This afternoon, Presidential hopeful (and this week's same-sex marriage elephant in the room) Mitt Romney gave the commencement speech at Liberty University. The evangelical college is the brainchild and former stomping grounds of Reverend Jerry Falwell - founder of the anti-abortion, anti-gay and pro-stay-at-home-woman "Moral Majority" movement in the early 1980s. So one could only imagine how Romney's day went after Obama's little announcement a few days ago. More >>

Sam Levin

Mayor Bloomberg, on the SNL set today, takes questions from reporters.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, decided not to take a position today on President Obama's stance on marriage equality, which has made headlines this week.

But Bloomberg is still a big fan of gay marriage!

After a reporter from BuzzFeed asked the mayor -- who was holding a press conference at (where else?) the set of Saturday Night Live -- whether it's time Obama openly supports same-sex marriage, Bloomberg said, "You have to ask the president. He's gotta decide what he believes and what he wants to do."

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As the Empire State Pride Agenda starts to mobilize lobbying efforts in Albany, it has become clear that the group will once again focus on GENDA, the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

This decision, however, has prompted questions about the general direction of the organization, which is one of the oldest gay rights groups in New York.

But before we get into that, a brief explanation of GENDA is in order.

What the proposed measure would do is protect trans individuals from hiring and workplace bias based upon their gender identity. It's not that different from other anti-discrimination legislations, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or Title VII.

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As the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade marches up Fifth Avenue today, an annual protest will take place. The group Irish Queers will call out the NYPD's participation in the event, which they say on their website "was redesigned so that anti-gay bigots could parade using the church's special right to discriminate." Protests have been occurring for 21 years, however, Irish Queers member Emmaia Gelman said that now her group is not fighting against parade organizer's right to exclude openly gay and lesbian people from participating. "This protest about not allowing them to have it both ways," she told Runnin' Scared. "It's can't be both a religious anti-gay procession and include all the public servants."

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Sam Levin

Members of SAGE and the City Council cut a ribbon at the unveiling of the city's first LGBT senior center.

Roger Mácon, a 64-year-old Jamaica, Queens resident, has been out of the closet for many years.

But he didn't realize there were many other seniors in the city like himself that are openly gay and lesbian, too -- until he found a network of LGBT seniors through an organization called Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders, or SAGE.

"I've been out of the closet for many years, but at SAGE, I found out I'm not by myself," he told Runnin' Scared today at a launch event for the city's first LGBT senior center, which is also apparently the first of its kind in the nation.

At an event attended by hundreds of LGBT seniors and their supporters, SAGE, partnering with the city's Department for the Aging, cut the ribbon (they literally cut a ribbon, guys!), for the SAGE Innovative Senior Center, a new space for LGBT elders, located in a facility on 7th Avenue, by 28th Street.

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New York City made quite a bit of money on gay marriage -- 200,000 bucks, in fact.

Cash flow into the city's marriage bureau shot up since August, when same-sex nups got enacted, according to the New York Post.

The office took in $2.26 million -- up from $2 million during that same period in 2010, the newspaper reports.

From July 24, 2010, to February 22, 2011 -- the city clerk's measurement period -- New York issued 36,913 marriage licenses.

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Manhattan DA's office

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance at a school visit this week.

We often write about the latest efforts of the Manhattan District Attorney to sentence criminals and stop crime in the city. His news releases alert us to crime activity throughout the borough, but today, we thought we'd update you on DA Cy Vance's initiatives to address a different kind of crime scene -- the internet.

This week, Vance has been tackling the issue of cyberbullying in a series of school visits aimed at raising awareness of the bullying that is increasingly taking place online and on cell phones.

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All you need is love! And for Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell -- the right to marry.

Runnin' Scared was tired of talking to folks about the dark, gloomy world of New York City politics. All that anger and attacking gives us a headache sometimes!

Why not a love story this Friday? Turns out, that's exactly what this is.

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Being mayor of New York City is kind of like being president of the universe, so it's only fair that our very own Mike Bloomberg lead the effort in some national thangs, too. He already is one of two co-chairs for the coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns , and now he can add another "chair" to his mayoral resume (it's another cause close to home, folks!): Mayors for the Freedom to Marry.

Bloomberg went to Washington D.C. this morning to launch the same-sex marriage campaign, which thus far is a bipartisan coalition of 80 mayors from across the country. Though he shares the co-chair title with FOUR other mayors, we're glad to see him repping New York City in a D.C. setting. Bloomberg has a history rallying for this cause, notably with a big spectacle on Same-Sex Sunday over the summer when he married Jonathan Mintz, the city's commissioner of consumer affairs, and John Feinblatt, Bloomberg's chief policy adviser at Gracie Mansion.

But his work is not done!

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Last night, Candace Gingrich-Jones, the gay half-sister of Newt Gingrich, appeared on the Rachel Maddow show to talk about politics, gay rights, and Gingrich himself, whom she's (not surprisingly) clashed with over the years, though they've always been "mutually respectful," she says. "The catch is that when we leave the dinner table or leave the Christmas gathering, you know he and Callista still have way more rights than my wife and Rebecca and I do."More >>