January, 09 2012, 12:01pm EDT
NJ Legislators to Fast-Track Freedom to Marry Bill
Today New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney and House Speaker Sheila Oliver announced that they will fast-track and prioritize legislation that would end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in New Jersey. The announcement was made at a press conference today in which Freedom to Marry's National Campaign Director Marc Solomon offered the organization's full support in helping secure passage of the law.
NEW JERSEY
Today New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney and House Speaker Sheila Oliver announced that they will fast-track and prioritize legislation that would end the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage in New Jersey. The announcement was made at a press conference today in which Freedom to Marry's National Campaign Director Marc Solomon offered the organization's full support in helping secure passage of the law.
The below is an excerpt from Solomon's remarks:
"Freedom to Marry is proud to partner with Garden State Equality and New Jersey's tremendous legislative leaders, Senate President Sweeney and House Speaker Oliver, as we work together to make New Jersey the next state to end the exclusion of gay couples from marriage. What New Jersey's legislative leaders are telling us clearly today is that the Garden State values its gay and lesbian citizens fully, and does not accept treating same-sex couples and their families as second class citizens, as it presently does with civil unions. Marriage matters for same-sex couples and their families, both because it says we're a family through thick and thin in a way that nothing else does, and because it provides a critical safety-net of protections that civil unions do not."
Following the 2006 passage of civil union legislation, the 2008 New Jersey Civil Union Commission concluded there was "overwhelming evidence that civil unions will not be recognized by the general public as the equivalent of marriage in New Jersey with the passage of time." It recommended enacting marriage in its place.
The House and Senate bills (respectively numbered A. 1 and S. 1) are expected to be taken up early this year. The numbering of the bills reflects the importance which the legislative leaders are giving to the effort.
Freedom to Marry is the gay and non-gay partnership working to win marriage equality nationwide. Headed by Evan Wolfson, one of America's leading civil rights advocates and lawyers, Freedom to Marry brings new resources and a renewed context of urgency and opportunity to this social justice movement.
LATEST NEWS
GOP Activist-Turned-Federal Prosecutor Sends 'Threatening' Letters to Medical Journals
One doctor and public health advocate called on editors to "join together and publicly renounce this as yet more thinly guised anti-science political blackmail."
Apr 25, 2025
Reports of letters that an interim U.S. attorney has sent to several medical journals in the United States prompted a show of solidarity from the U.K.-based Lancet on Friday, with the publication denouncing "the harassment of journals" and warning it "comes amid wider radical dismantling of the USA's scientific infrastructure."
The letters, containing questions about the academic journals' bias, come a year after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he hoped to prosecute medical journals and accused the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)—which condemned President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020—of "lying to the public."
The letters from interim U.S. Attorney Edward Martin, who has previously been accused of using his office to target Trump's critics, are "an obvious ruse to strike fear into journals and impinge on their right to independent editorial oversight," said The Lancet.
NEJM is one of at least four medical journals that have received the correspondence from Martin recently. According toMedical Professionals Reference, the peer-reviewed journal CHEST, which is published by the American College of Chest Physicians, received a letter on April 14 with the following questions and a demand that editors respond by May 2:
- How do you assess your responsibilities to protect the public from misinformation?
- How do you clearly articulate to the public when you have certain viewpoints that are influenced by your ongoing relations with supporters, funders, advertisers, and others?
- Do you accept articles or essays from competing viewpoints?
- How do you assess the role played by government officials and funding organizations like the National Institutes of Health in the development of submitted articles?
- How do you handle allegations that authors of works in your journals may have misled their readers?
Martin also asked the editors whether "publishers, journals, and organizations with which you work are adjusting their method of acceptance of competing viewpoints."
Psychiatrist Eric Reinhart of Northwestern University posted the letter on X last week and asked what kinds of "competing viewpoints" Martin—former chair of the Missouri Republican Party and president of the right-wing Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund—might want to see a medical journals about respiratory health.
"'Is sarcoidosis actually bad?" Reinhart suggested sardonically. "Should trans people get treatment for chest infections? Is ivermectin the cure for lung cancer? Why shouldn't Joe Rogan perform lung transplants? So glad RFK Jr. is in charge to ensure these important views get airtime."
