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The Morning Pride: January 10, 2014

Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s daily round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but please let us know what stories you’re following as well. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality.

– Utah has made a strange exception to its nonrecognition of same-sex marriages: if a couple solemnized their marriage during the window when it was legal to do so, they should still be issued a marriage certificate, because “their marriages were recognized at the time the ceremony was completed.”

– Colorado state Sen. Pat Steadman (D) plans to introduce a bill that would allow married same-sex couples to file joint state tax returns, even though the state constitution prohibits their recognition.

– Four couples in Missouri, each the leader of a conservative anti-gay organization, have filed a suit challenging Gov. Jay Nixon’s decision to permit married same-sex couples to file joint tax returns.

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– Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) believes marriage is the key to reducing child poverty, but he knows of no “empirical evidence” marriage helps the children of same-sex couples — his premise isn’t valid anyway.

– Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, offered health benefits to married same-sex couples for 10 days, then took them away.

– A transgender teen in Hercules, California is being charged with misdemeanor battery after defending herself against bullies — the bullies have not been charged.

– Arkady Gyngazov, the former manager of a gay nightclub in Russia that has been attacked several times over the last few months, is seeking asylum in the U.S.

Every pro hockey team in the U.S. now has an outspoken advocate of LGBT equality.