Some good and bad news on marriage equality and gay rights over the weekend. Firstly, courts have ruled in favour of marriage equality in both New Mexico and Utah - resulting in the usual floods of happy couples to registry offices. The Utah decision is particularly important, as it saw a federal judge strike down a bigot-clause in the state constitution which defined marriage in exclusively heterosexual terms. Thanks to Republican attempts to boost election turnout a few elections ago, lots of backward states have such clauses - and now every one of them could be in legal jeopardy. As a result the decision is bound to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. But if its upheld - and its hard to see how it can't be, unless "equal protection under the law" has an implicit "except for gays and other people rich white judges don't like!" - a lot of states are suddenly going to have to enter the 21st century.
And the bad news: Uganda passed its notorious anti-gay law, imposing penalties of life imprisonment for homosexuality and requiring people to report suspected homosexuals or face jail themselves. And we thought Russia was bad...