Free Republic

I have read the 14th Amendment, and I didn't see anything about same-sex marriage. However, I do see that it says, "Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." So, if that part of the Constitution is being used to say same-sex marriage is OK, then I feel that polygamy is also covered. And if same-sex marriage and polygamy are covered, then what is to say that it's "OK or not OK" to marry my sister, mother,...

All I have to say is: God Bless MY Lt. Gov. (the man who I want as our ~next~ NC Governor). Looks like we finally have someone with guts who understands the true role of Federalism!! Just goes to show (along with the ruling yesterday out of Puerto Rico-along with their public rally for real marriage). That it's not too late on this issue!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Mark Cuban has got the answer. "Mark Cuban has some advice for the Republican Party: Drop the social issues. 'If I was going to give guidance to the Republican Party, I'd say, 'Stay completely out of social issues.'" He said it on CNBC today. I've been hearing that since 1992. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I can't tell you how many years, since 1992, that I have been hearing: "The Republican Party better get rid of the social issues or it doesn't have a prayer." And the theory, here's what Mark Cuban says. "If you stay out of social...

A North Carolina county judge resigned on Monday because he did not want to violate his Christian faith and perform same-sex marriages, which are now permitted under the state's law. With the news that North Carolina's same-sex marriage ban was struck down by a federal judge on Oct. 10, Judge Gilbert Breedlove, a 57-year-old magistrate in Swain County and also an ordained minister, could not, in good faith, be forced to conduct same-sex courthouse weddings when his Christian belief tells him that a marriage is only between a man and a woman. "It was my only option," Breedlove told Citizen-Times....

Idaho couple Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers and owners of the Hitching Post Lakeside Chapel of Coeur d'Alene, are facing thousands of dollars in fines and possible jail time for refusing to host gay wedding ceremonies, which the city claims violates its anti-discrimination ordinance. The couple has since filed their business as a religious organization, which means they might be saved by an Idaho law that protects religious freedom. Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel for the Scottsdale, Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom legal organization, told The Christian Post that while Coeur d'Alene has an ordinance saying that under "public accommodation"...

All churches are open to the public. Sure, they lock their doors at times; I’ve yet to run into a place that doesn’t do that, but the idea of church of any denomination is that anyone is welcome to come in and pray. That applies to Christian churches, but that also applies to most other houses of worship I can list: Jewish synagogues, Buddhist temples, and Muslim mosques. After all, how is a church supposed to gain converts if they don’t allow those not already formally affiliated to enter? All churches, and other houses of worship also allow wedding ceremonies...

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Puerto Rico bucked the trend towards marriage equality, upholding a ban on same-sex marriage. The commonwealth romantically defined marriage in a 1999 law as a “civil contract whereby a man and woman mutually agree to become husband and wife.” “Because no right to same-gender marriage emanates from the Constitution, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico should not be compelled to recognize such unions,” U.S. District Judge Juan Perez-Gimenez wrote in his opinion, which will now move to a federal appeals court. Adding his own two cents, Perez-Giminez concluded: “Traditional marriage is the fundamental unit of...

The recent questionably unconstitutional moves by the Houston city council to subpoena the sermons of five area ministers, as well as internal correspondence dealing with social issues, should have the American Civil Liberties Union and everyone else who believes in free speech and religious freedom up in arms. We as Americans must guard every aspect of our Constitution and recognize when it is being threatened. One of the great dangers in America today is extreme intolerance in the name of tolerance. For example, in this Houston case, it is presupposed that the pastors in question may have said something that...

The life of a Supreme Court justice would be “a little bit too monastic” for President Obama, according to an interview he gave the New Yorker about his legal legacy. Obama also praised the Supreme Court’s recent decision not to review lower-court rulings that struck down state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, saying he believes that the Constitution provides gays the right to marry. And he said that 81-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “gets to decide, not anybody else, when she chooses to go” into retirement. Obama made the remarks to the magazine’s legal correspondent, Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin noted that the...

While Francis I has nether denied not sought to change any doctrine, Cardinal Burke is correct. The pope has “done a lot of harm.” He has created confusion among the faithful and is soon going to have to speak with clarity on the unchanging truths of Catholicism. In his beatification of Paul VI on Sunday, Pope Francis celebrated change. “God is not afraid of new things,” he said, “we are making every effort to adapt ways and methods … to the changing conditions of society.” But among the social changes since Vatican II and Paul VI have been the West’s...

The Supreme Court’s recent decision not to take up challenges to state amendments banning same-sex marriage has had two significant effects – it has expanded marriage to 30 states and reignited the political conversation around marriage equality in the 2014 midterms. Since 2011, I have worked with Project Right Side to help Republican leaders navigate a radically changing electorate on the freedom to marry. While public acceptance of marriage equality has steadily increased, this moment may ultimately be looked upon as the point where Republican opposition to marriage equality began to fall in earnest. According to a recent poll of...

Like antifreeze that drips from a car and poisons cats, the statements exuded by the Vatican Synod on the Family are sweet. It is tempting to lap them up, to welcome the Church’s new proposed stance of apologizing to sinners and obscuring the nature of sin. There is no other way to describe the moral revolution proposed in the Synod’s preliminary report, which was produced by the bishops whom Pope Francis handpicked to manage the meeting. Rather than speaking prophetically in defense of the uniqueness and holiness of marriage, the task of Christians today includes “recognizing positive elements” in “imperfect”...

There is a point where decision on contentious, difficult issues is unavoidable. With respect to homosexual conduct, the American Evangelical church has reached that point. There is no ignoring the determination of the gay and lesbian activists to insist upon complete social and legal normalization of homosexual conduct; from the adoption of children by same-sex couples to the judicial recognition of same-sex unions as marriages every bit as complete as those enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Thus, Christians cannot avoid the need to decide which side they are on. The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month to allow current judicial rulings...

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...