Mayor Bloomberg gave a commencement speech to the graduates of UNC Chapel Hill today, and along with an obligatory joke at Duke's expense and a recitation of the school's fight song, he pointedly criticized the state's vote last week that banned same-sex marriage. Noting that America's generations "expanded upon the freedoms won by their parents and grandparents," Bloomberg said that it was necessary that the graduates keep expanding. “And—I would argue—last week’s referendum banning same-sex marriage shows just how much more work needs to be done to ensure freedom and equality for all people." more ›

After a few weeks of resting his holy jowls Cardinal Dolan is back championing the church's First Amendment rights (except when it comes to those "radical" women) and thinks that the only way to block President Obama's health care requirement that insurance companies cover birth control is the Supreme Court. "What recourse does any citizen have?" Dolan asks WPIX11. "You can go to the Executive Branch. We tried that and unfortunately we're not making much progress…So what's our recourse, like any other citizen that feels aggrieved, we go to the Judiciary, and I don't think we'll be reluctant to do that." One set of robed men controlling women's reproductive rights is as good as another. more ›

Eleven Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested near the New York Stock Exchange yesterday as the demonstrators continue to occupy a segregated "First Amendment Rights Area" on the stairs of Federal Hall. Shortly after the arrests, the U.S. Park Police released a six-page set of regulations for the protesters sitting on federal property. more ›

In his Easter sermon this morning, Cardinal Dolan gave a shout-out to his "rabbi friends" and insisted that his flock, "Pass over from darkness to light, from death or life! Jesus passed over from the cross to the resurrection!" Indeed, it's like how Dolan passes over the legal rights of gays when it comes to their desire to be treated like any other couple in New York. Accordingly, a junior member of the city's Catholic Charities board resigned yesterday over Dolan's position. more ›

Six months ago more than 700 demonstrators were arrested in an Occupy Wall Street march on the Brooklyn Bridge. Tomorrow a march to commemorate the event that clogged the court system, spawned lawsuits and galvanized the movement will begin at 2:00 p.m. in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan and 1 Hanson Place in Brooklyn. After a march over the Brooklyn Bridge the groups will meet at Cadman Plaza for a General Assembly. more ›

In a speech to Fordham Law alumni yesterday, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly defended his department's vast surveillance network watching Muslims across the Northeast. “The notion that the Police Department should close our eyes to what takes place outside the five boroughs is folly, and it defies the lessons of history,” Kelly said. “If terrorists aren’t limited by borders and boundaries, we can’t be either." more ›

Occupy Wall Street begins two days of major demonstrations today as a group of wealthy backers announces their plan to pump $1.8 million into the movement. The Movement Resource Group, comprised of the two founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Nirvana's former manager Danny Goldberg, among others, is a not-for-profit 501c3 that has raised $300,000 and aims to distribute it to the protesters in a series of grants. "Many of us have been working for progressive social change," Ben Cohen told the Wall Street Journal. "There's been a critical ingredient missing." more ›

A state law against loitering has been ruled unconstitutional three times since it was passed in 1965, but the city has continued to enforce it, often using it as an excuse to round up the homeless in bus terminals and men whom cops perceive as gay and "cruising" for sex. In 2010 a judge held the city in contempt of court for failing to comply with orders to stop enforcing these loitering laws, and now, finally, a federal court has approved a class action settlement requiring the city to pay $15 million dollars to approximately 22,000 New Yorkers who were charged under unconstitutional “loitering” statutes between 1983 and this year. more ›

The Chris Christie civil rights apology tour continues! After flubbing his first apology by going and calling a New Jersey lawmaker "numbnuts," the Garden State gov took to the airwaves yesterday to again apologize to anyone he might have offended when he suggested white Southerners should have been allowed to vote on civil rights gains for blacks in the 1960s. But he's not sorry about calling Assemblyman Reed Gusciora "numbnuts," okay? more ›

Oh Christie, Christie, Christie. The New Jersey Governor today again tried to explain those comments last week in which he said that white Southerners should have been allowed to vote on civil rights gains for blacks in the 1960s. But while the big guy was talking he went and called an openly gay New Jersey Assemblyman "numbnuts." D'oh! more ›

