To our dear readers: Hothouse is alive and well, and just taking an extended leave from the daily blogging grind. Our deepest apologies for leaving you with no word of our whereabouts. We miss you and hope to return soon, but in the meantime, we leave you with this bit of news from the Brangelina […]

Our loyal correspondent, Katie Halper, on the front lines of the culture wars.
The tragic congressional defeat of the bill meant to defend the family, i.e. amend the constitution to ban gay marriage, makes me think of one of my favorite people ever. Mary Cheney. Mary just “came out” with her memoirs, Now It’s My Turn: […]

The news on the marriage front: the Washington state supreme court upheld the state’s same-sex marriage ban this morning, essentially tossing the hot potato back to the legislature like New York’s court did. The long-awaited decision was another big blow to the forces of matrimony. At least the gays still have New Jersey to pin […]

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who’s a very pretty man and who briefly kicked open the marriage door for gays back in 2004, gives a blunt Q&A to Rolling Stone in which he states clearly what no one else will: that the majority of Democratic politicians actually support gay marriage, but are too afraid to […]

The Democratic challenger for the California governorship, Phil Angelides, hasn’t exactly been setting the world on fire. However, he did announce at a press conference on Friday that if elected, he would sign the bill legalizing same-sex marriage that the current governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed last year. Angelides happened to give the statement while standing […]

In case it got lost in the news, Georgia’s high court reinstated their marriage ban yesterday after it had been overturned by a lower court in May. And the first stage of an amendment banning gay marriage in the Massachusetts constitution is up for a vote in the legislature next week. Happy Pride!

The Times has up a great analysis of yesterday’s marriage decision and the huge blow is was to gay rights. Not only did the majority find against the gay couples, but the decision used some distressingly old-school logic, including the assumption that heterosexual marriage needs protecting, that children are better off in a straight families, […]

Gays will be rallying all around New York State tonight to commiserate over the Court of Appeals decision and try to get Albany to move now while the issue is still in the news. The city rally will be in Sheridan Square (Christopher St. and 7th Ave.) starting at 6 p.m.

Gays lost a 4-2 decision in the New York State Court of Appeals which found that the state constitution does not require NY to recognize gay marriage. The majority found that the state legislature could “reasonably believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and […]

Just posted on CNN. Looks like there won’t be wedding bells anytime soon.