Reinhart urged other scientific journal editors to speak out against threats they receive from the Trump appointee.
Adam Gaffney, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts and former president of Physicians for a National Health Program, also called on journal editors to "join together and publicly renounce this as yet more thinly guised anti-science political blackmail."
"It is yet another example of the Trump administration's effort to control academic inquiry and stifle scientific discourse—an administration, it warrants mentioning, that has embraced medical misinformation and pseudoscience to reckless effect," Gaffney toldMedPage Today last week.
The letters have been received by the medical journals as Kennedy angered medical experts and families with his recent comments about autism, claiming that "most cases now are severe"—a claim not backed up by science. Kennedy has also recently downplayed measles outbreaks in the United States before finally admitting this month that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is the best defense against the disease.
The Trump administration has also cut funding for health agencies, prompting concern that it is sabotaging the country's ability to produce high-quality biomedical research as it has for generations.
NEJM responded to Martin ahead of the May 2 deadline, telling the prosecutor the journal uses "rigorous peer review and editorial processes to ensure the objectivity and reliability of the research we publish. We support the editorial independence of medical journals and their First Amendment rights to free expression."
Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the publication, told The New York Times, "Our job is to evaluate science and evaluate it in an unbiased fashion."
"The questions seem to suggest that there's some bias in what we do—that's where the vaguely threatening part comes in," Rubin said.
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UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed. This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced," said the World Food Program.
Apr 25, 2025
As Israel continues to bomb and impose a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations World Food Program announced Friday that "WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens" in the Palestinian enclave, which "are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days."
"For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25% of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline," the U.N. program said in a statement. "WFP is also deeply concerned about the severe lack of safe water and fuel for cooking—forcing people to scavenge for items to burn to cook a meal."
This is just the latest troubling update from the group since Israel began its total blockade on March 2—following months of severely restricting aid and commercial goods—and then ditched a fragile cease-fire with Gaza-based Hamas that had been in effect since mid-January. Last month, all 25 WFP-supported bakeries closed due to lack of wheat flour and cooking fuel, and program parcels with two weeks of rations for families were exhausted.
"More than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza."
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed," WFP said Friday. "This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems. Food prices have skyrocketed up to 1,400% compared to during the cease-fire, and essential food commodities are in short supply, raising serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly."
Over 18 months into a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the Interenational Court of Justice, WFP said that "the situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: People are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP's critical assistance may be forced to end."
While conditions are dire, WFP is prepared to keep feeding people, if Israel will allow aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The program highlighted that "more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza by WFP and food security partners as soon as borders reopen."
The program called on "all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."
The Associated Press reported that "COGAT, the Israeli military agency in charge of coordinating aid in Gaza, declined to comment on the amount of supplies remaining in the territory. It has previously said Gaza had enough aid after a surge in distribution during the cease-fire."
The WFP statement came after an Israeli drone strike that hit a food distribution center in central Gaza on Thursday and Israel's Tuesday airstrikes that destroyed several bulldozers used to clear streets and remove bodies from beneath rubble.
While humanitarian organizations have shared fresh warnings about conditions in the enclave this week—Oxfam's Clemence Lagouardat said Tuesday that "it's hard to explain just how terrible things are in Gaza at the moment"—Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, shared violent rhetoric.
Ben-Gvir claimed that "senior Republican Party officials" whom he met at U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence "expressed support for my very clear position" that Gaza "food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages" taken during the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel.
While Trump—like his Democratic predecessor—has supported Israel's military assault, he also claimed to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, "Gaza came up and I said, 'We've got to be good to Gaza... Those people are suffering.'"
According toReuters.
When asked whether he raised the issue of opening up access points for aid into Gaza, Trump replied, "We are."
"We're going to take care of that. There's a very big need for medicine, food and medicine, and we're taking care of it," he said.
Asked how Netanyahu responded, Trump said: "Felt well about it."
As for cease-fire negotiations,
Drop Site News obtained a draft proposal for a 45-day "bridge" deal that is "being pushed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators." The outlet reported Friday that "while the current proposal largely aligns with the one that Hamas agreed to on March 29 and which Israel rejected, the new terms related to disarmament and no clear path to complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will likely meet stiff resistance from Hamas' negotiators."