Chris Christie has vowed to veto any gay marriage bill that passes his desk—causing him political headaches since it looks like he may have to put that vow to the test. Also giving the roly-poly governor of New Jersey headaches? A comment he made earlier this week suggesting white Southerners should have been allowed to vote civil rights gains for blacks during the 1960s. Let's just say some people respectfully disagree with the presumed 2016 GOP presidential candidate. more ›

Yesterday, the Department of Justice charged four East Haven, Connecticut police officers with "conspiring to violate, and violating, the civil rights" of Latinos: Sergeant John Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo are accused of "conspir[ing] to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate various members of the East Haven community in violation of their constitutional rights... In some cases, the victims were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs when officers assaulted them." And what was the East Haven mayor's reaction? It's time for some Mexican grub! more ›

Westchester County prosecutors have agreed to drop charges against 15 Muslims who were arrested at Rye Playland last summer after women visiting the park were told they could not go on certain ride while wearing their hijabs. The chaotic melee started after some Muslim women demanded a refund, and text messages were sent amongst some of the 3,000 Muslims visiting the amusement park with the Muslim American Society of New York. As growing numbers gathered near the park police station, local police rushed to the scene, and the situation quickly escalated, with a park ranger allegedly yelling, "I don't give a f*ck about your culture." more ›

Today, the King Center unveiled the King Center Imaging Project, which offers thousands of documents from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other figures from the civil rights movement. According to the site, "There are nearly a million documents associated with the life of Martin Luther King Jr. These pages will present a more dynamic view than is often seen of Dr. King’s life and times. The documents reveal the scholar, the father, and the pastor. Through these papers we see the United States of America at one of its most vulnerable, most honest and perhaps most human moments in history." more ›

Last year, the federal authorities charged a police officer for violating the civil rights of a 31-year-old black man, claiming that officer Michael Daragjati falsely arrested him can called him a "n-----" Now, Daragjati's lawyer says they have a plea scheduled. more ›

Two months after Zuccotti Park was forcibly evicted by the NYPD, the metal barricades and constant security presence remain, making the space less like a public park and more like a frozen zone. Today the NYCLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the NLG fired off a letter [pdf] to Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri asking him to "ensure that Zuccotti Park is open and accessible to all members of the public on an equal basis." more ›

14 Muslim leaders have fired off a sternly-worded letter to Mayor Bloomberg announcing their intention to boycott his annual interfaith breakfast on Friday, which brings together religious and political leaders from all over the spectrum for a friendly coffee klatsch. At issue is a damning series of articles in the Associated Press detailing the NYPD's targeting of Muslim communities for surveillance. Commissioner Ray Kelly has firmly denied this, telling the City Council, "We don't do it ethnically, we do it geographically. We don't racially profile, we follow leads wherever those leads take us." The NYCLU, however, calls it a "rogue domestic surveillance operation," and in November hundreds of Muslims demonstrated outside police headquarters. more ›

A NJ mother is extremely unhappy about the hubbub over her middle schooler's suspension, which she believes is related to her child's Confederate Flag clothing. So the next step is obviously threatening a lawsuit: Jane West tells the Times of Trenton that she wants "the school to formally apologize to her daughter, rescind her suspension and grant the teen permission to attend school outside the district." West warns, "If I can’t get those things I’m suing." more ›

An eight year NYPD veteran assigned to patrol Staten Island was arrested this morning and charged with civil rights violations in connection to an April stop-and-frisk arrest in Stapleton. On April 15th, officer Michael Daragjati and his partner stopped an unidentified 31-year-old black man who was walking alone with his hands in his pockets. Naturally, this suspicious activity warranted further investigation, so Daragjati allegedly pushed the man against a parked van and "roughly" frisked him. Finding nothing, the individual was sent on his way, but while walking away he dared to insult Daragjati. Oh yes he didn't! more ›

