R&B diva/proud songwriter/walking Lisa Frank sticker book Mariah Carey renews her vows to her husband Nick Cannon every year. I put it that way because it is clear that Mariah is pulling the strings in this relationship, including the one attached to Nick's back that delivers compliments on demand, like he's a custom-made Talking Pee-Wee Herman Doll: "You're #beautiful, just like the title of your upcoming stone groove smash hit wonder with Miguel, Mariah!" "You are the biggest selling female recording artist of all time, Mariah!" "Pee on me!" You know, things of that nature.

France became the 14th country to legalize same-sex marriage today. The National Assembly had approved the measure on February 12, with 329 approving, 229 against, so this second reading was mainly viewed as a technicality. On April 12, the French senate voted to legalize gay marriage after a weeklong heated debate.

France is expected to legalize gay marriage today, despite a series of large and increasingly more vehement protests against equality. It would be the 14th nation to do so.

Today, the French senate voted to legalize gay marriage after a week of heated debate. The bill, which won a 179-157 majority vote, will now return to the National Assembly for a second reading before expected approval in May. The second reading is seen as a technicality as the members of the National Assembly approved the move on February 12.

Jeremy Irons gave an interview to Huffington Post Live yesterday and and the
64-year-old Oscar winner and one-time relevant actor had some interesting ideas about gay marriage. But did Irons take the chance to support the cause? Or to give your standard right-wing justifications as to why it should be illegal? No, no. He took a different approach altogether. For Irons, it's not an issue of equality or family values, but instead one of potential father-son incest, to avoid taxes.

Senator Mark Kirk (R–Ill) announced on Tuesday that he's joining the increasingly long list of politicians who support gay marriage. His announcement comes one week after the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8, and 15 months after the Senator suffered a stroke. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

Well, they did say that sooner or later God (of The Great Flood fame) would come to punish the world for the sins of the gays (marriage in particular), but who knew He would be so damn boring about it? Hours ago, CNN contributor Jeffery Toobin was lightly tapped by a possessed umbrella while proclaiming that "DOMA" may be "in trouble."

The tenth anniversary of the Iraq War was marked by a procession of mostly liberal pundits solemnly apologizing for supporting the ill-fated invasion in the first place. As the issue of gay marriage goes in front of the Supreme Court, we're treated to the sight of the former president who signed the Defense of Marriage Act arguing that it should be overturned. Let's talk about what courage and cowardice in politics really mean.

This has been a big month for prominent politicians coming out in favor of gay marriage. First, Bill Clinton publicly disavowed the anti-gay marriage bill he signed into law in 1996. One week later, it was Republican Senator Rob Portman's turn, and just two years after his own son came out as gay. Then, last week, it was Hillary Clinton, which was surprising only because she hadn't already made such an announcement. And now Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill has announced her support, and via Tumblr, no less.

Hillary Clinton did not, apparently, before this morning, officially support gay marriage; now, she announces in this YouTube video, she does. And only three days after conservative Republican Senator Rob Portman, too. And four years after Dick Cheney.

Today John Boehner told Martha Raddatz, host of ABC's "This Week," that he "can't imagine" himself ever supporting gay marriage, even after Senator Portman's high-profile reversal on the issue.

Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and a top contender for the party's vice-presidential candidacy last year, has come out in support of gay marriage—after his son, Will, came out as gay. "As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples," Portman writes in an editorial published today in the Columbus Dispatch. "Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way." In 2011 Will, then in his first year at Yale, told his parents that he is gay. That knowledge, Portman writes, "prompted me to consider the issue from another perspective."

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now to be known forever as Pope Francis, sounds likeable enough, to people who are disposed to like high-ranking men of the cloth. The 76-year-old Argentine is reportedly marked by a devotion to the poor and a cultivated humility—he doesn't like limos or fancy palaces, you see, favoring public transportation and sparse apartments over luxury.

The only unusual aspect of the Collins-Johns engagement announcement that ran in yesterday's Le Mars Daily Sentinel was that the Iowan news concerned a same-sex marriage: Le Mars' own Candace Leigh Collins was set to marry Maria Ava Johns, a young woman she'd met as an undergraduate of Texas State University, this coming May in the progressive state of Massachusetts.

Illinois' Senate has voted to legalize gay marriage. On Valentine's Day, no less. How sweet. It now moves to the House.

France, hotbed of infidelity, has taken one step closer to allowing same-sex couples the privilege of having extra-marital affairs. This morning, the National Assembly, which is the lower house of France's parliament (it is much like our Congress, but different in that it appears they vote on things), voted 249 to 97 in favor of gay marriage.

Republican Rep. Aaron Schock (who is not gay, but definitely has gay fans) from Illinois was recently asked why he doesn't support same-sex marriage. Here's his answer:

The future of gay couples' right to marry in Illinois could very well, as god intended, rely on the automobile industry. Illinois Senators have attached the legalization of gay marriage as an amendment to House Bill 4963, which itself amends the state's Collateral Recovery Act. Feasibly, a bill which seeks to "define 'automobile rental company'" could also end up defining marriage in the nation's fifth largest state.

The Supreme Court will rule for the first time ever on same-sex marriage by deciding the constitutionality of Prop 8.

Both recreational marijuana use and same-sex marriage became legal in the state of Washington as of midnight last night.