What a difference a decade makes. A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Monday shows that 58 percent of Americans support legalizing gay marriage and only 36 percent oppose it. In 2003, it was the reverse: 37 percent favored same-sex marriage and 55 percent opposed it. How did we get here? Let’s take a look back at America’s gay-marriage evolution. 

Photo: Genora Dancel (left) and Ninia Baehr, plaintiffs in a Hawaiian anti-gay marriage case, in 1996. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

“He always said, ‘I can’t go until she does because I gotta stay here for her.’ And she would say the same thing.” 

One of our most-read stories of all time tells of Norma and Gordon Yeager, a couple that died in 2011 after a car accident. The Yeagers were rushed to the hospital following the collision and given a shared room in intensive care. Though they were “not really responsive,” they held hands as they lay there, side-by-side. At 3:38 p.m, Gordon passed away, but, then, his family noticed his heart monitor was still beeping. “It was really strange,” Dennis says. Then a nurse looked and saw that the couple’s hands were still clasped. “Her heart was beating through him and [the monitor was] picking it up,” Dennis says. At 4:48 p.m., one hour after her husband, Norma passed away as well. “Neither one of them would’ve wanted to be without each other,” says their daughter, Donna Sheets. “We were very blessed, honestly, that they went this way.”

The couple who died holding hands

Dear Abby: My boyfriend is going to be 20 years old next month. I’d like to give him something nice for his birthday. What do you think he’d like? —Carol
Dear Carol: Nevermind what he’d like, give him a tie.

Dear Abby: Our son married a girl when he was in the service. They were married in February and she had an 8 1/2-pound baby girl in August. She said the baby was premature. Can an 8 1/2-pound baby be this premature? —Wanting to Know
Dear Wanting: The baby was on time. The wedding was late. Forget it. 

Here, 13 of Dear Abby’s best zingers.

Miguel Guzman bought Capitan for his son, Damian, in 2005. After Guzman died the next year, Capitan disappeared. A week after the funeral, the family returned to the cemetery in central Argentina and found Capitan there, howling.

The heartbroken dog (not pictured) had found the cemetery and tomb on his own, and has lived there ever since, sleeping on Guzman’s grave. “I’ve tried to bring Capitan home several times,” Damian, 13, says, “but he always comes straight back… He’s looking after my dad.”

The phenomenon of grieving dogs

(Source: theweek.com)

Prenuptial boudoir photos are so… two weeks ago — the new hot trend in wedding photography, according to the New York Daily News, is “sexy” photos taken of the happy couple on the morning after their wedding night.

For these morning-after photo shoots, the wedding photographer comes into the pair’s home, honeymoon suite, or wherever they spent their first night together as a married couple to capture the rumpled, unmade bed, and the bride and groom in various stages of intimacy and undress. 

Morning-after photos: The latest sexy wedding trend

Photo: Brooke Fasani/CORBIS 

A new study by researchers at SUNY Albany claims to have identified an unexpected weapon against depression: Unprotected sex.

Apparently, semen is rich in chemicals that help increase a partner’s happiness, mood, and even quality of sleep. But before you gloomily toss those problematic condoms in the trash, there are a few things you should know.

(Source: theweek.com)

A new trend in wedding photos has arrived: The boudoir photography session

The word boudoir dates back to the Victorian era when it referred to a lady’s private rooms, which she used for dressing or bathing. By extension, boudoir photography describes shots that capture a woman simulating such private activities.

The photos show women in lingerie, or without lingerie, posing coyly or provocatively. Brides, who represent the bulk of boudoir clients, “often bring veils, garters, and wedding night lingerie, but their future spouses’ favorite sports jerseys or work shirts are also popular,” says Ruiz at The Daily.

Regrettable fad, or empowering form of body art?

(Source: theweek.com)

Say you’re out on a date with someone new, and the person who sparklingly met all the usual pre-date prerequisites turns out to be… far from what you expected. What do you do? Enter eHarmony’s Bad Date Rescue app, which can be preprogrammed to call you with a ‘fake’ emergency, allowing you to believably excuse yourself while sparing the other person’s feelings.

Here’s how it works.

With this ring, I thee divorce

French designer Gisèle Ganne has created a line of divorce rings ($1,348) for the woman ready to convey to the world “a defiant ‘I don’t.’” Ganne’s designs subvert traditional wedding symbols by combining a bird skull with a bride’s bouquet and a single gem. The ring can be used to celebrate, advertise, or mourn the end of a union, and the long beak has a decidedly insolent look on the hand. The pieces are available in 18-karat gold or silver, and there’s even a knuckle-duster — “for those who are going through a really bad divorce.”

“Let’s go for a long ride Sunday; let’s go to the mountains weekends. Let’s read books in front of fires; most of all, let’s really grow together and find the happiness we know is ours.”

Decades before Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace, he was just another love-struck young man. Here, the most interesting revelations from Nixon’s love letters

(Source: theweek.com)