The Reverend Al Sharpton is broadcasting his radio show live from Zuccotti Park to highlight the Occupy Wall Street protests, "to show that those that are raising issues on Wall Street are as concerned about the economy and that Blacks and Latinos have grave concerns about economic issues and jobs," his organization said in a statement. Sharpton just said that he wanted to bring down a group of ministers to spend the night to show that the movement "is about all of us." In that case: hide the cocaine! But why isn't Al putting them on his new TV show? Is he saything that the protesters have faces for radio? more ›

Are your kids in the next room playing with their Candy Tails? Google "Santorum." You'll notice that the first result is a website that defines the word as, "The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." This is because sex columnist Dan Savage vowed to repay bigoted failure and GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum eight years ago for the hateful things he says about the gay community, and BOY is it working. Charlie Cook tells the Daily News, "There is nothing that Santorum can do but just try to ignore it." Or he could whine to the media! more ›

Though the vote has been stalled through the weekend, with the backing of New York's two most powerful people, Andrew Cuomo and Lady Gaga, marriage equality legislation still stands a better than decent chance of passing. And because people often need a financial incentive to do the right thing, the legalization of same-sex marriage is expected to generate $184 million for the state's economy, $142 million of that for New York City alone. "It's going to be a huge expanding market for all of us in the business," one glitzy wedding venue owner tells the Daily News. Sheesh can we at least pretend that we're thinking of true love and not cold hard cash, at least until the bill passes? more ›

Because Governor Cuomo's proposed same sex marriage legislation is a single tantalizing vote away from affording all residents in the Empire State equal protection under the law, opponents of the bill are scrambling to mount a last gasp appeal of what they believe is an affront to the "institution" of marriage. Yesterday saw "nearly a hundred" clergy at "A Rally For Traditional Marriage" in front of City Hall organized by the City Action Coalition. The CAC's leader, Bishop Joseph Mattera, warned SILive of the "large percentage of people in New York City and state who are very uncomfortable with the concept of gay marriage." Most uncomfortable of all may be Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who wrote in his blog that "God, not Albany, has settled the definition of marriage a long time ago." Was that before or after He settled whether the earth revolved around the sun? more ›

The New York State Court of Appeals ruled in two cases yesterday that same-sex parents have similar rights as biological parents—even if there was no official adoption. The first case ruled 4-3 that a woman has the right to seek child support from her former partner, even though she is not the child's biological parent. The second case, Debra H. v. Janice R., ruled 7-0 that a nonbiological parent should have visitation rights with the child. more ›

Yesterday, the Rev. Al Sharpton kicked of the three-day National Action Network Convention in Midtown, welcoming Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. Steele gave the keynote address, "One thing I've learned is that you can't please everyone. But you can certainly make them all mad at you at the same time." more ›

A retired NYPD officer and his wife are suing the city in federal court, alleging that their civil rights were violated after an ugly altercation in a Harlem police station landed them in jail. As you may recall, retired officer Merault Almonor is facing felony assault charges for allegedly punching a female cop so hard in the face that she's suffering partial paralysis. The fight broke out when Almonor and his wife, Wilma Dore-Almonor, went to the station house on March 20th to pick up their 13-year-old son, Devin, who had been arrested after a stop-and-frisk on West 141st Street. Naturally, the Almonors and the police have wildly differing accounts of what went down. more ›

Rep. Charles Rangel was on NY1's Inside City Hall last night. And he had some forceful words about those who protested against health care reform, "I was involved in the civil rights marches in the '60s. And I have been badgered, cursed at and spat at by groups in the South and I want you to know and your viewing audience to know that the group that were in Washington fighting against the health bill and fighting against the President, looked just like and sounded just like those groups that attacked the civil rights movement in the South." more ›

A prison term of 20 years to life will end for the man who shot Malcom X at Manhattan’s Audobun Ballroom in 1965. Thomas Hagan, who’s applied for parole 16 times, had his request granted yesterday. He's already been on a work-release program and spends only two days/week in jail, but on April 28, the 69-year-old will walk free. One of the slain civil rights icon’s daughters, Illyasah Shabazz,spoke last night at the scene of his death and said she was ready to forgive Hagan, a former militant member of the Nation of Islam: "I would really think that at this point in his life he's regretful for having been a pawn, one of the pawns in killing my father." Two other men who were implicated in the killing, but didn't confess, were released twenty years ago. more ›