Free Republic

The top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted Thursday to redefine Christian marriage in the church constitution as the union of "two people" instead of only "a man and a woman." The amendment requires approval from a majority of the 172 regional presbyteries, which will vote on the change over the next year. But in a separate vote that will take effect immediately, the Presbyterian General Assembly allowed ministers to preside at gay weddings in states where gay marriage is legal. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriage. Alex McNeill, executive director of More Light...

“I’m ready for Hillary,” read the bumper stickers in fashionable Georgetown, the swankIest part of Washington, D.C. These messages are juxtaposed with many a tattered “2012” bumper sticker with the fading Obama logo. Are these plugged-in liberals telling us their dream has faded, too? The never-quite-retiring Barbara Walters spoke to their disillusion when she wistfully sighed: “We thought he was going to be the new Messiah.” So, buoyed by public opinion polls showing her the most popular politician in America, Hillary Clinton launched her latest “listening tour” with a new book. It was supposed to be a non-campaign rollout. But...

Abolishing all civil marriage is the primary goal of the elites who have been pushing same sex marriage. The scheme called “marriage equality” is not an end in itself, and never really has been. The LGBT agenda has spawned too many other disparate agendas hostile to the existence of marriage, making marriage “unsustainable,” if you will. By now we should be able to hear the growing drumbeat to abolish civil marriage, as well as to legalize polygamy and all manner of reproductive technologies. Consider also the breakneck speed at which the push for same sex marriage has been happening recently....

The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco said Monday it’s his duty to proclaim “the truth about marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife,” even when those views are unpopular. The comment by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone came in response to a coalition of liberal politicians, fellow clergy and gay-rights leaders who have urged him to skip an upcoming March for Marriage event in Washington. Cordileone, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ subcommittee on the promotion and defense of marriage, is a scheduled speaker at Thursday’s march and rally sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage and...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her “deep-felt disappointment” with the turn her NPR interview with Terry Gross took. “Of all places I would’ve thought I’d be safe on NPR,” Clinton complained. “Is this woman dense? For her to badger me like she did is unhelpful. I mean, NPR is public radio. As a subsidiary of the federal government they ought to do a better job of helping their friends.” The incident that sparked Clinton’s ire was a Gross question concerning when Clinton decided to support gay marriage. “During the time your husband was president it appeared that your...

Federal judge: Most traditional marriage has been polygamy. Records: Swallow aide tried to cover up deals with Johnson. Huntsman Sr. interested in buying The Tribune. Happy Monday. A federal judge struck down Wisconsin's gay marriage ban, saying that state officials need to learn a few things about the history of marriage, i.e. that plural marriage is actually more traditional over time. "As an initial matter, defendants and amici have overstated their argument," wrote Judge Barbara Crabb. "Throughout history, the most 'traditional' form of marriage has not been between one man and one woman, but between one man and multiple women,...

I’ve often made the point that every advance of the homosexual agenda comes at the expense of religious liberty. We as a society must choose between homosexuality and liberty because we cannot have both. Where homosexuality advances, liberty retreats. For example, I have already written about the cop in Utah who essentially has been fired because he did not want to literally lead a gay pride parade. His reservations about homosexuality are religious in nature, but regardless of the Constitution’s guarantee of the “free exercise” of religion, he was forced to choose between homosexual pride and his own conscience. He...

America Rising has a transcript but I recommend listening to the clip. The last minute or two, when Hillary gets verrrrry defensive towards Terry Gross for exposing this vulnerability on her left flank, is pure pleasure. It’s hard to keep track of when big-name Democrats “evolved” on gay marriage, and by “evolved” I of course mean “decided it was politically safe to state their true opinions,” so let me help you out. For Hillary, the evolution didn’t come until March 2013, nearly a year after Obama dropped the pretense that he opposed SSM. Remember, too, that it was her...

Ted Olson isn’t big on making predictions. The conservative attorney who successfully argued Hollingsworth v. Perry, ridding California of Proposition 8 and allowing gay couples to marry, isn’t willing to guess which gay marriage case will make it to the Supreme Court next. (He’s working on one out of Virginia.) “Every time you make a guess of what a judge is going to do … you’re wrong, so I try to stay away from that,” he told Whispers. Olson also isn’t willing to play political prognosticator, though he said we’d eventually see a GOP presidential candidate who is pro-gay marriage....

“What was all that about,” former Hillary Clinton advisor Ann Lewis predicted would be the response of future generations towards current controversies over same-sex “marriage” (SSM) at a May 28 Washington, DC, panel.  Unquestioned approval of homosexuality by Lewis and her fellow panelists does not bode well for religious freedom, the topic upon which they spoke at the Newseum’s presentation of “Gay Rights and Religious Freedom:  Is Common Ground Possible?”Homosexuality is the “newest frontier of human rights” following the civil rights movement, Lewis asserted with an oft-invoked analogy largely shared by the panel. “Racial oppression and homophobia” intersections also occurred...

