The movie offers continue to come in for Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus

First, her mother reportedly optioned the rights for a music video to be made into a feature-length film.

Now, the screenwriter behind Disturbia and Paranormal Activity 2 has said in a new interview that he hopes to work with Cyrus on "Wake," a big screen version of Lisa McMann's book series.

"It's sort of a vehicle for Miley Cyrus," Landon says. "She is looking to sort of get out of her cutesy Hannah Montana image... She wanted to do something a little edgier and a little darker, so we're making this movie hopefully... It's about a teenage girl who has a rare form of narcalepsy. When she's within a certain distance of someone sleeping, she passes out and goes into their dreams."

Landon says there's "definitely a spooky element to it."

Cyrus has made it clear she hopes to be taken seriously as a movie actress. She just finished filming LOL with Demi Moore and Ashley Greene.

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John Travolta, Kelly Preston Show Off Son

John Travolta

The celebrity baby birth everyone was hoping would go off without a hitch thankfully did last fall, and now John Travolta and Kelly Preston are showing off the cute fruit of her (most likely silent) labor.

Just shy of his two-month birthday, little Ben—born Nov. 23—is making his cover debut on not one but two magazines this week (People and Hello!), alongside his beaming parents.

"He's brought us a new beginning," John and Kelly told People, referring to the little tyke as their "miracle."

"He's given the house a renewed sense and purpose," 56-year-old papa John added.

He further exclaimed their happiness to Hello!, saying, "For us it's been uplifting. Especially when he smiles at me and seems contented in my arms."

As for the birth, it did indeed go smoothly, with Travolta holding the 48-year-old Preston's hand throughout the whole of her labor.

Kelly Preston

The couple's daughter, 10-year-old Ella Bleu, was also present, albeit outside the delivery room. She was being watched over by the family's close pal Kirstie Alley, who was also present for the occasion.

The duo also shared adorable details of their new lives in Ocala, saying their days and nights are now filled with multiple readings of Good Night, Gorilla and dad crooning one of his favorite lullabies, "A Bushel and a Peck."

However, both parents told People that the best moment from little Ben's life so far has been sharing his first smile. Awww. Um, is that some dust in your eye? Yeah, ours, too.

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Golden Girls TV star dies at 86

The death of popular actress Bea Arthur, who starred in the US television sitcom The Golden Girls, has been reported in Los Angeles.

Arthur, who played Dorothy Zbornak to the late Estelle Getty's Sophia Petrillo, died at home of cancer at the age of 86, a family spokesman said.

She was also famous for the sitcom Maude, first creating the character in the comedy series All In The Family.

Arthur also won an Tony Award for the musical Mame.

The tall, deep-voiced actress's razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star, the Associated Press news agency notes.

She won Emmy Awards for both The Golden Girls and Maude.

Dan Watt, her personal assistant for six years, announced the death, saying she had died peacefully.

"She was a brilliant and witty woman," he recalled.

"Bea will always have a special place in my heart."


Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Leighton Meester signs music deal

Leighton Meester, who stars as Blair Waldorf on The CW's Gossip Girl, has signed as an artist with Universal Republic Records, Billboard reports. The actress' debut album is expected to be released this fall; the label said in a statement that Meester will be making music with an "electro-pop edge." Producers for the project include Polow Da Don and Harvey Mason Jr.




Source: news-briefs.ew.com

King family draws fees from DC memorial project

WASHINGTON – The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has charged the foundation building a monument to the civil rights leader on the National Mall about $800,000 for the use of his words and image — an arrangement one leading scholar says King would have found offensive.

The memorial — including a 28-foot sculpture depicting King emerging from a chunk of granite — is being paid for almost entirely with private money in a fundraising campaign led by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. The monument will be turned over to the National Park Service once it is complete.

The foundation has been paying the King family for the use of his words and image in its fundraising materials. The family has not charged for the use of King's likeness in the monument itself.

"I don't think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family ... I don't think any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington," said Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of King. "One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny."

King would have been "absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children," Garrow said.

According to financial documents reviewed by The Associated Press, the foundation paid $761,160 in 2007 to Intellectual Properties Management Inc., an entity run by King's family. Documents also show a "management" fee of $71,700 was paid to the family estate in 2003.

In a statement to the AP, Intellectual Properties Management said the proceeds it receives go to the King Center in Atlanta, where King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, are entombed. The statement said the arrangement was made out of concern that fundraising for the monument would undercut donations to the King Center.

