Political gamble: Ending months of equivocation, President Barack Obama today declared his support for gay marriage, an announcement fraught with history that also injects a potentially polarizing issue into the 2012 race for the White House. “I have hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought that civil unions would be sufficient,” Obama told ABC during an interview at the White House. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word ‘marriage’ was something that invokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.” Now, he says, “it is important for me personally to go ahead and affirm that same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Read the full story from The Associated Press here.
Up against a wall: The National Parks Service has asked the Army to weigh in on whether two sites where levees failed during Hurricane Katrina should be added to the National Registry of Historic Places. An advocacy group, Levees.Org, has been working since 2010 to get the historic designation for the breach sites in New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over one site and therefore gets to submit its opinion on whether the sites qualify for the register. But last month, an assistant secretary of the Army declined to offer an immediate opinion, saying the issues involved require consultation with federal government lawyers because they figure into lawsuits filed over the 2005 flooding. Now the Parks Service has given the Army 15 days to submit an opinion.
The payoff pitch: SeNSE is hosting its 13th Pitch Night for entrepreneurs and business owners across Louisiana at the Manship Theatre on Thursday, May 31, and is calling for submissions of business plans of all types to be considered for participation. Ideas can be submitted here through close of business Friday. Each entrepreneur selected to participate will have 10 minutes to pitch his or her idea to a panel of judges and a live audience. The event is free to attend, and tickets can be obtained here.
