JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi state lawmaker, commenting on the announcement by President Barack Obama affirming support for same-sex marriage, invoked an Old Testament Bible passage on his Facebook page, calling for gay men to be “put to death.”

GOP State Rep. Andy Gipson, a Southern Baptist Minister and business attorney, is Republican state Representative from Braxton, Miss.

On May 10, writing on his Facebook page, Gibson said that homosexuality is a “sin,” citing Leviticus 20:13:

WASHINGTON — Virginia Republican delegate Robert Marshall, who led the efforts to derail the judicial nomination of an openly gay Richmond prosecutor, said in an interview on CNN Thursday morning that “sodomy is not a civil right.”

Marshall was defending his actions and that of fellow lawmakers and right wing christian conservative activists who opposed Tracy Thorne-Begland, who, had he been elevated to the General District Court Judgeship, would have been the first openly gay judge to serve in the state.

RICHMOND, Va. — GOP lawmakers in the Virginia House of Delegates, led by virulently anti-gay Del. Bob Marshall (R-Prince William), have blocked the judicial nomination of an openly gay Richmond prosecutor.

Tracy Thorne-Begland, a Richmond prosecutor for the past 12 years, had been nominated for an open judgeship, but the nomination was quickly decried by the conservative group The Family Foundation and Marshall, who argued that Thorne-Begland’s sexual orientation would conflict with his ability to hold up the state’s constitution.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island's governor on Monday declared that the state will recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones when it comes to health insurance and a slew of other benefits.

The order signed by Gov. Lincoln Chafee in a Statehouse ceremony directs state agencies to recognize marriages performed out of state as legal and treat same-sex married couples the same as heterosexual ones.