Free Republic

Now, the real fight begins, say leaders in the LGBT movement. And it won’t be for the faint of heart. So-called “marriage equality” is not the end-game, according to the activists. It’s merely a window through which they will push for other rights, in housing, education, health care, employment and religious practice. An op-ed in the Nation, a left-of-center magazine, provided a playbook for LGBT rights activists moving forward from last Friday’s 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court proclaiming same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. In that op-ed, LGBT activists were encouraged to take the offensive against any...

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case to determine whether the Constitution requires states to issue same-sex marriage licenses and requires other states to honor same-sex marriages performed in those states. A primary argument by the plaintiffs is that gay marriage is covered under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and that if straights can marry, then so can gays. The counterargument is that marriage is a privilege and not a right, a union of one man and one woman sanctioned over millennia by virtually every culture and country over time as the stable...

Lost in the celebrations over universal gay marriage, like abortion, being deemed a right found in the “penumbras and emanations” of the Constitution is the chilling effect the ruling has on religious liberty. In a telling exchange between the Obama administration’s Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito, detailed by Tom Blumer at Newsbusters.com, in which Verrilli admitted that churches could lose their tax exemptions if they refuse to perform gay weddings: Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax­exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage...

(Snip) No, the real intent of removing tax-exempt status is to cripple the institutions that continue their dissent from the sexual revolution. When tax exemptions are removed, donors will give far less than they are giving now. Churches will become liable to property taxes. That means that many churches will have to forfeit their property to the government because they won’t be able to afford the taxes they have to pay on it. Many of them wouldn’t be able to pay them now. If donations went down, they would be that much further from being able to pay them. As...

Coeur d‘Alene, Idaho, city officials have laid down the law to Christian pastors within their community, telling them bluntly via an ordinance that if they refuse to marry homosexuals, they will face jail time and fines. The dictate comes on the heels of a legal battle with Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post wedding chapel in the city, but who oppose gay marriage, The Daily Caller reported. A federal judge recently ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, while the city of Coeur d‘Alene has an ordinance that prevents discrimination based on...

American-Statesman County clerks can refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples based on religious objections to gay marriage, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday. Paxton noted that clerks who refuse to issue licenses can expect to be sued, but added that “numerous lawyers stand ready to assist clerks defending their religious beliefs,” in many cases without charge. Paxton said Friday’s “flawed” opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned bans against same-sex marriage in Texas and other states, placed religious people in conflict between following their faith and the U.S. Constitution

A lawsuit is moving forward against a Washington State florist who refused to supply floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding ceremony based on her religious objection, which could put her at risk of serious financial loss and the loss of her business. Baronelle Stutzman, who owns and operates Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington, is being sued by the Washington State attorney general's office for refusing to supply flowers for a same-sex couple's wedding ceremony. Instead, she referred the couple to another nearby florist who could supply flowers for their wedding. The attorney general's office filed its lawsuit against Stutzman in...

Halfway down middle of page: Region 8 Responds The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. What do you think? Agree: 66% Disagree: 34%

ISIS celebrated gay love today by tossing four more gays from top of a highrise. Of course a crowd gathered below to watch the execution. Several Islamists tweeted out #LoveWins – the same hashtag that was used today after the Supreme Court ruling. Of course this wasn’t the first time… A massive crowd assembled to watch ISIS rebels throw another gay man off a building top earlier this month. Hundreds of spectators came out to watch the brutal public execution. It looks like they drove their cars to the execution! They hung the man from his feet and then let...

The day after declaring Obamacare magically rewritten and that the lawsuits against discrimination in housing require no proof of actual discrimination, the Supreme Court found a unicorn in the 14th Amendment.

Friday’s 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling made same-sex marriage officially legal nationwide. Great. What’s next? The Court closed the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, ruling that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not allow states to ban same-sex marriage. But other critical issues facing LGBT Americans have been waiting for the same mix of funding and public interest that carried same-sex marriage over the threshold.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Church issued the following statement Friday: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that following today's ruling by the Supreme Court, same-sex marriages are now legal in the United States. The Court's decision does not alter the Lord's doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God. While showing respect for those who think differently, the Church will continue to teach and promote marriage between a man and a woman as a central part of our doctrine and practice." The Church has outlined its doctrine and position...

Under the banner of what is dishonestly called a gay pride or gay “rights” flag, hate, fascism, and intolerance has festered for years, specifically against Christians and conservatives. Under the auspices of a “rights and equality” symbol, Leftists have been on a rampage to take way the rights of others through bullying, lies, and online terrorism. The list of misdeeds and victims resulting from an increasingly emboldened Big Gay Hate Machine continues to grow. Under this banner of hate, people are outed against their will, terrorized out of business merely for being Christian, bullied and harassed for thoughtcrimes; moreover, “hate...

Charged with discriminating against a gay couple, the owners of another Christian family-run business are being forced to shut their doors. “We can’t pretend it’s going to get better,” Betty Odgaard told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview. “There wasn’t enough business.”

A San Francisco high school may be the first in the country to offer an LGBT studies course. The course will cover terminology, and the broad history of LGBT issues. “We’ll look at what it’s been like for gay men, what it’s been like for lesbian women ...

Christians are often asked by gay activists why they oppose same-sex “marriage.” “How does our marriage hurt you?” they ask. Well, I can think of one significant way it will hurt us: It will destroy religious freedom and free speech rights. The handwriting is on the wall in Canada, which legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, in effect completely changing its true meaning. Since then, as Michael Coren notes in National Review Online, “there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings … against critics and opponents of same-sex marriage.” Of course he means legal proceedings. For instance, in Saskatchewan, a homosexual...

You may recall Brendan Eich. The cofounder and CEO of Mozilla was dismissed from his company in 2014 when it was discovered that, six years earlier, he had donated $1,000 to California’s Proposition 8 campaign. That ballot initiative, limiting marriage to one man and one woman, passed with a larger percentage of the vote in California than Barack Obama received nationally in 2012. No one who knew Eich accused him of treating his gay coworkers badly—by all accounts he was kind and generous to his colleagues. Nonetheless, having provided modest financial support to a lawful ballot initiative that passed with a...

In parts I, II, III, and IV of this essay, I examined the problem: why Christians face increasing demands to accept same-sex marriage and homosexual sex not as voluntary conduct but as essential components of personal identity, and why the nature of Christian theology would require Christians to renounce their own faith identities to do so. In this final part, I look at the prospects for a solution or, at any rate, an armistice. As I noted at the outset of part I of this series, we do not live in a live-and-let-live society; we live, increasingly, in one in...

In parts I and II, I focused on the substance of Christian teachings about marriage and homosexual sex. In this part, I discuss the reasons of theology, politics, and legal strategy that bring Christian sacraments and morals into direct collision with the LGBT-rights movement. As discussed in parts I and II, the arguments for excusing Christians from following Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings on marriage and on homosexual sex are grounded in unsettled science, bad history, and worse theology. The more serious argument among people who are more versed in Christianity is not what is right or wrong as a matter...

Standing against same-sex marriage is not at all like supporting slavery and Jim Crow laws. In part I yesterday, I addressed two of the three most common efforts to undermine the legitimacy of Christian doctrine on marriage and homosexuality. Part II deals with the third. The third major avenue of attack on Christian teachings on same-sex marriage and homosexual sex, and a particular favorite of anti-religious progressives, is to compare Catholics and other Christians who defend the New Testament’s teachings on marriage and sex to the defenders of Jim Crow and American slavery. This argumentum ad Wallace, mainly advanced by...