Free Republic

All things considered, this was probably inevitable. The Department of Veterans Affairs can no longer rely on its unique reading of federal law to refuse to provide full benefits to a California veteran in a same-sex marriage, a federal judge declared in a ruling filed late Thursday. U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall of Los Angeles sided with Tracey Cooper-Harris of Pasadena, Calif., a 12-year Army veteran, who sued the VA for denying her full disability benefits because she is married to a woman. The VA is the defendant in several lawsuits over its assertion that the Supreme Court’s decision in...

All same-sex couples who are legally married will be recognized as such for federal tax purposes, even if the state where they live does not recognize their union, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday. It is the broadest federal rule change to come out of the landmark Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and a sign of how quickly the government is moving to treat gay couples in the same way that it does straight couples. The June decision found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits,...

ROME, August 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Since the push for "gay marriage" started, people who opposed it have absolutely refused to engage in discussions about the moral liceity, or even the physical and psychological consequences of homosexual behaviour. Have you noticed? The one thing no one in the argument seems to want to do is really to talk about what we’re talking about. In the case of the Catholic Church, this has become a nearly universal policy, from the CDF on down. We have been informed that it was official. When the issue started gaining speed, bishops and national conferences...

The homosexual lobby claims the majority of Americans favor same-sex marriage and that marriage should be only about love. Even if that were true, favoring homosexual marriage by definition means being “for” anything outside what the Bible calls a sacred union—between one man and one woman. According to a recent article on Prospect.com by Boston College School of Law professor Kent Greenfield, opponents of same-sex marriage have been right all along. Government approval of same-sex marriage will eventually erode bans on polygamous and incestuous marriages as well. As a matter of constitutional rationale, there is indeed a slippery slope between...

An airman who was relieved of his duties after he told his commanding officer that he could not support gay marriage has filed a formal complaint with the military alleging he is the victim of religious discrimination. Senior Master Sgt. Monk, a 19-year veteran of the Air Force was punished after he disagreed with his commander when she wanted to severely reprimand an instructor who had expressed religious objections to homosexuality. “I was relieved of my position because I don’t agree with my commander’s position on gay marriage,” Monk told Fox News. “We’ve been told that if you publicly say...

The state of Oregon has launched a discrimination investigation against a family bakery owned by Christians who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. The Bureau of Labor and Industries will investigate whether Sweet Cakes by Melissa violated a 2007 law that protects the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. Aaron and Melissa Klein told Fox News they turned down requests to bake cakes for gay weddings because it goes against the Christian faith and their right to religious freedom. “I believe marriage is between a man and a...

The Labor Department on Friday issued regulatory guidance to affirm that same-sex married couples can take a leave from their jobs to care for an ill spouse, the first of several moves the agency said it would make after the Supreme Court struck down a law denying federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. At the same time, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said it would extend benefits to federal employees in same-sex marriages. Labor Secretary Tom Perez announced the changes in a memo to the department's staff on Friday, calling the Supreme Court's June decision in United States...

A suburban Philadelphia woman who tied the knot with her longtime partner Sunday with a county marriage license despite the commonwealth's ban on same-sex marriage said it was the day "that every committed couple waits for." Dee Spagnuolo, 39, and Sasha Ballen, 38, were married at their Wynnewood home — with their three young children playing roles in the hastily arranged ceremony — after receiving a license from officials in Montgomery County. "We're excited — we've been waiting for this day for a very long time," said Spagnuolo.....

On Tuesday, an official in Pennsylvania's Montgomery County made a decision that he said would put him "on the right side of history and the law." He decided that he would issue a same-sex marriage license to anyone who wanted it. In Pennsylvania, same-sex marriage is illegal, but Register of Wills Bruce Hanes said in a press release that he made his "own analysis of the law." He also noted that the state's attorney general announced on July 11 that she would not defend that state's gay marriage ban against a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union. At...

<p>A federal judge in Ohio ordered state officials Monday to recognize the marriage of two men that was performed in Maryland on the death certificate of an Ohio resident in hospice care who the judge says “is certain to die soon.”</p>

It has been difficult to address the underlining causes and consequences of our nation’s obsession with same-sex marriage. On one hand are the individuals who support the court decisions based on the premise that individual rights cannot be undermined by the majority, even when the majority has complied with all known laws, regulations and procedures. That seems to be as far as the logical analysis goes, because it is soon supplanted by the thrill of the moral buzz that the “correct” position on same-sex marriage somehow generates. On the other side are the traditionalists who want the current legal definition...

