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Authorities are investigating the overnight shooting death of a 32-year-old man in New York's Greenwich Village as a hate crime after police said the gunman may have hurled anti-gay slurs.

Authorities are investigating the overnight shooting death of a 32-year-old man in New York’s Greenwich Village as a hate crime after police said the shooter may have hurled anti-gay slurs.

"This clearly looks to be a hate crime," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters on Saturday.

While investigators continued to piece together the events leading up to the shooting, police identified the victim as Marc Carson of Manhattan.

Carson was outside a 99 Cent Pizza on Sixth Avenue before midnight with a friend when they were approached by the suspect, the friend told police, according to NBC New York. After the suspect hurled anti-gay slurs, Carson responded and then walked away, the friend told police.

The suspect approached Carson and the friend again on West 8th Street near Sixth Avenue, law enforcement officials said. The suspect then allegedly pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and shot Carson in the face.

Carson suffered a single gunshot wound to the head, according to a police release. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Beth Israel Hospital.

The suspect was later apprehended after trying to outrun an officer who tried to question him. Police say officers found a silver-colored revolver in the suspect's possession. The man was identified as Elliot Morales, 33, of Manhattan, NBCNewYork.com reported. Police said Morales had an arrest for attempted murder in 1998, NBCNewYork.com reported.

The police are seeking to question two unidentified men who were said to have been with him earlier in the evening, law enforcement officials said.

The suspect had a separate encounter at a West Village restaurant earlier in the evening, police say. A manager and bouncer at the restaurant said the suspect made anti-gay comments and threats, NBC New York reported.

“I am horrified to learn that last night, a gay man was murdered in my district after being chased out of a Greenwich Village restaurant and assailed by homophobic slurs,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement on Saturday.

“There was a time in New York City when hate crimes were a common occurrence,” the mayoral hopeful said. “We refuse to go back to that time. This kind of shocking and senseless violence, so deeply rooted in hate, has no place in a city whose greatest strength will always be its diversity."

Sharon Stapel of the New York City Anti-Violence Project said in a statement she was “deeply disturbed” by the shooting.

Police said that a gay couple was attacked in a separate incident on May 10 near Madison Square Garden and severely beaten. One of the victims later required eye surgery. Another gay couple was assaulted by a group of men only days before in the same midtown area of the city.

"New York has seen a shocking increase in hate crime in recent weeks," Assembly Member Deborah Glick said. "We must stand together as one city and declare that New York is not open for bigotry."

Darrell Byers / Reuters file

Robin O'Neal holds a sign during a prayer vigil at the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving, Texas, on Feb. 6. The Boy Scouts of America have delayed until May a vote on whether to end a controversial ban on gay members.

“Bob is 15 years old, and the only openly gay Scout in a Boy Scout troop. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for the troop leader to allow Bob to tent with a heterosexual boy on an overnight camping trip?”

“Tom started in the program as a Tiger Cub, and finished every requirement for the Eagle Scout Award at 16 years of age. At his board of review Tom reveals that he is gay. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for the review board to deny his Eagle Scout award based on that admission?” 

These are some of the questions on a survey being conducted by the Boy Scouts of America as the private youth organization prepares to decide whether it should end its controversial policy banning gay Scouts and leaders. The Boy Scouts intends to make a decision in late May on the ban, which has roiled the organization in recent years.

More than 1.4 million surveys have been emailed to registered volunteers, parents of Scouts and alumni. The questionnaires were part of a biannual survey, “The Voice of the Scout Survey,” that the BSA conducts of leaders, parents and youth over 14 years old. But this time, the BSA used the survey to add questions about the policy banning gays (those questions went only to adults).

BSA spokesman Deron Smith, who provided the questions on the survey to NBC News, said in an email that “the BSA is committed to dialogue on the topic of its membership standards policy, within the Scouting family at the local and national levels.” The group was in the listening phase, which included the survey of key stakeholders, he added. 

The Boy Scouts’ policy has increasingly been a sore spot for the organization over the last year, following the dismissal of a den leader because she is a lesbian and the denial of the Eagle Scout rank to a California teen because he is gay. Some of the questions on the survey provide similar scenarios and ask respondents how acceptable or unacceptable these situations are.

Tristam Harrington

Tristam Harrington, an assistant district commissioner of the Water and Woods Field Service Council in Michigan, provided a screenshot of the survey, which he completed Wednesday morning.

When the BSA announced in late January that it may ditch the national policy and instead let local sponsoring organizations decide if gays can join, the organization received a flood of responses from both sides. It then decided to push a decision to May, when some 1,400 members of Scouting's National Council will vote on a resolution the Boy Scouts' officers are crafting on the policy. The survey results will be shared with those officers, Smith said.