Is there anything more intolerant than the Tolerance Brigade? At the Daily Beast, Joel Kotkin agrees with Bloomberg’s Stephen Carter on the rise of a new McCarthyism, this time imposing penalties for dissent from progressive orthodoxy rather than tolerating debate on a broad range of issues. Both use attempts to silence argument in academia as the flash point that exposes this thought-police mentality. Carter recently wrote about the attempts to intimidate Douglas Laycock, an opponent of same-sex marriage, and explicitly invokes McCarthyism as the dynamic in play: A law student and a recent graduate, spurred on by the advocacy group...

It is wonderful to read the account of Kirsten Powers' conversion from atheism to Christianity. But that doesn't make her into a Bible scholar or theologian, and Powers has made some grave errors in her recent article on Christianity's new look on gays.She begins by asking the question, "Could there be a future where most American Christians support same-sex relationships?"The obvious answer is, "Only if these Christians renounce the Word of God and the God of the Word."But that is not how she answers her question. Instead, she writes, "If so, it will be due to the emergence of conservative...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Wisconsin Friday struck down the state’s ban on same-sex couples marrying, joining federal judges across the nation to have reached a similar decision in the past six months that such bans are unconstitutional. “I conclude that the Wisconsin laws prohibiting marriage between same-sex couples interfere with plaintiffs’ right to marry, in violation of the due process clause, and discriminate against plaintiffs on the basis of sexual orientation, in violation of the equal protection clause,” U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb wrote. She held off on issuing an injunction stopping enforcement of the ban, as...

For years, opponents of same-sex marriage fretted that the unleashing of gay nuptials would open the door for all types of sexual decadence. Last presidential cycle, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was panned heavily for comparing gay marriage to polygamy at a New Hampshire stop on the campaign trail. After a college student questioned his vigorous opposition to same sex couples being wed, Santorum responded in turn: “If it makes three people happy to get married, based on what you just said, what makes that wrong?” The remark was met with boos from students and condemnation from the liberal press.Less...

“We are loving, committed and faithful couples just like anyone else.” If you’ve paid the slightest bit of attention to the same-sex marriage debate, you’ve heard this very statement in some iteration. It’s not true by some important measures though. 1. Same-sex male couples are dramatically more likely to be unfaithful than heterosexual couples. 2. Committed lesbian relationships are more likely to break up than both male-male and opposite-sex couples, by dramatic margins. Those are two very important differences, unarguably judging the “we’re no different” dogma incorrect. What support is there for these stark differences? First, it should be noted...

A federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s ban on same-sex marriage on Friday, ruling it unconstitutional. It wasn’t clear whether U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb's 88-page ruling cleared the way for same-sex marriages to begin immediately. But the ruling makes Wisconsin the 27th state where same-sex couples can marry under law or where a judge has ruled they ought to be allowed to wed. […] The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in February on behalf of four gay couples, then later expanded to eight, challenging Wisconsin’s constitutional ban on gay marriage. Messages left with ACLU’s attorneys were not immediately...

An order handed down by Colorado's Civil Rights Commission on a local Christian baker forcing him to undergo sensitivity training after he refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding citing his faith is "vague," "lousy" and pointless, says his lawyer. Last Friday, the commission ruled that Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, could not refuse to bake cakes for gay weddings citing his Christian faith and ordered him to undergo sensitivity training. In an interview with The Christian Post Wednesday, his lawyer, Nicolle Martin, said the sensitivity training was pointless, because her client does not discriminate...

Commenter Stephen B has offered a response to my previously published article concerning same sex marriage. Stephen writes, “Sorry Jonathan, but this is not a category error, and your objection doesn’t work. Here’s the comparison: White man marrying black woman / man marrying man. If you want to describe it in terms of ‘actions’ then the former is marrying someone of the opposite race; in the latter it is marrying someone of the same gender. If you want to describe it in terms of ‘behaviour’ then the former could be described as ‘being attracted to the opposite race’; in the...

Earlier this week Politico featured a David Lampo piece, "Gay Marriage Will Destroy the GOP." Politico is exactly right that gay marriage will destroy the GOP – but for precisely the opposite reason Lampo imagines. In his article, Lampo argues that if the GOP does not embrace gay marriage, it is doomed. The truth of the matter is exactly the opposite: it is embracing gay marriage that will doom the GOP and consign it to the ash heap of history. Politico wants us to believe the tide of history is inevitable, and the GOP either must get on board the...

Never has the minority worked so persistently to cram its agenda down the majority’s throat. For decades, the homosexual lobby (the minority) has tried to impose its will on the general public (the majority), primarily through the courts. Ignoring the will of the people as expressed by state legislatures, the homosexual lobby has persuaded judges the will of the people should be overturned. The majority seems to offer little resistance, leaving the task to such organizations as the National Organization for Marriage, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council. It appears that the majority doesn’t care, but they...