"Many individuals believe all `King' fundraising initiatives are interrelated and don't donate to the King Center, thinking they have already supported it by donating to the memorial," the statement said.

King's son Dexter serves as the center's chairman, and his cousin Isaac Farris Jr. is president and chief operating officer. King's two other surviving children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, are lifetime members of the board of directors.

A review of the King's Center financial documents shows that public support for the nonprofit organization did decline each year from 2004 to 2006, while fundraising for the Washington memorial was under way. The center has filed an extension for its 2007 tax return.

The monument will be on the banks of the Tidal Basin, between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, and would be the first major tribute to the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner outside Atlanta.

For years, King's family has fiercely protected his legacy, suing for a share of the proceeds from the use of his words and images in merchandise and publications. In the 1990s, the family reached settlements with USA Today and CBS over their use of King's "I Have a Dream" speech without permission. A federal appeals court ruled in 1999 during the CBS case that the speech was not in the public domain.

But historians and the National Park Service said they are not aware of any other case in which builders of a national monument had to license the image of their subject.

National Park Service spokesman Bill Line said licensing fees are "unfamiliar territory" for a memorial that will eventually be turned over to the government. The Park Service was unaware of the fees but plans to discuss their potential implications, he said.

Harry Johnson, president of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, said that the fees were not a burden and that the foundation has a good relationship with the King family.

"We just want to build the memorial," said Johnson, a Houston lawyer. "The memorial we are building will be the people's memorial and will belong to the people of the United States."

The foundation hopes to begin building the $120 million memorial this year. It has raised $104 million of that so far, including $10 million from Congress. It has tapped charitable foundations, Fortune 500 companies and individuals, sending letters to more than 1 million potential donors.

The intellectual property issue first surfaced in 2001, when the King family's efforts to seek a licensing agreement briefly stalled fundraising.

Johnson said the memorial's central sculpture does not fall within the family's intellectual property rights, and nearly all the King quotations being incorporated into the design are in the public domain, which means no licensing fees need to be paid.

The foundation did not pay any fees to the King family in 2008, but it could face more licensing fees in the future if it uses certain words or images in its activities, Johnson said.

Rebecca Rimel, president and CEO of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which gave $1 million to the project in 2007, said the group was not aware of the licensing arrangement but is now asking that its gift be used only to support the memorial's construction.

"We think the memorial is an important and overdue recognition, but we really don't want to get involved with relationships with the family and their estate," Rimel said.

Charon Darris, a New York banker and alumnus of Morehouse College, King's alma mater, said he raised about $1,000 for the memorial project with friends and did not have a problem with the fees.

"I don't think that's an unreasonable amount," he said. "Ultimately, the kids lost their father, the wife lost her husband."





Source: news.yahoo.com

Woman leaves house after 18 years

Sue Curtis takes some of her first steps outside after being trapped inside for 18 years

An agoraphobic woman who was too scared to leave her home for 18 years has ventured outside for the first time.

Sue Curtis, 40, from South Shields on Tyneside, developed the phobia during a panic attack at a local library.

Because of her fear of spaces she was married in her front room and as she could not attend her father's funeral his coffin was brought into the house.

But after researching self-help techniques on the internet, she has now walked a short distance down the road.

The mother-of-two now hopes to "push herself further and break down her fear".

Speaking of the moment she first succumbed to the condition, Mrs Curtis said: "I started to feel like something was pushing me down into the ground and I just freaked out.

"So I just grabbed the bairns (children) and said we've got to go home. I felt like everything was just closing in on me I thought I was dying."

For the next 18 months she was unable to leave her bed, only being compelled to move by the sounds of her children playing outside.

She added: "I heard the bairns in the garden playing in the snow and I got angry with myself and I thought I'm missing out on them.

"So I slowly sidled to the edge of bed, crawled on my hands and knees to the window and looked out all wide-eyed.

"One of the bairns looked up and waved and said 'there's mam', and I said 'hi son' and shot back into bed."

After searching for advice on the internet, Mrs Curtis began to make use of therapeutic techniques and now believes she is on the road to recovery.

She says she is determined to "get past the barrier" and eventually wants to renew her wedding vows in a church.

Agoraphobia typically involves fears of activities such as leaving home, entering public places or travelling alone.

Sufferers also often experience anxiety, depression, obsessive behaviour and panic attacks.

Drugs or psychological therapies can be used to help treat the condition.

Dr David Cousins, a psychiatrist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, said as many as one in 30 people can be affected by agoraphobia.

