I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Gay marriage becomes legal in California Monday at 5:01 p.m. (6:01 p.m. local time), one month after the California Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a same-sex marriage ban. California joins Massachusetts as the only other state in which gay marriage—not to be confused with civil unions—is legal.
A study released last week by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law suggested that allowing gay marriage in California would provide an economic boom to the state’s wedding industry. California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, supported the court’s decision, saying "You know, I’m wishing everyone good luck with their marriages, and I hope that California’s economy is booming because everyone is going to come here and get married.” (A spokesman later insisted that Swarzenegger’s statement was tongue in cheek.)
In November, Californians will vote on a ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage in the state. But in the meantime, New Mexico representative Mimi Stewart (D-Bernalillo), who has introduced domestic partnership bills in the past two legislative sessions, said she hoped that California’s law would encourage activists in New Mexico.
“I do think it will help because I think legislators in NM are hearing from their constituents that they want to have the same civil rights afforded everyone,” she said Monday. But Stewart was careful to point out that she doesn’t intend to push for gay marriage in New Mexico, instead she’ll continue to focus on domestic partner benefits, a less ambitious but also less polarizing goal.
The California decision represents a major advance for gay rights activists and others in support of marriage equality. “I think it reflects that fact that the country is starting to become much more tolerant and open to those folks that in the past they have rejected,” Stewart said. “It represents a coming of age, [that we are] starting to understand communities that are different from normal.”
Stewart said she plans to introduce another domestic partnership bill in the State House when the legislature convenes in January 2009.
