NY Same-Sex Sunday: Where To Get Married, Watch, Support – Or Protest
On Sunday, July 24, same-sex marriage becomes legal in New York. Here’s a list of where and when you can register for a license, marry, protest with NOM and God Hates Fags, or show your support with LGBT activist groups.
In New York State, July 24 is the first official day same-sex marriage is legal, after Governor Cuomo signed his marriage equality bill into law last month. There’s a lot going on today, including over 823 expected weddings in just New York City alone! The radical, religion-based activist group, the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), and their partner-in-crime of refusal to observe separation of church and state, New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén DÃaz, are holding protest rallies across the state. The Westboro Baptist Church, aka, “God Hates Fags,” is threatening to protest as well. Ah, the company you keep, eh, Maggie? Nothing like observing the sanctity of marriage by protesting it. Meanwhile, gay rights groups Queer Rising and Connecting Rainbows are showing support for all the same-sex couples marrying today by showing up for peaceful rallies.
READ: How Do Gay Couples Get Married In NYC?
NOM’s anti-gay hate rallies are scheduled for Manhattan, Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester. (You’ll remember NOM’s last anti-gay hate rally, in which a pastor called for genocide of gays.) In an offensive trip into constitutional fantasy land law, NOM is claiming that “Governor Cuomo and the New York Legislature imposed same-sex marriage on New York with no vote of the people,” and that “New Yorkers have been denied that right!” Note to NOM: no where does it say in the constitution that any individual has the right to vote on marriage. In fact, the framers — our founding fathers — believed in a representative democracy to ensure the rights of the minority were respected.
The Westboro Baptist Church — God Hates Fags — has posted their picket schedule as follows:
Marriage Bureau in Manhattan: 7:30-9:00 a.m.
Marriage Bureau in Brooklyn: 9:45-10:30 a.m.
Marriage Bureau in The Bronx: 11:15-12:00 p.m.
Governor Cuomo’s NYC Office: 3:00-3:30 p.m.
Gracie Mansion: 4:30-5:00 p.m., where Mayor Bloomberg will be officiating at the wedding of two of his senior staffers. Shame on you, God Hates Fags!
God Hates Fags and NOM will be protesting at Governor’ Cuomo’s NYC offices, 633 Third Avenue, between 40th & 41st Streets, starting at 3:00 p.m., and Connecting Rainbows has promised a counter-protest from 3;00-6:00, stating, “NOM is using this historic day as a platform to get their hate message into the media, to raise money to fund their hate group, including going so far as to announce their support for Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr., a bigot.”
READ: Broadway’s “Hair” To Feature Same-Sex Weddings On Stage – One Night Only
Queer Rising is choosing to spend the day at the Manhattan Marriage bureau from 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., stating, “The Westboro Baptist Church is planning to spew their hate on the hundreds of same-sex couples getting married this Sunday. In an effort to denounce their hatred, we will be standing between the haters and the couples with rainbow umbrellas. Come join us and celebrate the love that will be present in New York this Sunday!!!”
For a list of where to get a marriage license, see the New York City or New York State marriage bureaus. (Remember, there may be a 24-hour waiting period.)
“In New York City, 823 couples signed up in advance to get marriage licenses on Sunday, and many of them were expected to marry in city clerk’s offices across the five boroughs,” writes The New York Times today. “Officials from more than a dozen cities and towns from Buffalo to Brookhaven said they would open their offices to issue marriage licenses on Sunday, and more than 100 judges across the state have volunteered to officiate at the couples’ weddings on the spot,” and adds, “a sampling of pastors in the New York City area found that most did not intend to discuss same-sex marriage in their sermons on Sunday. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, for example, the homilist planned to speak on other subjects. ‘There may not be much more to say at this point,’ Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said.”
Meanwhile, starting after Sunday the 24th, you can get married for free (assuming you already have a license) in Central Park, Times Square, Washington Square Park, and these other locations.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