He said: "It often boils down to fear of losing control and the embarrassment of what would happen, and they retreat away from that and the anxiety disappears."

Commenting on Mrs Curtis's case, he said: "It's a wonderful story and it sounds like she's making real progress.

"The difficulty with this situation is how do you get services to these people who cannot get out and the internet is proving to be a wonderful resource."



Source: digg.com

FBI Recruiting Muslim Spies, Group Says

(AP) A Michigan Muslim organization said Thursday it has asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate complaints alleging the FBI is asking followers of the faith to spy on Islamic leaders and congregations.

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan sent a letter last week to Holder after mosques and other groups reported members of the community have been approached to monitor people coming to mosques and donations they make.

Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman in the FBI's Detroit office, had no immediate comment.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said such complaints aren't new, but concerns grew after a recent revelation the FBI planted a spy in a Southern California mosque.

An FBI agent testified in February at a detention hearing that an informant infiltrated several mosques in Orange County, Calif., and befriended Ahmadullah Niazi, brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard. Niazi was charged with lying about his ties to terrorist groups on his citizenship and passport applications.

Former FBI agents and federal prosecutors have said spying on mosques is one of the government's best weapons to thwart terrorists, but agents need to have credible and specific information before sending in a plant.

Walid said the complaints in Michigan amount to a "fishing expedition."

"If there was a specific imam who they felt was telling people to support Osama bin Laden, that's a different story - we wouldn't have a problem with that," he said. "Community members would be the first people to report to federal law enforcement if such things were being said."

Walid said the most common complaints have come from people with pending immigration issues being approached by agents to monitor mosques in exchange for help in resolving their citizenship cases.

He said the Detroit area's Muslim community - one the country's largest - has been supported by non-Muslim groups and individuals, and that a Catholic youth organization, a Baptist pastor and an interfaith group promoting peace and justice have all written letters calling for a federal investigation.

"The attorney general has not been in office for that long," Walid said. "He's in the process of revamping the Justice Department. It's extremely necessary for him to take a serious look at this issue."

? MMIX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



Source: www.cbsnews.com

Woman handed Asbo for loud sex sessions after neighbours complained to police 25 times

A woman has been given an Asbo banning her from making too much noise when having sex with her husband.

Caroline Cartwright was found guilty of breaching a noise abatement notice served on her after 25 complaints to police.

The 47-year-old denied the latest five charges but was found guilty after Sunderland magistrates listened to recordings of her loud lovemaking with husband Steve.

The couple’s partially deaf neighbour Margery Ball said she had not had a decent night’s sleep in two years because of the noise made by the couple.

As well as being given an Asbo, Mrs Cartwright was yesterday fined £200 with £300 costs.

She was taken to court after Environmental Health officers placed recording equipment in the flat next door to her house in Concord, Tyne and Wear.

Her neighbour, Rachel O’Connor, pressed a button on the machine every time she was disturbed by noise from next door.

She told the court: ‘I heard sounds of a sexual nature, they were really loud, and there was a lot of moaning and groaning and screaming as if in pain.

‘It wasn’t just the woman, it came from both parties.’

Miss O’Connor told the court that when she first moved into the flat, in November 2007, the noise started at midnight and lasted until 3am.

Now, she said, the noise started at about 6.30am and lasted until 9am.

Environmental Health officer Pamela Spark told the court she had listened to 23 recordings of the couple having sex.

She said: ‘There was an excessive screaming female voice on the recordings.’

Mrs Cartwright told the court that she was not ‘making the noise on purpose’.

She added: ‘I can’t understand why people ask me to be quiet. It’s normal to me.’

But chairman of the magistrates Alan Griffins said: ‘You were ordered to refrain from screaming and shouting at such levels when engaging in sexual activity with your husband.

‘You could have made efforts to minimise your vocalisation while having sex. You have not shown due respect for other human beings.’


Source: digg.com

Celebrity choreographer accused of raping 4 women

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A dancer and choreographer featured on the FOX television show "So You Think You Can Dance" was arrested Saturday on suspicion of sexually assaulting four of his dance students, police said.

Alex Da Silva, 41, a well-known salsa dancer who teaches at several Los Angeles dance studios, was taken into custody after teaching a class at a Hollywood studio and booked for investigation of sexual assault, Det. John Eum said.

Da Silva, who was being held on $3.8 million bail, is scheduled to make his first court appearance Tuesday.

