President Obama will sign a memorandum today to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. This according to The New York Times, which is also reporting that Obama will stop short of pledging full health insurance coverage. The reason? Broad coverage "could require legislation." Under mounting pressure from gay rights leaders and the community at large, this is a small gesture of goodwill, but according to Richard Socarides, a former Clinton administration adviser, "more important now is what he says tomorrow about the future for gay people during his presidency." Several states have legalized same-sex marriage in recent months, but the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" debate seems bogged down by the reluctance of both the U.S. Military and the president to take action. And a Department of Justice legal brief defending Clinton's shameful Defense of Marriage Act was a slap in the face to voters who elected Obama under the assumption that he would keep his promise to repeal both DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's clear to me that Obama is playing a careful game of politics, and we certainly shouldn't begrudge his attempt to maintain his mainstream popularity, but the gay community deserves more than crumbs. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Yesterday, New Hampshire became the sixth state in the union to allow same-sex marriage. The new legislation, passed by the state House and Senate and signed by the governor, will take effect on January 1st, 2010. In celebration of each new victory and as a reminder of how far we still have to go, Big Queer has decided to start tallying the states that legalize gay marriage with our Big Queer Map.

States that allow gay marriage: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Yesterday, Barack Obama issued a proclamation acknowledging Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, something the previous president once refused to do. In Obama's statement, he once again committed to "achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans," acknowledged that the gay community "mobilized the Nation to respond to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic," acknowledged himself for being "the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration" and for supporting the decriminalization of homosexuality around the world, and repeated his promises to expand hate crime legislation, ensuring adoption rights, ending the U.S. Military's inane "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and supporting civil unions (but not equal marriage). To date, the Obama administration has failed to follow through with any of those commitments, nor has the president succeeded at undoing George W. Bush's 11th hour ban on all international visitors to the United States who are HIV positive, but we can hope that his proclamation is one small step toward fulfilling his campaign promises to our community. We can all help make this happen by speaking out, writing letters, and otherwise being vocal about what we expect from our government and its leaders.

Read President Obama's entire proclamation here.

A nine-year-old in Denver, Colorado has become an unlikely posterchild (literally) for marriage equality. Ethan McNamee of Montclair Elementary School organized a rally in support of same-sex marriage at his school reportedly after hearing slurs on the playground. There's an unmarried gay couple in his neighborhood as well, which led to McNamee's desire to speak out on the issue. Controversy over whether the third-grader is being used by his parents or teachers as a mouthpiece for a mature debate is inevitable, but it's evident from news report footage that McNamee is confident in what he believes and is wise beyond his mere nine years. We see a lot more activism in his future!

On the same day that yet another New England state, New Hampshire, inched closer to allowing same-sex marriage, a representative from another state, North Carolina, reminded us of the ugly bigotry that still pervades our great country. Rep. Virgina Foxx took to the floor of the House of Representatives during a debate on the expansion of hate crimes legislation and said the following: "The hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. This--the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills." Not only were her statements patently untrue, and not only was her use of the term "we" a glaring reminder of how and why the Republican brand has become synonymous with intolerance and ill-conceived rhetoric, but Foxx performed her obscene, cruel and pathetically out-of-touch diatribe in front Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard. The perpetrators of the "very unfortunate incident" of Shepard's brutal murder admitted that they killed the gay 21-year-old in 1998 because he was homosexual, and for that they were sentenced to life in prison without parole. As Salon's Joan Walsh said on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night: It's Rep. Foxx that's the hoax.

The recent moves by Iowa's Supreme Court and Vermont's legislature to allow same-sex unions sparked an acquaintance of mine to post the following Facebook status: "[I have] no feelings on the spate of gay marriage developments. It is an issue of luxury salient only for an exercise in rhetorical flourish." For him, marriage is some distant frontier, less prescient than the health care crisis, the economy, and the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination of employees based on sexual orientation. But while he prefers not to celebrate what is, for him, simply an abstraction (the issues of hospital visitation, inheritance, and the various other rights enjoyed by legally married couples seemed lost on him), the recent moves by Iowa and Vermont, the first state to pass legislation legalizing same-sex unions, symbolize two steps forward in the fight for civil rights following the crushing blow of the passage of Proposition 8 in California last fall. The recent developments have renewed the debate in the Golden State. Gay marriage supporters are hoping the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling will set a prescedent that might lead to the California courts overruling the ballot initiative that passed with 52 percent with overwhelming support of the Mormon Church last November. The California Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage last May led to the passage of Prop 8 and was also cited by the Iowa court in their recent decision. States may be sovereign, but the recent developments prove that what happens in one state can, and does, affect the entire nation. And of course, the oppression of one group is the oppression of all.