Free Republic

April 29, 2015 (AlbertMohler.com) -- “It is … it is going to be an issue.” With those words, spoken yesterday before the Supreme Court of the Unites States, the Solicitor General of the United States announced that religious liberty is directly threatened by the legalization of same-sex marriage. Donald Verrili, representing the Obama Administration as the nation’s highest court considered again the issue of same-sex marriage, was responding to a question from Justice Samuel Alito. His answer confirms with candor the threat we have long seen coming.Back in 2005, long before the movement to legalize same-sex marriage had gained cultural...

Before the Supreme Court rules on enforcing gay marriage on all of us at the barrel of a government gun, we must consider how we answer legitimate questions, and how we conservatives and Bible-believing Christians can defend our ideals playing into the “hate and bigotry” the Left would so readily use to define us. After being banned from Reddit groups /r/feminism and /r/LGBT for posting opinions they find disagreeable, I was finally asked an excellent question in response to my post on Jutice Alito’s line of questioning in Tuesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on gay marriage. The question illuminates much about the...

In yesterday’s oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges (better known as the “gay-marriage case”), the solicitor general of the United States committed a classic “Kinsley gaffe”: He accidentally told the truth. Normally, in any argument about the next legal step of the sexual revolution, the accusation or even implication that there’s a slippery slope is grounds for outrage. Not only shouldn’t we explore the legal implications of expanding the definition of marriage, the very attempt is homophobic. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Yesterday, however, the solicitor general tugged at that curtain, revealing the Jacobin behind —...

“We will not obey.” That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage. “We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.” “While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not...

A protester at the Supreme Court this morning starts yelling about hell and homosexuality, shrieking, “The Bible teaches that if you support gay marriage you will burn in hell for eternity.” As he’s dragged from the chamber (he can be heard screaming outside for several minutes more), Justice Antonin Scalia quips that this is “rather refreshing actually.” There is, it seems an Angry Scalia, just as there is an angry Obama. As for Justice Anthony Kennedy, if we know anything at all about him it is this: You don’t tell him what dignity is, or who has it, or how...

According to a recent Gallup survey, of the total U.S. adult population (approximately 243 million U.S. adults), less than 1 percent, only .8 percent (approximately 2 million U.S. adults), are part of a same-sex couple.The same survey finds that approximately .3 percent (.3%) of U.S. adults are married to a same-sex spouse, a mere .5 percent (.5%) identify as being in a same-sex domestic partnership and, of the estimated .8 percent (.8%) of the total U.S. adult population that are a part of a same-sex couple, 780,000 are married. In other words, of the estimated 2 million adults that are...

The embattled pastor of a San Francisco parish has been the target of an unrelenting campaign aimed at pressuring Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to oust him. At the same time, the charges against Father Joseph Illo are being used as part of a larger effort to lobby Pope Francis to remove the archbishop, according to local observers. This week, the Archdiocese of San Francisco quietly announced that a priest has been assigned as chaplain at the parish’s school. The connection between the efforts to push out both priest and archbishop became national news when more than 100 “prominent Catholics” published a...

It is time for decent everyday Americans to stand up and oppose this new Nazi menace before it takes us down the path traveled in the 1930s The events of recent months have emboldened the Gaystapo to plumb new depths of depravity. Not content with having the laws of the various States overturned by unelected federal judges for the benefit of the sexual lifestyle choices of a tiny minority, nor with the increasing persecution of business owners acting on their own deeply held personal beliefs, the radical gay activists have upped the ante against those who disagree with them. In...

Moshe Feiglin – who was a Likud MK in 2013-2015 – is out of the Knesset, for now at least, but his nonconformist thinking continues to arouse interest and spark fiery debate. Feiglin took issue with the uniformly uncritical and adoring way Israel's media has been covering the plight of gay parents who were stranded with their newborn babies in harsh conditions, following the Nepal earthquake. These men hired poor Indian women to serve as surrogate mothers for their babies and then brought them to Nepal in order to give birth, because Indian law no longer allows gays to enter...