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'Serious Disregard for Human Life': Dem Senators Press Hegseth on Yemen Civilian Casualties
"President Trump has called himself a 'peacemaker,' but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians."
Apr 25, 2025
A trio of Democratic senators on Thursday demanded answers from embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, which have reportedly killed scores of civilians including numerous women and children since last month.
"We write to you concerning reports that U.S. strikes against the Houthis at the Ras Isa fuel terminal in Yemen last week killed dozens of civilians, potentially more than 70," Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) wrote in a letter to Hegseth.
The lawmakers noted that "the United Nations Protection Cluster's Civilian Impact Monitoring Project has... assessed that March 2025 marked the highest monthly casualty count in Yemen in almost two years, tripling the previous month, with a total of 162 civilian casualties."
"If these reports of civilian casualties are accurate, they should come as no surprise," the senators said. "Using explosive weapons in populated areas—as these intense strikes appear to do—always carries a high risk of civilian harm."
"Further, reports suggest that the Trump administration plans to dismantle civilian harm mitigation policies and procedures at the Pentagon designed to reduce civilian casualties in U.S. operations," the letter notes. "And the Trump administration has already dismissed senior, nonpartisan judge advocates, or JAG officers, who provide critical legal counsel to U.S. warfighters, especially when it comes to the laws of war and adherence to U.S. civilian harm mitigation policies."
"The Defense Department also recently loosened the rules of engagement to allow [U.S. Central Command] and other combatant commands to conduct strikes without requiring White House sign-off, removing necessary checks and balances on crucial life-and-death decisions," the senators added. "Taken altogether, these moves suggest that the Trump administration is abandoning the measures necessary to meet its obligations to reducing civilian harm."
The senators asked Hegseth to answer the following questions:
- Has the Department of Defense (DOD) assessed the number of noncombatant and combatant casualties in each of its strikes inside Yemen?
- What has DOD's process been for assessing the acceptable civilian casualties for individual strikes inside Yemen, and assessing estimated levels of civilian harm and collateral damage?
- What role have legal advisers, including JAG officers, played in reviewing the legality of U.S. strikes in Yemen?
- What DOD instructions or orders currently govern department civilian harm mitigation and response actions?
- Were the civilian harm mitigation and response experts at CENTCOM and/or at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence consulted in planning for these strikes?
- How does the department plan to engage with the families or communities affected by these strikes, including acknowledging civilian harm and exploring avenues for potential redress?
Last month, Hegseth
announced that the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was established during the Biden administration, would be closed. Hegseth—who has
supported pardons for convicted U.S. war criminals—lamented during his Senate confirmation hearing that "restrictive rules of engagement" have "made it more difficult to defeat our enemies," who "should get bullets, not attorneys," according to his 2024 book The War on Warriors.
Asked during his confirmation hearing whether troops under his leadership would adhere to the Geneva Conventions, Hegseth replied, "What we are not going to do is put international conventions above Americans."
During his first administration, President Donald Trumprelaxed rules of military engagement meant to protect civilians as he followed through on his campaign pledge to "bomb the shit" out of Islamic State militants and "take out their families." Thousands of civilians were killed during the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria as then-Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis announced a shift from a policy of attrition to one of "annihilation."
Meanwhile, noncombatant casualties soared by over 300% in Afghanistan between the final year of the Obama administration and 2019.
Overall, upward of 400,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have died as a direct result of the U.S.-led War on Terror, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
In Yemen, the U.K.-based monitor Airwars says U.S. forces have killed hundreds of civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
The U.S. bombing of Yemen has not received nearly as much coverage in the corporate media as the scandal involving Hegseth's use of Signal chats to share plans for attacking the Middle Eastern country with colleagues, a journalist, and relatives. However, critics say the mounting backlash over the high civilian casualties there is belying Trump's claim of an anti-war presidency.
"President Trump has called himself a 'peacemaker,' but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians," the senators stressed in their letter. "The reported high civilian casualty numbers from U.S. strikes in Yemen demonstrate a serious disregard for civilian life, and call into question this administration's ability to conduct military operations in accordance with U.S. best practices for civilian harm mitigation and international law."
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