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Rightwing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has demanded local councils register only biological parents on birth certificates, leaving partners in legal limbo. The European parliament called on the Italian government to reconsider its stance.

All 50 Senate Democrats were joined by 12 Republicans in voting ‘yes’ on a procedural vote and advance a bill to protect same-sex marriages.

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There's a difference between 'right-to-work', which limits agreements between workers' unions and employers, and First Amendment restrictions on government in matters of religion, speech, expression, association and so on. For conservatives, though, rights are rolled up into one, giant "freedom" ball aimed at imposing individual beliefs at the expense of democracy right down to the duties of a job. Who then are the prisoners of conscience?

Who in our community will be left to push for full equality for all transgender and queer people, now that this one fight has been won?

The reason that this case is so important is because it invites the Court to create a new legal landscape surrounding the constitutional rights to same-sex marriage—and protection from state laws that discriminate by treating same-sex couples unequally. Whatever the Court decides in its ruling expected this June will likely hold for many years—at least until the Court’s conservatives are replaced.

"I don't want to reach for melodrama here, but on some level there's the question of whether we have a federal government or a Confederacy," Chilton tells Facing South. "Does North Carolina get to nullify part of the Constitution it doesn't like? I thought we settled that question."