Chief Justice Roberts has long been troubled by the idea that courts might short-circuit a democratic debate over marriage equality by imposing a constitutional right to marry by judicial fiat. In his dissent from the Windsor case in 2013, he wrote that he was reluctant to “tar the political branches with the brush of bigotry” without convincing evidence that a law’s “principal purpose was to codify malice.” He might vote to uphold same-sex-marriage bans on the grounds that the people, not judges, should decide the future of marriage.

Clinton recently shifted her position on the issue of same-sex marriage slightly. Last summer, in a testy interview with NPR's Terry Gross, Clinton said while she supports same-sex marriage, the issue "had always been a matter left to the states." In a statement released via a spokeswoman earlier this month, Clinton now said she hopes it would become a "constitutional right." “Hillary Clinton supports marriage equality and hopes the Supreme Court will come down on the side of same-sex couples being guaranteed that constitutional right,” Hillary for America spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod said in a statement to ABC News.

What starts as a “rights” issue inevitably ends up enforced at the barrel of the gun, and this highlights the importance of correctly defining words, especially before the Supreme Court. In the end, our society has to get along on these issues and come to some agreement—even if it’s to agree to disagree.  But society’s disagreements eventually work themselves out in law, and the Left’s aversion to even the most basic exploration of how changes in law affect our citizens is most troubling. The Left would have us change human taxonomy the way Facebook has changed its gender policy. Instead of...

When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of...

With six words—“It is going to be an issue”—the U.S. government signaled to orthodox Christian colleges and universities that if they don’t drop their opposition to same-sex marriage they will lose their tax exempt status. Those words came yesterday when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, a case concerning whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s must guarantee the right for same-sex couples to marry. While the primary issue is whether gay marriage will be required in every state in the union, one exchange highlighted how the upcoming ruling could affect religious liberty. Justice Samuel Alito asked Solicitor General...

<p>That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage.</p> <p>“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.”</p>

April 29, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse.com) -- The current debate over the definition of marriage is typically portrayed as a decision about whether to “expand” or “extend” marriage to include same-sex couples. This argument, however, assumes that the basic nature of marriage will remain largely unchanged by granting marriage status to same-sex partnerships. It implies that all this policy change would do is absorb same-sex partnerships within the existing boundaries of marriage, thus extending the benefits of marriage to a wider segment of society. Indeed, the very term “same-sex marriage” implies that same-sex couples in committed relationships are already a type of marriage that...

Arguments over same-sex marriage played out in the U.S. Supreme Courton Tuesday, but many religious groups opposed to gay marriage aren’t waiting for a ruling. A court ruling expected two months from now could sanction same-sex marriage nationwide. In anticipation, some congregations and religious advocacy groups are re-emphasizing their teachings on marriage, fine-tuning their approach to gays and lesbians and bracing for legal battles and public criticism. “The outcome of this decision will shape the landscape of the church’s ministry in the U.S. for generations to come,” wrote Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the...

North Dakota state Rep. Randy Boehning has come out as bisexual after a 21-year-old man claimed the Republican sent him a photo of his genitals via the gay dating site Grindr. Mr. Boehning, 52, says the man who came forward is retaliating against him for a recent vote against expanding gay rights, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead reported. Dustin Smith, 21, contacted the newspaper earlier this month, saying he recognized Mr. Boehning from Grindr, chatting under the user name Top Man! According to exchanges reviewed by The Forum, Mr. Boehning sent Mr. Smith an unsolicited photo of his penis on March...

Full title: “It is Going to Be an Issue” — Supreme Court Argument on Same-Sex Marriage Puts Religious Liberty in the Crosshairs It is … it is going to be an issue.” With those words, spoken yesterday before the Supreme Court of the Unites States, the Solicitor General of the United States announced that religious liberty is directly threatened by the legalization of same-sex marriage. Donald Verrili, representing the Obama Administration as the nation’s highest court considered again the issue of same-sex marriage, was responding to a question from Justice Samuel Alito. His answer confirms with candor the threat we...

Many people think that the resistance to redefining marriage stems from a desire to be unfair to homosexuals. It doesn’t. Resistance mainly comes from the knowledge that when the State redefines marriage then this harms the ability of heterosexuals to get married and stay married. And if redefinition harms the ability of heterosexuals to get married and stay married then children suffer. And if children suffer then society finds itself facing more social problems and financial debt. The USA declines.