FiveThirtyEight.com statistician Nate Silver – renowned for his incredibly accurate predictions in the 2008 elections – has crunched the numbers on Maine’s gay marriage ban and has decided that the anti-equality measure has about a “1-in-3″ chance of passing. We’ll spare you the number crunching and get straight to his prediction:

Time to play oddsmaker: I’d lay about 3 to 1 against the marriage ban passing. But it’s liable to fairly close — clearly a winnable campaign for conservatives and a losable one for liberals, especially if the sort of complacency sets in that we saw in California*.

* With that said, the model predicts that Prop 8 should have gotten 54 percent of the vote in California when it actually got 52 percent. So it’s not clear if the No on 8 campaign deserves quite the flak that it’s gotten.

The methodology used to reach this figure is incredibly convincing and deserves a read.

In a somewhat surprising move, a Texas court has ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage violates the constitution – as it applies to gay divorce.  The former couple argued that withholding the right to pursue a divorce violates their rights since they were legally married in another state. The Blade has the rest of the story, including the angry responses from anti-equality advocates who see the divorce as a strange attack on marriage:

“The laws and constitution of the State of Texas define marriage as an institution involving one man and one woman,” Abbott said in a written statement. “Today’s ruling purports to strike down that constitutional definition — despite the fact that it was recently adopted by 75% of Texas voters.”

Texas Governor Rick Perry, already facing criticism for a politically motivated cover-up, came out against the ruling.

Servicemembers United issued a Press Release yesterday revealing that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy is disproportionately used against minority members of the military.

The DOD discharge data – which included the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy – revealed that out of 619 total DADT discharges in FY08 from these services, 279 (or just over 45%) were non-white. The Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, however, reported at the beginning of FY08 that 71% of the active duty force was white. … Women in the military were also hit especially hard by the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law again in FY08. While women comprise approximately 15% of the armed forces, they made up more than a third (34%) of DOD discharges under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in FY08.

Last night President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to outline his plan for healthcare, which included a promise to prevent insurance companies from discriminating against persons with pre-existing conditions, such as those with HIV/AIDS:

What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you.  Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition.  As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most.  They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime.

Obama is attempting to address the problem many persons with HIV/AIDS have in securing affordable insurance. There is already a plan in place to provide basic HIV/AIDS care to those enrolled in Medicare, but those ineligible for the program may face discrimination from private insurance companies when they are not protected by law:

While insurance plans can exclude those with serious illnesses, large group plans rarely do so. If you are part of a small employee group, many states (including New York, New Jersey, California and Florida) now guarantee access to small group coverage regardless of your health, but in many other states, you can be excluded. If you are an individual purchaser, opportunities also vary from state to state.

Due to the high cost of HIV/AIDS care many insurance companies deny coverage to those living with the condition, a practice which shifts the burden of providing care to those with the disease.

Anne Wexler, who with her husband Joe Duffy were 2003 recipients of the Victory Fund’s Oates-Shrum Award, has died after battling cancer.  She was considered one of Washington’s most effective lobbyists, often ranking among the top tiers of lists of the city’s power players.

Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund offered the organization’s condolences:  ”Anne was a tremendous person and a great ally of the LGBT political community.  She made things happen, and made many, many friends along the way.  We offer our deepest sympathies to her husband, Joe, and to her entire family.”

Steve Clemons the openly gay editor of the blog Washington Note wrote today, “There were many of the great and the good who have been stopping in to see Anne these last few weeks. I know that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton both spent time with Anne as well — and she left feeling quite whole and good about her amazing life.  I will very much miss Anne who was a great friend and really special to me.”