Marriage

Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Paul E. Singer, one of the most generous Republican donors in the country.

Their behind-the-scenes financial support — about $1 million in donations, delivered in recent weeks to a new coalition of gay rights organizations — could alter the political calculus of Albany lawmakers, especially the Republican state senators in whose hands the fate of gay marriage rests.

Americans nationwide are evenly divided over the issue of same sex marriage. But Republicans in Mississippi are divided over a wholly different wedlock issue: interracial marriage. In a PPP poll released Thursday, a 46% plurality of registered Republican voters said they thought interracial marriage was not just wrong, but that it should be illegal. 40% said interracial marriage should be legal.

DUTCH pair Helene Faasen and Anne-Marie Thus walked down the aisle into the history books 10 years ago as the world's first legally wed lesbian couple, a distinction they now employ in activism. "We married for love, not politics. But of course we were aware it was an historic moment," 41-year-old Anne-Marie, a notary assistant and gay rights campaigner, said ahead of their 10th anniversary on Friday.

By tying the knot in front of the world's press, "we wanted to make other people think about how horrible it is to be denied something that is a natural right for others," added her wife, 44-year-old notary Helene Faasen.

"A heterosexual person never needs to think about whether he is allowed to marry or not, he simply needs to be lucky enough to find the love of his life."