Tristam Harrington, an assistant district commissioner for the Scouts in Okemos, Mich., who opposes changing the policy, said he thought the BSA had done a good job with the survey.

The members “have the right to have their say and I think it’s better for them to understand exactly where their membership stands,” he said Wednesday. “Are you just assuming it needs to change or is this really a groundswell from within the organization? Is this an outside influence? A combination of both? … You don’t really know unless you ask, and I think it’s fabulous that they’re actually, you know, taking the time to now ask.”

Steve Gates, Scoutmaster of Troop 98 in Taos, N.M., who supports changing the policy, agreed with Harrington.

 “They come at it from all sides and I think that’s good. I don’t see it as any kind of a biased survey,” he said.

But he added that some of the questions may rile up some members opposed to the change who could perceive talk on the issue in the survey as having validated homosexuality.

The survey was developed by a third-party research provider, North Star Opinion Research, with input from volunteer and professionals representing diverse viewpoints, Smith said. The Boy Scouts have asked for the surveys to be returned by April 4.

The BSA also asked if the currently policy was a “core value” of Scouting and if respondents would leave the BSA if a decision was made that disagreed with their view.

Other questions on the survey include:

• A gay male troop leader, along with another adult leader, is taking a group of boys on a camping trip following the youth protection guidelines of two-deep leadership. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for the gay adult leader to take adolescent boys on an overnight camping trip?
• A troop is chartered by an organization that does not believe homosexuality is wrong and allows gays to be ministers. The youth minister traditionally serves as the Scoutmaster for the troop. The congregation hires a youth minister who is gay. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for this youth minister to serve as the Scoutmaster? 
• Johnny, a first grade boy, has joined Tiger Cubs with his friends. Johnny’s friends and their parents unanimously nominate Johnny’s mom, who is known by them to be lesbian, to be the den leader. Johnny’s pack is chartered to a church where the doctrine of that faith does not teach that homosexuality is wrong. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for his mother to serve as a den leader for his Cub Scout den?
• David, a Boy Scout, believes that homosexuality is wrong. His troop is chartered to a church where the doctrine of that faith also teaches that homosexuality is wrong. Steve, an openly gay youth, applies to be a member in the troop and is denied membership. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for this troop to deny Steve membership in their troop?

If you are a current or former member of the Boy Scouts and would like to share your thoughts on how your troop, pack or council is handling the BSA's decision on the membership policy, you can email the reporter at miranda.leitsinger@msnbc.com. We may use some comments for a follow-up story, so please specify if your remarks can be used and provide your name, hometown, age, Boy Scout affiliation and a phone number.

Related stories: 

Boy Scouts: We need more time for decision on gay Scouts

After years of heartache, gay Scouts and supporters react warily over proposal to lift ban

'Gravely distressed': Religion looms large over Boy Scouts decision on gays 

'BATTLESTATIONS!': Call-in war waged over Boy Scouts' ban on gays

PORTLAND, Maine - Gay and lesbian couples exchanged their vows early Saturday as Maine's new same-sex marriage law took effect a minute after midnight.

Among them were Steven Bridges and Michael Snell, who held a commitment ceremony six years ago but wanted to make their marriage official under state law.

"It's historic. We've waited our entire lives for this," said Bridges, a retail manager, who's been in a relationship with the Snell, a massage therapist, for nine years. Bridges, 42, and Snell, 53, wore lavender and purple carnations on black T-shirts with the words "Love is love."

With Snell's two adult daughters looking on, they exchanged their vows in the city clerk's office after getting the first marriage license issued to a same-sex couple in Portland. They said they'll hold another ceremony with friends this summer, after the weather warms up.

Voters approved gay marriage in November, making Maine and two other states the first to do so by popular vote. A law is already in effect in Washington state; Maryland's takes effect Tuesday. 

Nine of the 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia have now legalized gay marriage. Another 31 states have passed constitutional amendments banning it.

In Portland, a half dozen couples huddled with friends and family in freezing temperatures outside the building before the doors to the city clerk's office were opened at 10 p.m. local time.

"We've been together for 30 years, and never thought that this country would allow marriages between gay couples," said Roberta Batt, 71, an antiques dealer and retired physician with silver hair and round eyeglasses. She planned to marry her longtime partner, Mary, who stood nearby.

"We're just very thankful to the people of Maine, and I hope the rest of the country goes the way this state has," she added.

Suzanne Blackburn and Joanie Kunian, of Portland, were among those in line to get their license at midnight, but they didn't plan to wed immediately. One of their grandchildren wanted them to get married on Valentine's Day.

