A March 5 demonstration outside the LGBT Community Center by groups critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the territory it controls provided a stark warning about the difficulties the Center may encounter at an open forum it called for March 13 to discuss its recent cancellation of a room reservation for a pro-Palestinian fundraiser. Comment

With advocates expecting a vote on gay marriage in New York’s State Senate within the next few weeks, the opposition is emerging just as the pro side is beginning to more aggressively lobby. Comment

"All human beings ought to be protected equally," Michael R. Long, the chairman of the New York State Conservative Party, said. "You don't need special legislation to legitimize a lifestyle, and that's what this is about... Once they kick the door open, they're going to be back for gay marriages." Comment

To mourn the victims of murder, incarceration, and intimate partner violence in their midst, this past December 17, sex workers, clients, and allies filled New York City's Metropolitan Community Church and marked the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. The Day was honored by more than 27 cities this year, from Nairobi to Hong Kong. Here in New York, the high-ceiling room of the church reverberated with the names of the dead. Comment

When a top 10 list gets made, a lot usually gets left out. Many critics restrict their lists to films that played for at least a week in New York. Due to the delays in foreign film releases in the US, half the films on my list were actually made in 2009 or earlier, while I've left off several that will be released here in 2011. Comment

SNIDE LINES | The moment President Barack Obama signed the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, this reporter flew to the Persian Gulf to get the real story. I asked several gay and lesbian service people how they got there, and what they feel about their newly won rights. Comment

In a written statement released May 5, former President Bill Clinton joined nearly three-dozen other prominent voices in the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) New Yorkers for Marriage Equality campaign. Comment

Adding to the heft of appeals court precedents in New York recognizing same-sex marriages, the Appellate Division’s 1st Department, in Manhattan, has ruled that a marriage between two men performed in Canada in 2008 would be recognized in probate proceedings involving the will of the spouse who died. Comment

In the first of what it says will be a series of acts of civil disobedience aimed at advancing the cause of marriage equality in New York State, nine members affiliated with the direct action group Queer Rising blocked traffic on Sixth Avenue at 42nd Street for just under ten minutes during morning rush hour on March 1. Eight of the nine were arrested by police who were there in significant numbers even before the action started. Comment

Gay Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cannes award-winning film “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” concerns a dying man who is comforted by family and friends. As the film unfolds in six chapters, Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) recalls his various incarnations — as animals, including a talking catfish, and as spirits. Comment

Martin Duberman, known as “the father of gay studies,” is a distinguished historian, playwright, essayist, novelist, and public intellectual, and any new book by him is an event in queer culture to which attention must be paid. Comment

While New York City settled federal civil rights lawsuits with four men who charged they were falsely arrested for prostitution in 2008 by vice cops in a Chelsea porn shop and a Midtown spa (see story, page 14), the city continues to argue that the 2008 prostitution arrest of the man who spoke up against those busts was justified. Comment

Anyone lucky enough to have seen the original production of “The Normal Heart,” Larry Kramer’s fiery polemic about the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, knows there’s nothing normal about it. Comment

In another sign that marriage equality advocates here are interested in forgoing internecine rivalries in favor of a united and, hopefully, smart push to win State Senate approval before the Legislature adjourns in late June, leading groups in the fight have announced the formation of New Yorkers United for Marriage. Comment

History will remember July 29, 1981 as the day Britain’s Prince Charles wed Lady Diana Spencer. Comment

It was about ten years ago when, wanting to make a few new friends, Stacey Morris headed to the LGBT Community Center for an Open House introduction to its services and to the organizations that meet there. Comments (1)

Snide Lines:Hello, is this the famous activist Tanya Klugworth? Comment

A Dyke Abroad: While the world watches people in North Africa and the Middle East struggle for democratic reforms, Christian extremists in Hungary have been busy unraveling them. Comment

The first time marriage equality got a vote in the New York State Senate, in December 2009, it was defeated 38-24. The tally of public supporters now stands at 26 –– all Democrats –– out of the 32 needed for passage. All six Democrats first elected to the Senate in 2010 support the measure. Comment

Montana District Court Judge Jeffrey M. Sherlock has granted the state’s motion to dismiss a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana on behalf of several same-sex couples seeking formal equal access to the rights provided under state law to married different-sex couples. Comment

The lesbian former partner of an adoptive mother, turned back two years ago by the Delaware Supreme Court in her effort to gain joint custody of the child the couple had been raising together, has won a victory from the same court on the same issue, likely putting to rest a contentious, long-running dispute between the two parents.a Comment

One week after agreeing to represent the House in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the law firm that took the assignment has asked to withdraw from the suits and the attorney who accepted the case has resigned from the firm. Comment

In what Lambda Legal called a “stunning reversal,” an en banc majority of the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a 2010 decision by a three-judge panel and dismissed a lawsuit brought by a gay couple seeking a proper birth certificate for the Louisiana-born child they jointly adopted in New York. Comment