EDGE Boston

The 6th annual Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival is shaping up to be one of the most exclusive wine and food festivals on the East Coast, featuring a special guest appearance by chef, television personality and restaurateur Lidia Bastianich on Sunday,

Valerie Desautel said she was discharged from the Army in 2002 after she told an interrogator after she was raped that she is a lesbian.

2010 census statistics show the number of same-sex couples in Rhode Island increased 48 percent over the last decade, but the fact the state’s population remained unchanged over the same period suggests the number of gay and lesbian couples actually remained the same.

The celebratory chime of toasting wine glasses can be heard at The Chanler at Cliff Walk’s Spiced Pear restaurant which has received the coveted "Award of Excellence" from Wine Spectator magazine.

Marriage Equality Rhode Island hopes personal stories from same-sex couples will spur state legislators to support a marriage equality bill in 2012.

Few Rhode Islanders have entered into civil unions since the state began offering them to gay couples.

Patricia Baker, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of marriage equality in March as she battled terminal lung cancer, passed away at Kent Hospital in Warwick on Sunday, Aug. 14. She was 55.

HIV/AIDS service providers in southern New England continue to express alarm over statistics that indicate rates of infection remain disproportionately high among men who have sex with men.

Christopher Plante, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage’s Rhode Island chapter, told EDGE that his organization will continue to fight against nuptials for same-sex couples in the Ocean State and around the country.

Beth Vorro and Beth Coderre of North Smithfield addressed the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., at the request of the Courage Campaign on July 19. The couple said DOMA subjects them and other same-sex couples to unnecessary discrimination.