"I don't think that we dared to dream too big until we had the governor's signature," Blackburn said. "That's why it's so important, because it feels real."

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

In Bangor, the city clerk's office was planning to be open on Saturday from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. for residents to obtain marriage licenses. The Brunswick town clerk's office was set to be open from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday by appointment. As of midday on Friday, five same-sex couples had booked appointments, the office said.

More lavish same-sex weddings are being booked starting in the spring at the On the Marsh Bistro in Kennebunk, said owner Denise Rubin.

"We support it wholeheartedly," she said. "We look forward to being part of a whole new wave of wonderful thinking."

The tide of public opinion has been shifting in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. In May, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to say he believed same-sex couples should be allowed to get married.

A Pew Research Center survey from October found 49 percent of Americans favored allowing gay marriage, with 40 percent opposed. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review two challenges to federal and state laws that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The nation's highest court said this month it will review a case against a federal law that denies married same-sex couples the federal benefits that heterosexual couples receive. It also will look at a challenge to California's ban on gay marriage, known as Proposition 8, which voters narrowly approved in 2008.

Washington state's law legalizing same-sex unions took effect on Sunday, December 9, and Maryland's law takes effect on January 1, 2013.

This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court on Friday put the brakes on a first-of-its-kind California law that bans therapy aimed at turning gay minors straight.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency order putting the law on hold until it can hear full arguments on the issue. The law was set to take effect Jan. 1.

Licensed counselors who practice so-called "reparative therapy" and two families who say their teenage sons have benefited from it sought the injunction after a lower court judge refused the request.

The law, which was passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this fall, states that therapists and counselors who use "sexual orientation change efforts" on clients under 18 would be engaging in unprofessional conduct and subject to discipline by state licensing boards.

The appeals court's order prevents the state from enforcing the law, SB1172, while a different three-judge panel considers if the measure violates the First Amendment rights of therapists and parents.

National Center for Lesbian Rights legal director Shannon Minter, whose organization helped fight for the law's passage, said the measure's supporters shouldn't read too much into Friday's order.

"It's disappointing because there shouldn't even be a temporary delay of this law, but this is completely irrelevant to the final outcome," Minter said.

Earlier this month, two federal judges in California arrived at opposite conclusions on whether the law violates the Constitution.

On Dec. 4, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller refused to block the law after concluding that opponents who have sued in her Sacramento court to overturn it were unlikely to prove the ban on "conversion" therapy unfairly tramples on their civil rights.

The opponents argued the law would make them liable for discipline if they merely recommended the therapy to patients or discuss it with them. Mueller said they didn't demonstrate that they were likely to win, so she wouldn't block the law.

Mathew Staver, chairman of the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel, appealed Mueller's decision to the 9th Circuit and said he would seek an emergency injunction to keep the law on hold until its constitutionality is determined.

Mueller's decision came half a day after U.S. District Judge William Shubb handed down a somewhat competing ruling in a separate lawsuit.

Shubb said he found the First Amendment issues presented by the ban to be compelling. He ordered the state to temporarily exempt three people named in the case before him — two mental health providers and a former patient who is studying to practice sexual orientation change therapy. 

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Courtesy Brian Henley

Brian Henley during his Air Force days.

Brian Henley’s life plan changed with a kiss.

An aspiring air traffic controller, he was a 22-year-old airman in 1994 out partying with friends at the Enlisted Club on the Royal Air force Base in  Mildenhall, United Kingdom.

He and his friends, he said, were laughing it up and talking when, in an act he said he doesn’t even remember, he kissed one of his fellow male airmen.

“I was drunk,” Henley, who lives in Clermont, Fla., told NBC News. “I don’t even remember it. My straight friends told me later it wasn’t even true kiss, just a joke.”

Study: No negative impacts from repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'

Still, that kiss would provide the proof military investigators would need to kick him out of the service. He said he had been investigated before for being gay, but investigators weren’t able to come up with any proof. Plus, he said, he had the backing of a lot of straight military members. But a friend disclosed in a classroom discussion that Henley was gay, and then was pressured into telling about that kiss that the military deemed a “homosexual act” on Henley's discharge papers.   

By engaging a civilian lawyer he was able to gain an honorable discharge. But he was denied GI Benefits that he paid into, and was kicked out of the Air Force with $2,000 in his bank account and even unable to collect state unemployment in his home state of California.

Even though the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military was repealed a year ago, on Sept. 20, 2011, thousands of men and women who served and were kicked out for their sexual orientation still feel the sting of the policy. For many, like Henley, their lives took a much different path than they would have otherwise.

