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Australia's prime minister gave a personal assurance on Friday that his government would legalize gay marriage if a majority of Australians choose marriage equality in a popular vote. The center-right government has promised to hold a plebiscite on the gay marriage question if the government is re-elected in a vote due this year. But a number of the government's most conservative lawmakers have recently announced that they might vote down gay marriage against the wishes of a majority of Australians. ...

Over two-thirds of Germans want gay marriage to be legalized, bringing gay rights in line with those of heterosexual couples, a survey by YouGov published on Thursday shows. [...] Across the political spectrum, Germans said they wanted to see a change in the law. A total of 61 percent of voters for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Union said they were for legalization, suggesting that the Chancellor's opposition to gay marriage is now out of step with her own voter base. [...] Sixty-eight percent of Catholics were in favor, and 67 percent of Protestants. Within both religions, just over a quarter...

(CNSNews.com) – A couple who hosts occasional wedding ceremonies on their New York farm have lost an appeal to overturn the $13,000 in fines levied against them by the state’s human rights agency, which ruled that their refusal to host a wedding for two women was discriminatory. On Jan. 14, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, upheld the agency’s order and the fines, a decision the Alliance Defending Freedom - which represented Robert and Cynthia Gifford - said amounted to confirming, “that the government can punish the Giffords for declining to coordinate a ceremony that conflicts with...

Democrats in the Arizona Legislature want a law that requires judges to give preferences to married heterosexual couples in adoption stricken from the books. The legislation introduced in both the Senate and House removes current language giving preferences to a husband and wife over others in adoptions. Backers say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year legalizing same-sex marriage bans laws giving preferences to heterosexual couple over gay couples. Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, also said single parents shouldn't be given second-tier status on adoptions so the proposal completely eliminates preferences for married couples. He said single parents are just as...

We’ve heard Ted Cruz detests “New York values.” What we’re not hearing about is his hypocritical “situational” approval of these values and the “values” of a similar location: San Francisco. Nor have we heard about the Senator’s refusal to stand up and defend his New York and San Francisco “values” donors whose lives are threatened by the “values” of Pastor Kevin Swanson one of his convenient Iowa supporters. In 2009 when Cruz first decided to run for public office, he received a donation of $251,000 from Peter Thiel a San Francisco billionaire whose “values” include supporting gay marriage. Cruz wanted...

ALBANY, New York, January 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Farmers who host weddings in their backyard cannot refuse ceremonies where two people of the same sex are trying to get married, a New York court has ruled. The court's decision affirmed the state's Division of Human Rights (DHR) ruling against Robert and Cynthia Gifford, owners of Liberty Ridge Farms, after they declined to host a "wedding" for a same-sex couple. The Giffords said they would host the reception for a lesbian couple, but the ceremony itself would have to be hosted elsewhere because of their religious beliefs about marriage. DHR found...

Trump Says Being From New York Drives His Views on Gay Marriage, Partial-Birth AbortionHOUSTON, Texas – In an interview with Tim Russert, Donald Trump asserts that New York “views” and “attitudes” are different than other places in the country, such as Iowa.View the video here:Donald Trump on New York Values - In His Own Words (Video)Trump on Meet the Press:“I live in New York City. There is a tremendous movement on to have and allow gay marriage.”“Hey, I lived in New York City and Manhattan all my life so my views are a little bit different than if I lived...

Please listen to Donald Trump describe his New York Values to Tim Russert and explain how they may differ from Iowa values.

<p>So Mark Levin, as predicted, went Beck on us imho (Glen Beck).</p> <p>As fully expected, since he was already building up to it the day before, he is egging on this line of attack on Trump as reflecting "New York Values" - Cruz was told not to go there prior to the debate, but foolishly he went there, and there couldn't have been a more moronic move and insulting to all the 911 first responders, New York's finest, the NYC consruction workers, et all, and ... all just to try and take out Trump?</p>

Just as it seemed America was resigned to -- if not applauding -- gay and lesbian marriages, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has rocked the LGBT boat by ordering his state's probate judges to not honor same-sex marriage licenses. "Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or the Alabama Marriage Protection Act," Moore wrote in his order that was issued Jan. 6. The phrase "ministerial duty" refers to a July 2015 directive in which Moore argued "public officials are ministers of God assigned the duty of...