It wasn't immediately known whether the Brazilian-born Da Silva has retained an attorney. The voicemail for a phone number posted on his Web site was full and wouldn't accept messages.

Da Silva had been accused in 2003, 2004 and 2005 of sexually assaulting three women, but for unknown reasons prosecutors declined to file charges, Eum said.

Then on March 28, a fourth woman accused Da Silva of luring her to his home, using a ruse to get her into his bedroom and raping her. Detectives went back to interview the previous accusers, found similar accusations of being lured to Da Silva's bedroom and sexually assaulted by him, and reopened their cases.

"These four women don't know each other at all, yet their reports read basically the same," the detective said. He noted that one of the accusers was a minor at the time of the alleged assault.

"We're almost sure there are probably other victims out there and we hope they'll come forward," he said.

Source: google.com/hostednews

Sarah Palin's Sister-in-Law Todd Palin Arrested

The Alaska wildlife tales just keep coming! Smoke has yet to settle from the feud between Levi Johnston – the former fiancé of Bristol Palin, who will appear on The Tyra Banks Show April 6 to discuss his sex life with the Alaska governor's 18-year-old daughter – and Sarah Palin, who issued a blistering statement condemning Johnston's decision to talk dirty on TV. (Johnston, 18, and Bristol Palin welcomed son Tripp last December and split earlier this year.) And now comes a new source of embarrassment for the former GOP vice-presidential contender: police in Sarah Palin's hometown of Wasilla have arrested the half-sister of her husband, Todd, for allegedly breaking into a house in a robbery attempt. According to the Anchorage Daily News, police say Diana Palin, 35, entered the home Thursday morning and made straight for a bedroom cabinet where cash was stowed. The house had already been burgled twice in recent weeks. This time the owner, carrying a gun, was waiting in a bathroom after seeing an unfamiliar car pull up outside. The owner, Theodore Turcott, reportedly confronted the intruder and detained her until police arrived. In a further twist in the case, Diana Palin's 4-year-old daughter was apparently waiting in the car outside, but entered the house before police arrived, a prosecutor said during a Palmer District Court hearing Friday. The little girl reportedly told police she had been in the house before. Diana Palin was taken into custody on felony burglary charges relating to two break-ins at the Turcott house. A spokeswoman for Gov. Palin declined the newspaper's request for comment.

UK TV star Jade Goody buried

Born : Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody
5 June 1981
Bermondsey, London, England
Died : 22 March 2009 (aged 27)
Upshire, Essex, England

Nationality: British
Other names: Jade Tweed
Occupation : Television personality
Known for : Big Brother
Religious beliefs: Christian
Spouse(s): Jack Tweed (2009)
Children : Bobby Jack Brazier (b. 2003)
Freddie Brazier (b. 2004)
Parents : Jackiey Budden
Andrew Goody (deceased)


LONDON (AFP) – The funeral of British reality television star Jade Goody, who died of cervical cancer last month, took place Saturday with as much flamboyance to mark her death as she showed in life.

Goody died on March 22 aged 27. She lived her whole adult life in the media spotlight after finishing fourth in the 2002 reality show "Big Brother" and transforming that brief notoriety into a career which made her a millionairess.

She released an autobiography, perfume and exercise video and was a fixture in Britain's tabloids. But her career was nearly ruined when she subjected Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty to racist bullying on 2007's "Celebrity Big Brother", although the two later made up.

Goody's final journey saw her body driven in a black, vintage Rolls-Royce hearse from Bermondsey, a poor southeast London area where she grew up, through the city's East End to a church in Buckhurst Hill, northeast of London, where her funeral took place.

Goody lived near the Saint John the Baptist Church and married her boyfriend Jack Tweed, 21, close by in February after being told she had only weeks to live.

Thousands of well-wishers threw flowers at the procession as it passed by, while press photographers ran alongside the hearse, jostling for the best pictures. Funeral directors released a dove in her memory.

Floral wreathes spelling out some of loud-mouthed Goody's best-known catchphrases -- such as "minging" (disgusting) and "East Angular" (her mangled pronounciation of East Anglia, an area of England) -- were also on display.

As members of her family arrived for the funeral, thousands of people had gathered outside to watch the service on giant screens.

Tweed is expected to read a poem at the funeral, after which Goody will reportedly be buried in her wedding dress.

Goody's sons Bobby and Freddy, aged five and four, are not expected to attend the funeral and are thought to have gone on holiday with their father, television presenter Jeff Brazier, to Australia.

