Free Republic

Donald and Evelyn Knapp at the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Photo courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom. Boise. Idaho, Oct 20, 2014 / 12:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two Christian ministers in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, could face legal punishment or be forced to sell their nearly 100-year-old wedding chapel for declining to perform same-sex “wedding” ceremonies. “Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here – and it’s happened this quickly,” Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel with the legal group Alliance...

President Barack Obama says the Supreme Court’s recent gay marriage orders may have the biggest impact of any ruling of his presidency. Obama told The New Yorker that the court’s Oct. 6 rejection of appeals from states seeking to preserve gay marriage bans is the best of his tenure. …

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said pastors from across the United States should send "thousands and thousands" of Bibles and sermons to the Houston mayor who demanded pastors turn over their sermons to the government due to their objection to an LGBT discrimination city ordinance. "I hope she gets thousands and thousands of sermons and Bibles," Huckabee said on his Fox News show Saturday, referring to Mayor Annise D. Parker. "It ought to make you mad that the mayor thinks she can turn in her pastors. And so I got an idea," Huckabee explained. "If she wants a sermon, here...

…and the distinction between gay rights and religious persecution just vanished. It begins with equality and ends with everyone losing their freedom.But I love all these new freedoms we’re getting. We now have the freedom to do what various pressure groups want or go to jail. I hope we don’t get too many more new freedoms or we’ll run out of jail cells. Officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, are threatening an elderly couple who run a wedding chapel with jail time unless they perform wedding ceremonies for gay couples.Donald Knapp and his wife, Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching...

Gay couples in Wyoming will soon be allowed to marry after a federal judge on Friday struck down a state ban on same-sex nuptials and defendants in the case, including Gov. Matt Mead, announced they will not appeal. "I’ve never been prouder to be a Wyomingite," said Jeran Artery, who led the fight to legalize gay marriage through his work with Wyoming Unites for Marriage and Wyoming Equality. Gay couples are expected to start marrying in the next week. Some visited county clerk's offices Friday to begin the paperwork for marriage licenses. Other couples are relishing the thought that their...

City officials in Coeur d'Alene Idaho have told a married couple who are both ordained ministers that they will go to jail if they refuse to perform wedding ceremonies for gay couples. The Alliance for Defending Freedom has filed suit against the city and asked for temporary restraining order to prevent officials from carrying out their threat. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit and a motion for a temporary restraining order Friday to stop officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, from forcing two ordained Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. City officials told Donald Knapp...

The daughter of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain has celebrated equal marriage arriving in the family’s home state of Arizona. A judge struck down the Arizona’s same-sex marriage ban yesterday, and the state’s attorney general declined to appeal – allowing marriages to begin immediately. Meghan McCain – the daughter of the 2008 Presidential candidate, who had anti-gay Sarah Palin as his running mate – was jubilant at the news. The rights activist – who sits on the board of rights charity GLAAD despite her father’s opposition to equal marriage – tweeted: “Marriage equality is now legal in my home...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected gay-marriage appeals from Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, in essence allowing lower courts to legalize same-sex couples. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an institution that has vigorously opposed gay marriage for some time now, conceded that the political battle over marriage is over. “As far as the civil law is concerned,” the Mormon church admitted, “the courts have spoken.” Actually, nothing is over until God says it’s over. At least, this is my understanding of how religion operates. So though I don’t want to accuse Mormons of being a...

The US government announced Friday it would recognize same-sex marriages in seven additional states, after the Supreme Court declined to take up the debate. A total of 26 of the 50 US states, and the capital Washington, now legally recognize gay and lesbian marriages, giving them the same legal rights and federal benefits as married heterosexual couples. "We will not delay in fulfilling our responsibility to afford every eligible couple, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, the full rights and responsibilities to which they are entitled," US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message. "With their long-awaited unions, we are...

Richard Burr’s favorite judge legalized gay “marriage” in North Carolina around 5:30 PM on Friday. By Tuesday, the Administrative Office of the Courts — the state agency overseeing all those guys and gals in the black robes – had published the ground rules for this brave new era:

Will today be remembered as the first day that led to the Church’s prophesied schism? Quite likely yes. By many accounts people are waking up to see that the Family Synod of October 2014 is an officially Vatican-orchestrated work of manipulation. The mid-way report was released, October 13th, a day of great spiritual significance. This report has been called an “earthquake” by one Catholic reporter, and “one of the worst official documents drafted in Church history” by John Smeaton, co-founder of Voice of the Family. He went on to say: “We urge Catholics not to be complacent or give in...