A federal judge awarded a team of Kentucky attorneys more than $1 million for their role in the landmark United States Supreme Court case that struck down bans on same-sex marriage. The state will have to pick up the $1.1 million tab. In 2014, U.S. District Judge John Heyburn ruled the state's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. Attorney General Jack Conway refused to appeal, announcing that he believed the ban was discriminatory and destined to fail in the federal appeals courts. But former Gov. Steve Beshear hired outside attorneys to continue defending the ban "so all Kentuckians will have finality...

Obama hailed gay "marriage" as one of his proudest accomplishments and looked forward to the day when Americans would shed traditional sexual morality to embrace homosexuals in his final State of the Union address last night. He said he found hope in "the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and the father whose love for that son overrides everything he's been taught" about homosexual behavior. To underscore his commitment to the issue, First Lady Michelle Obama invited James Obergefell, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, as one of her special guests. Ohio Congressman...

The First Lady will be featuring an empty chair as one of her guests for the State of the Union speech tonight. (It’s really rather crass to be stealing ideas from Clint Eastwood, isn’t it, Madam?) The empty chair will be joined by Syrian refugee Refaai Hamo, Paris train attack hero Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone, Ryan Reyes (whose boyfriend died at San Bernardino) and Satya Nadella.But it’s not just Obama cheerleaders in the crowd. As the Hill reports, one guest will be from a decidedly different camp. The Kentucky clerk briefly jailed last year for refusing to hand out...

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on Wednesday said state probate judges remain under a court order to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples even though a US. Supreme Court decision effectively legalized same-sex marriage more than six months ago. The outspoken chief justice, who previously tried to block gay marriage from coming to the Deep South state, issued an administrative order saying the Alabama Supreme Court never lifted a March directive to probate judges to refuse licenses to gay couples. "Until further decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, the existing orders ... that Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty...

Defying history, the law, and common sense, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has issued an order prohibiting Alabama probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Those judges now face a choice between disobeying the law of the land and disobeying their boss. Moore issued his law not as chief justice, but in his administrative role as head of the Alabama court system. This is not Justice Moore's first Hail Mary in the lost cause against gay marriage -- and he's not alone. All over the country, activists and law professors are wasting paper on fatuous proclamations that Obergefell...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday blasted Ted Cruz after a POLITICO report quoted the Texas senator telling a donor that fighting gay marriage wouldn't be a "top-three priority" for his administration. "Conservatives are being asked to 'coalesce' around yet another corporately-funded candidate that says something very different at a big donor fundraiser in Manhattan than at a church in Marshalltown," Huckabee said in a statement released by his campaign Wednesday afternoon. "Shouldn't a candidate be expected to have authenticity and consistency, instead of having to look at a map to decide what to believe and what to say?"...

“Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.” – Nathaniel HawthorneI am profoundly disheartened by Mike Huckabee’s behavior. I was a supporter of his in 2008 because he was clearly the more conservative alternative to John McCain, but a short eight years later, he’s let me down–not because he’s polling at a paltry 1.8%, but because he was willfully dishonest when asked about a recent attack on a fellow candidate.A Super PAC supporting Mike Huckabee recently ran an ad that quotes Ted Cruz at a Manhattan fundraiser. The precisely edited clip makes it appear as though Cruz isn’t...

Back in 2008 on the day of the Iowa caucus, when I was reporting on my first election for Townhall.com, I happened to be grabbing lunch in the same hole-in-the-wall restaurant as then-Huckabee National Campaign Advisor Ed Rollins. He sat in the cafe loudly trash talking the Romney campaign to any reporter he could call on his cell phone. Expletives and insults flew. Anyone sitting in the eatery could hear him. I, stunned any known operative would be so foolish to speak in such a way in a public place, wrote it up as an item. These are the same...

Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, said Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin gave Kim Davis and all the other county clerks in the state a "wonderful Christmas gift" by protecting their religious rights and freedom. Bevin issued an executive order two weeks after taking office that removes the names of all county clerks from marriage licenses issued in Kentucky. Staver said that will enable Davis and all other county clerks to do their jobs — issue marriage licenses to everyone, including same-sex couples — without compromising their religious principles. Davis vaulted from her little county clerk's office in...

I’ve never quite understood either the appeal of Mike Huckabee as a national candidate or why Mike Huckabee thinks of himself as a national candidate but, for the second time Governor Huckabee has made a bid to become the GOP’s nominee for president. In 2008, he made a creditable run in the early states but dropped out in March when it became apparent that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 48% would win Texas and the nomination. Huckabee had hoped to reprise his 2008 campaign this year but has been frustrated by one man: Ted Cruz. Cruz won the endorsement of Iowa...