6/4/2012 This Way Out

Program 1261

Hosted by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle

"NewsWrap": Colombia's Constitutional Court approves the adoption of two young brothers by a single openly gay American man in what equality activists describe as a landmark ruling, and Buenos Aires opens legal Argentinean marriage to gay and lesbian tourists, while yet another U.S. federal appeals court rules the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, unconstitutional; New York City Council President and leading post-Bloomberg mayoral candidate Christine Quinn marries her longtime partner in what reports call "one of the biggest social gatherings of political elites in recent memory"; a New Jersey Superior Court judge controversially sentences Dharun Ravi, whose webcam spying drove his gay Rutgers University dorm roommate Tyler Clementi to commit suicide, to 30 days in jail, probation, a fine, and community service; a violent assault on one of its organizers follows the announced cancellation of Kiev's first LGBT Pride march due to threats of violent opposition, but a San Diego, California thoroughfare is officially renamed Harvey Milk Street on what would have been the pioneering gay human rights activist's 82nd birthday, multi-award-winning actor Jim Parsons, best known as "Sheldon Cooper" on the CBS-TV sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," quietly comes out, and the first "out" graduates at any U.S. military college since the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" get their diplomas at the Air Force Academy (written by GREG GORDON with thanks to REX WOCKNER, produced by STEVE PRIDE, and reported this week by TANYA KANE-PARRY and WENZEL JONES)

A proposal by NORTH CAROLINA Baptist preacher CHARLES L. WORLEY to round up lesbians and gay men and surround them in electrified fences until they die off went viral this week, but hundreds called for "Love Not Hate" during a peaceful demonstration to protest the genocidal minister (with brief intro music from "Don't Fence Me In" performed by JOHN BARROWMAN)

How can one characterized the "Obama Effect" on the movement for marriage equality? "This Way Out's" LUCIA CHAPPELLE reviews the latest developments, including former Secretary of State COLIN POWELL's affirmation, the NAACP's BENJAMIN JEALOUS announcing his organization's resolution to actively oppose any efforts to deny full civil marriage equality to same-gender couples, and a report on some fascinating new polling data by MSNBC's RACHEL MADDOW