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Henley, for example, finally was able to get on his feet and complete college and is now studying to be a paralegal in Florida, but he has incurred some $25,000 in student loan debt that he otherwise would not have had if he had been able to complete his service.

Now an activist on gay issues in the Orlando area, Henley, 45, has spent the past 18 years fighting to receive those GI bill benefits to no avail. He even sent a letter to President Obama, but was referred back to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which pointed out that he had never completed his term of service, and that the 10-year window to claim the benefit had expired.

Of course the reason he didn’t complete his term of service was that he was gay.

According to a comprehensive Defense Department review of policy on gays in the military, published on November 2010, more than 32,000 service members were separated from the military due to homosexuality or homosexual conduct under "don’t ask don’t tell" and its predecessor policy. Of those, more than 13,000 were "under don’t ask don’t tell."

Generally, the Department of Defense doesn’t provide retroactive compensation unless authorized by Congress. And that doesn’t look like it is in the works, according to legal experts.

“Repeal was an enormous step forward for gay and lesbian military service members. I don’t think we can underestimate the importance of it. But it intentionally was not designed to remedy past wrongs,” David McKean, legal director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network told NBC News. “It didn’t attempt that and doesn’t do that.”

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com 

Anyone who was kicked out under "don’t ask, don’t tell" or the regulatory ban that preceded it can apply to join up again. But they don’t get the time they lost, the back pay for the time they would have served or other benefits they would have received had they stayed in the military.

Though the Defense Department doesn’t allow the collection of educational benefits or back pay, those service members kicked out under the policies are eligible for medical benefits if they received an honorable discharge, Randal Noller, Department of Veteran’s Affairs spokesman, said.

“For the people that werekicked out under the regulatory ban or for DADT, that was an incredibly damaging event in thousands of people’s lives,” McKean said. “That has continuing lasting consequences. That’s just something the repeal couldn’t have remedied unless it was a much broader bill."

The next step in moving to full equality for gays in the military is recognition of the spouses of homosexual service members. The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the military from recognizing same-sex spouses.

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However, family readiness has always been considered mission critical in the military. That’s why it provides health care for families, deployment support services and moving assistance when service members are transferred among bases.

For now, spouses of same sex couples are cut out of the support and benefit system. They can’t even go on the base to go the grocery store because they are not given base identification.

That, according to activists, has set up a two-tiered system within the military, with heterosexual spouses taken care of but homosexual spouses cut out of that support.

The Democratic Party has long supported repeal of the 1996 act. President Barack Obama vowed not to defend DOMA in court, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., unsuccessfully introduced legislation to end it.

Meanwhile, activists hope that more administrative measures could help the spouses of gay service members, such as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordering that base IDs be issued for spouses.

As for Henley, he is happy that the new policy is going so well but thinks someone should be looking to remedy situations such as his.

“For people like me that have already been discharged, there is nobody lobbying for us,” he said. “If I would have already paid off my student loan debt, I don’t think it would bother me so much. But when I get a monthly statement showing that debt and I know I shouldn’t have it, that’s what’s kept it on my mind all these years.”

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A North Carolina church pastor’s call for gays and lesbians to be fenced in so they can eventually die off has triggered outrage among gay-rights and anti-hate groups, with one local citizens organization planning a protest in response.

The Catawba Valley Citizens Against Hate said it was organizing a peaceful protest against Pastor Charles Worley on Sunday in front of Providence Road Baptist Church just outside Maiden, N.C., “to tell the world that hate is not welcome in our community.”

The group said the protest would be “in the ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King and Gandhi.”

“We will not scream, shout or taunt Pastor Worley or his church’s members,” it said on its Facebook page.

The protest organizer, Laura Tipton, who lives in nearby Hickory, N.C., said she's gotten a tremendous outpouring of support and now expects "400 or more" people to attend.

"I think the message needs to get out, especially because this is a North Carolina church and North Carolina has gotten a very bad rap," Tipton told msnbc.com. "I think it's important that people know that not all of us feel this way, that there is support for the LGBT community in this state."

Worley’s Mother’s Day sermon suggesting that “lesbians and queers” should be rounded up to die off touched off a firestorm after a video of it was posted on YouTube this week by the Catawba Valley citizens group.

The 71-year-old Worley delivered the sermon on May 13, apparently in response to President Barack Obama’s public endorsement a few days earlier of same-sex marriage. Just a day before Obama’s announcement, North Carolina voters approved by a considerable margin a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and same-sex civil unions in their state.

In the sermon, an animated Worley told the congregation of his independent Baptist church:

“I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it pass the Congress – build a great big large fence, 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.

