long as they stay deep, deep in the closet and don't make any noise.

It's fun, yeah, but who do you root for? (Via Towleroad. And of course Laura Ingraham has "gay friends and family members." All the anti-gay bigots do these days.)