Her publicist Max Clifford has said the funeral will be "a very Jade Goody event".

Michelle Obama has an open invitation to NBC's "30 Rock."

NEW YORK, New York -- Barack Obama may be the Commander In Chief, but it's his wife who has an open invitation to appear on NBC's "30 Rock."

"I would like Michelle Obama on '30 Rock,'" Alec Baldwin recently told Hollyscoop.com. "The President is on TV every day, all day. So we want to get something different."

If the First Lady were to take Alec up on his offer, she would join a long line of notable guest stars to appear on the NBC sitcom, including Oprah Winfrey , Jennifer Aniston , Steve Martin , Jerry Seinfeld , Salma Hayek and former Vice President Al Gore .

After an on-screen romance with a nurse, played by Salma Hayek , perhaps Alec's character, Jack Donaghy, may have aspirations of going after a woman in a higher position of power.

Bridget Moynahan Reacts to

Los Angeles (E! Online) – We were wondering how long it was going to take for a Bridget Moynahan response to Gisele Bündchen lounging around naked in Vanity Fair, talking about how it feels like she birthed her husband's ex-lover's son herself:

"I understand that he has a mom, and I respect that, but to me it's not like because somebody else delivered him, that's not my child. I feel it is, 100 percent," the Brazilian model said in the mag.

And two days later, we have our answer. Team Moynahan has retaliated via Page Six, where a "close pal" talks some serious trash...

"If Gisele loved Bridget's child like he was '100 percent her own,' then she would not talk about him in the press. Discretion and respect are not either of Gisele or Tom's virtues, as was evidenced even when the child was still unborn and they publicly flaunted their relationship without any discretion whatsoever."

Fair enough, that does seem pretty uncool of them.

"Don't you think Jack [Bridget and Tom's son] will grow up and read her comments and find them disrespectful to him and his mother?" the friend continues to rant. "Is she is so desperate for attention that she can't find anything more productive to talk about other than Bridget's child?"

Ouch! It's pretty hard to recover from being called an attention whore. Plus, Gisele and Tom were very private about their wedding, so that's not entirely accurate. And so the source resorts to making fun of Gisele's English (and/or lack of maternal instinct): "Hey Gisele—real mothers don't call their kids 'it.' "

We can just imagine Gisele's response:

Butt out, "close pal"! Kiss my ass! (Yeah, pretty bad, but you get the point.)

A New World Order By US President Barack Obama

The United States is still the same country it was a year ago, give or take about 6 million jobs. But its international branding campaign, as led by the new President, Barack Obama, is so different that the rest of the world might be forgiven if it has to do a double take.

Most of the hallmarks of the foreign policy of George W. Bush are gone. The old conservative idea of "American exceptionalism," which placed the U.S. on a plane above the rest of the world as a unique beacon of democracy and financial might, has been rejected. At almost every stop, Obama has made clear that the U.S. is but one actor in a global community. Talk of American economic supremacy has been replaced by a call from Obama for more growth in developing countries. Claims of American military supremacy have been replaced with heavy emphasis on cooperation and diplomatic hard labor. (Read "Obama in Europe: Facing Four Big Challenges.")

The tone was set from Obama's first public remarks in London on Wednesday, at a press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, where the American President said he had come "to listen, not to lecture." At a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Baden-Baden on Friday, a German reporter asked Obama about his "grand designs" for NATO. "I don't come bearing grand designs," Obama said, scrapping the leadership role the U.S. maintained through the Cold War. "I'm here to listen, to share ideas and to jointly, as one of many NATO allies, help shape our vision for the future."

On Thursday night, after the G-20 summit ended, Obama took so many questions from the foreign press, including British, Indian and Chinese reporters, that a group of them applauded when he left the stage. Two American reporters asked Obama for his response to the claim by Brown that the "Washington consensus is over." Obama all but agreed with Brown, noting that the phrase had its roots in a significant set of economic policies that had shown itself to be imperfect. He went on to talk about the benefits of increasing economic competition with the U.S. "That's not a loss for America," he said of the economic rise of other powers. "It's an appreciation that Europe is now rebuilt and a powerhouse. Japan is rebuilt, is a powerhouse. China, India - these are all countries on the move. And that's good."

At a town hall in Strasbourg, France, Obama stood before an audience of mostly French and German youth and admitted that the U.S. should have a greater respect for Europe. "In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world," he said before offering other European critical views of his country. "There have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."