As if we didn’t know it before, today we learned why the Secret Synod was conducted in secret, with the faithful not being permitted to see the texts of the participants’ addresses or even to know which bishop or cardinal was advancing which position. The Secret Synod was conducted in secret because evil advances in shadows. Many others, and not just traditionalists, have already expressed outrage over the disastrous “Relatio post disceptationem,” which appeared on the Vatican website today, October 13. This is the anniversary of Pope Leo’s vision of Satan’s attack on the Church (leading to his composition of...

Law360, Los Angeles (October 10, 2014, 8:14 PM ET) -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to grant an emergency stay preventing Idaho from issuing marriage licenses and recognizing same-sex nuptials from out of state, greenlighting the Ninth Circuit to enter an order allowing its ruling to go into effect. The short order included no reasoning for the decision, stating simply that the Idaho governor's application for a stay, which had been granted by Justice Anthony Kennedy on Wednesday, was denied, and that Justice Kennedy's order was vacated.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is asking the Florida Supreme Court to rule on same-sex marriage in the Sunshine State. On Monday, Bondi filed an appeal with the 3rd District Court of Appeal asking them to consider ruling on allowing gay couples to marry in Florida.... "Until recently, the issue was squarely before the United States Supreme Court, and it appeared that a definitive answer was coming," wrote Bondi. "Several certi-orari petitions from several states asked that court to take up the issue and rule. Even those who had prevailed below sought Supreme Court review. The United States Supreme Court...

It's called Pandora's Box. And the Supreme Court just opened it. Did you actually think the debate over "gay marriage" was about marriage? Have you really come to believe that this cultural kerfuffle has anything to do with "civil rights" or "equality"? Have you bought into the popular premise that this is a legitimate discussion on federalism – that it's a reasonable disagreement over whether the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause requires that newfangled "gay marriage," something rooted in same-sex sodomy, a deviant and disease-prone behavior our Constitution's framers officially declared "the infamous crime against nature," be made law of...

There’s no wavering from Indiana Rep. Tim Wesco, a strong proponent of traditional marriage. He lobbied for the proposed state constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 3 (HJR-3), to define marriage in Indiana as a heterosexual union. And following the U.S. Supreme Court decision that paved the way for same-sex marriage here, he isn’t backtracking in his views. In fact, he’s warning that the move could potentially create an in for legalized polygamy. “I personally can never change my view on that,” said Wesco, a Republican from Osceola who represents District 21, which covers much of western and southern Elkhart. “I’m...

“New Family,” an organization that promotes civil unions, gay “marriage” and adoption, single-mother families, sperm donations and other halakhically (Jewish legal) problematic endeavors in the realm of family, has taken down a controversial Facebook video against women’s ritual immersion in mikveh pools, reported Channel 2. The video that provoked intensely negative reactions showed a woman being drowned in the mikveh by the female mikveh attendant, or balanit.The video begins with a bride-to-be waiting for the balanit and speaking on the phone, saying “I hope the water is clean, at least. You never know who was here before.” …

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Court decisions this week paving the way for same-sex marriage to become legal in dozens of states, including Mormon strongholds like Utah, Idaho and Nevada, have emboldened a growing group of Latter-day Saints who are pushing the conservative church to become more accepting of gay members. The church's stance toward gays has softened considerably since it was one of the leading forces behind California's ban on gay marriage in 2008, but high-ranking leaders have reiterated time and again the faith's opposition to same-sex unions....

By stoking these politics of envy and victimhood, it’s the politicians, at home and abroad, who grow powerful and wealthy. The disenfranchised languish as political pawns, never hearing the truth that life is about making correct personal choices in an imperfect world.The Obama administration is highly exercised about “inversion,” the practice by which an American corporation acquires a foreign company and moves its headquarters out of the United States to do more by a lopsided margin of 51-17 percent. Over the past six months, the movement has been dramatic: Now the two groups are about evenly divided. And two-thirds of...

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear several Appeals Court cases on gay marriages, which resulted in bans on gay marriage being struck down in numerous states across the country. Following the Supreme Court's decision to punt on the issue of gay marriage, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd saw this as a sign that social conservatism was declining and obnoxiously asked "it is time for conservatives to surrender in the culture wars?" After playing a pre-packaged segment on the evolution of social conservatism in the United States, the NBC host did his best to portray social conservatives as...