And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce. If a man ever has a young'un, praise God he will be the first.”

Worley continued, his voice rising: “I tell ya right now, somebody said, 'Who you gonna vote for?' I ain’t gonna vote for a baby killer and a homosexual lover! You said, ‘Did you mean to say that?’ You better believe I did!”

Worley could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. Calls to the church office rang busy.

The Last Word: Pastor wants to fence in gays

The church, which is not related to the better-known Providence Baptist Church of Charlotte, originally placed the video on its website but later removed it.  The website could not be accessed for much of Tuesday, possibly due to server overload.

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Gay-rights supporters and others were quick to denounce Worley.

"I am not part of LGBT community. I am an ally, a heterosexual," said Tipton, a social work student at Appalachian State University. "Whether you are straight or gay, people need to stand up against these messages of hate."

An online petition started by Adam Eyster of Los Angeles called for Worley to step down as pastor.

“This is hands down one of the MOST offensive things I have heard in my time of the LGBT rights movement,” Eyster wrote.

Miss. lawmaker denies endorsing killing of gays

Another petition started by Robert Hare of Jacksonville, Fla., urged state and federal prosecutors to charge Worley with “inciting to commit mass murder”:

"Freedom of speech or religion is one thing, but when you are exhorting people to 'help in the effort to find the best way of killing every gay person on the planet' you have clearly taken a giant step across the line."

 And in a post on MadMikesAmerica, blogger Erin Nanasi wrote:

“Pastor Charles Worley is yet another argument for the abolishment of religion. The evil that pervades the minds and hearts of some of the holiest of the holy, the preachers, priests, reverends and pastors will sicken the most hardy among us and the evil that is Charles Worley stains Christians everywhere, but particularly the congregation of the Providence Road Baptist Church, who applaud the venom that spews from the mouth of this monstrous man."

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Jennifer Tyrrell and her 7-year-old son have had many rewarding experiences with the Boy Scouts of America, but their participation in the national organization came to an end because she is gay, and the group does not allow open or avowed homosexuals in their membership.

Tyrrell learned the news on April 10. The loss has been devastating.

“We were like a family, so in essence … we lost our scouting family, but they also lost two members of their scouting family,” the former Tiger Cubs den leader from Bridgeport, Ohio, told msnbc.com, at points breaking down into tears.

“The best time in our lives we’ve had in the last year, it’s gone … because we can’t be scouts any more. I can’t stop crying,” she later added.

Tyrrell, a 32-year-old stay at home mother of four, said she agreed to become the den master on the day she signed up her son, Cruz Burns, for the local troop, last year. She had concerns about the Boy Scouts' policy against homosexuals, but a Cubmaster said that – locally -- they wouldn’t have problem.

“He said they would stand, you know, hand in hand with us and stand behind us all the way. Well, actually, that's been true,” she said. “I've never had a problem.”

Boy Scouts spokesman Deron Smith said Tyrrell was removed from the program for being in violation of the national policy regarding homosexuals.

“This policy was understood by her and her fellow volunteers, but not followed, upon her registering in the program,” he wrote in an email to msnbc.com.

Tyrrell said she would still be at home, crying on the couch, if her friends hadn’t encouraged her to hold a protest in town against her dismissal and start a campaign online to seek changes to the Boy Scouts policy.

Courtesy of Jennifer Tyrrell

Jennifer Tyrrell and her son Cruz Burns.

That petition has garnered more than 170,000 signatures

The Boy Scouts’ policy became a focus of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, when the justices sided with the organization in a lawsuit involving a former Assistant Scoutmaster who was gay, citing the protections of the First Amendment.

“Scouting, and the majority of parents it serves, does not believe it is the right forum for children to become aware of the issue of sexual orientation, or engage in discussions about being gay. Rather, such complex matters should be discussed with parents, caregivers, or spiritual advisers, at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” Smith said. “We fully understand and appreciate that not everyone will agree with any one position or policy.”

But Tyrrell said sexual orientation wasn’t a topic until her dismissal. The children just knew that Cruz had two moms, but there was no further discussion about sexuality.

She also questioned the timing of the revoking of her membership, claiming that as the recently-appointed treasurer, she was trying to iron out some financial discrepancies – and was going to formally make her queries at a meeting the day she was removed.

“She did raise question about the local unit’s finances, however her removal from the program was solely for being in violation of national policy,” Smith wrote. 

Tyrrell said she will continue to push for changes at the Boy Scouts and called on them to take “the high road” and change their policy to include “all Americans.”

“… because we’re just people,” she said. “We’re just gay people who love their kids.”