Ellie Nicholas, who calls herself a people lover, thoroughly enjoyed bartending in New York. Whether working in gay bars or straight pubs, she was good at her job and earned a comfortable living.

Then she started getting sick. So sick that she had to be hospitalized for several days at a time. "I had trouble breathing,” she said. “It was terrifying!" Doctors would diagnose that she had asthma, a condition that still bothers her more than two decades later.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Meital Dohan is an accomplished comedian, a talent actress in theater and film and television, and a hit-making singer with a legion of LGBT fans.

Known as Meital, American audiences loved her in the supporting role as Yael Hoffman in the Showtime comedy, "Weeds."

Meital will be performing this weekend at White Party Palm Springs, and she says she cannot wait to climb on stage and perform in front of her "gays."

SAN DIEGO – Supporters of marriage equality will rally later today outside the Federal Courthouse in downtown San Diego, the day before the U.S. Supreme Court conducts the oral hearing in the appeals case involving California’s Proposition 8.

WASHINGTON – Supporters and opponents of marriage equality are busy making final plans for large rallies in Washington, D.C., during the last week of March when the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on two high-profile cases involving California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).