The contrast is striking. Only four years ago, George W. Bush, in his second Inaugural Address, described what he called America's "considerable" influence, saying, "We will use it confidently in freedom's cause." Bush's vision of American power was combative and aggressive. He said the U.S. would "seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture." He continued, "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom."

Obama, by contrast, is looking for collaboration. He is looking to build a collective vision, not to impose an American one. And the response has been notable, from the endless flashbulbs that fired off at his town hall to the cheers of spectators who lined his motorcade routes and gathered outside his events in London. At the end of Obama's Friday press conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the issue directly, speaking through an interpreter. "It feels really good to be able to work with a U.S. President who wants to change the world and who understands that the world does not boil down to simply American frontiers and borders," he said. "And that is a hell of a good piece of news for 2009."

Gay marriage, seemingly the providence of the nation's two coasts

DES MOINES, Iowa – Gay marriage, seemingly the providence of the nation's two coasts, is just weeks away from penetrating the heartland and it appears there is nothing social conservatives can do immediately to stop it.

The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a state law restricting marriage to a union between a man and woman. Now gays and lesbians may exchange vows as soon as April 24 following the landmark decision.

The county attorney who defended the law said he would not seek a rehearing. The only recourse for opponents appeared to be a constitutional amendment, which couldn't get on the ballot until 2012 at the earliest.

"I would say the mood is one of mourning right now in a lot of ways," said a dejected Bryan English, spokesman for the Iowa Family Policy Center, a conservative group that opposes same-sex marriage.

In the meantime, same-sex marriage opponents may try to enact residency requirements for marriage so that gays and lesbians from across the country could not travel to Iowa to wed.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, urged the Legislature to do so, saying he feared without residency requirements Iowa would "become the gay marriage mecca."

Only Massachusetts and Connecticut currently permit same-sex marriage. For six months last year, California's high court allowed gay marriage before voters banned it in November.

For gays and lesbians, meanwhile, the day was one of jubilation. The Vermont House of Representatives also passed a measure Friday that would allow same-sex couples to wed, on a 94-52 roll call vote, just short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a promised veto by Gov. Jim Douglas.

Gay marriage supporters hoped to convince a few Vermont legislators to switch when it comes to the override vote, which could be taken as soon as Tuesday.

In Iowa, hundreds cheered, waved rainbow flags and shed tears of joy at rallies in seven cities Friday evening. "Corn-fed and Ready to Wed!" read one man's sign at a gathering at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

In downtown Des Moines, about 300 people gathered beneath rainbow flags to celebrate including Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie.

"We finally have equality in Iowa," said Harold Delaria, of Des Moines, who attended the rally and has two gay children. "It's kind of the last wall of legalized discrimination and it's coming tumbling down."

The Rev. Diane McLanahan of Trinity United Methodist Church in Des Moines acknowledged that many people of faith won't agree with the ruling. With that in mind, she said the court has reached a decision that "pretty much insists that this will not be a debate about religious rights but a matter of equality and fairness."

In its ruling, the Supreme Court upheld an August 2007 decision by a judge who found that a state law limiting marriage to a man and a woman violates the constitutional rights of equal protection.

Iowa lawmakers have "excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification," the justices wrote.

To issue any other decision, the seven justices said, "would be an abdication of our constitutional duty."

At a news conference announcing the decision, plaintiff Kate Varnum, 34, introduced her partner, Trish Varnum, as "my fiance."

"I never thought I'd be able to say that," she said, fighting back tears.

Jason Morgan, 38, said he and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty, adopted two sons, confronted the death of Swaggerty's mother and endured a four-year legal battle as plaintiffs.

"If being together though all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or marriage, then I don't know what is," Morgan said. "We are very happy with the decision today and very proud to live in Iowa."

Iowa has a history of being in the forefront on social issues. It was among the first states to legalize interracial marriage and to allow married women to own property. It was also the first state to admit a woman to the bar to practice law and was a leader in school desegregation.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, a Democrat, said state lawmakers were unlikely to consider gay marriage legislation in this legislative session, which is expected to end within weeks.

Gronstal also said he's "not inclined" to propose a constitutional amendment during next year's session. Without a vote by the Legislature this year or next, the soonest gay marriage could be repealed would be 2014.

Amendments to Iowa's constitution must be passed by the House and Senate in two consecutive general assemblies, which each last two years, and then approved by a simple majority of voters during a general election.

Iowa's Democratic governor, Chet Culver, said he would review the decision before announcing his views.