Gay activists protest the Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2012. Owner Jack Phillips now faces charges for not baking a cake for the gay couple. (Free Republic)Gay marriage was banned by the Colorado constitution in 2006. But this didn’t stop the Colorado Attorney General’s office from filing a discrimination complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop for not baking a cake for a gay couple. The Advocate reported: A Denver bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple is about to face the legal heat. The Colorado Attorney General’s office last week filed a discrimination complaint against the owners of Masterpiece...

During the presidency of Barack Obama, we’ve learned something about our Constitution that we did not know: The president can simply refuse to enforce whatever laws he doesn’t like. Not as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, mind you, but in general, as to whole categories of people. First it was DOMA, in a sop to the gay lobby. Then it was the immigration laws, which the president has decided not to enforce against young illegal immigrants. Now it’s the crucial employer-insurance mandate in Obamacare, which is “suspended” for a year, because the president feels like it. I say “crucial” because,...

Anyone who supports homosexual “marriage” is supporting homosexual adoption. Anyone who supports homosexual adoption is supporting this: An American pedophile has been convicted to 40 years in prison for years of sexual abuse of [an] adopted Russian boy. His boyfriend from New Zealand who allegedly assisted in meticulously recording acts of sexual offence is going on trial at home. Two members of the pedophile porn exchange ring Boy Lovers network, Mark J. Newton, 42 and his long-term partner Peter Truong, 36, were busted in 2011 on suspicion that they were sexually molesting their son, born to [a] Russian mother in...

An Australian man was sentenced to 40 years in prison for trafficking his son to pedophiles around the world. Police said it appeared the boy, now eight, was adopted for the sole purpose of sexually exploiting him, according to media reports. Mark J. Newton, 42, pleaded guilty Friday in Indiana court. Prosecutors accepted a plea because evidence was too graphic to show a jury. Newton, a U.S. and Australian citizen, and his long-time partner, Australian Peter Troung, 36, were arrested in 2011 after New Zealand police discovered the boy was used in child pornography, the reports said. Police raided the...

The Supreme Court’s rulings in favor of same-sex marriage Wednesday were greeted with excitement by polygamists across the country, who viewed the gay rights victory as a crucial step toward the country’s inevitable acceptance of plural marriage. Anne Wilde, a vocal advocate for polygamist rights who practiced the lifestyle herself until her husband died in 2003, praised the court’s decision as a sign that society’s stringent attachment to traditional “family values” is evolving. “I was very glad… The nuclear family, with a dad and a mom and two or three kids, is not the majority anymore,” said Wilde. “Now...

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Sunday denied a request from Proposition 8 supporters to halt the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses in California. Dozens of same-sex weddings have taken place in the state since Friday, following the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday to overturn Proposition 8 — which had banned gay marriage. More same-sex marriages are expected take place on Sunday in accordance with the Pride parade and a VIP reception for newly-married couples in San Francisco. Prop. 8 supporters said the Friday start-date of same-sex unions came three weeks too soon since they still have 25 days to...

We are reluctant to sound unkind to the pro-family legal people who worked hard on these cases. But this is such a horrible outcome that something must be said. Both of these cases suffered from an unaggressive and short-sighted approach that bordered on incompetence. The pro-family side did not present a credible case in either of these cases. They were deathly afraid that telling the truth about homosexuality might offend someone. By not effectively countering the absurd arguments and assumptions by the homosexual movement, they made it easy for the judges to rule as they did. ... In the Federal...

Under the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages even in states that have legalized it. This week, the Supreme Court ruled DOMA unconstitutional. There are two possible grounds, distinct and in some ways contradictory, for doing so. The curious thing about the court’s DOMA decision is that it contains both rationales. The first is federalism. Marriage is the province of the states. Each state decides who is married and who is not. The federal government may not intrude. It must therefore recognize gay marriage where it has been legalized. If that were the essence...

It was a quiet ceremony. Elizabeth Miklosovic had an outdoor wedding in June 2004 in Michigan’s Manistee_National_Forest, where the couple lit candles and exchanged vows. Miklosovic’s marriage lasted only a few months, however. Later that year, the mother of the bride found out that her daughter had, at age 13, become the lesbian “wife” of Miklosovic, who had been the girl’s language arts teacher at Baseline Middle School in South Haven, Michigan. For some reason, state law did not recognize the legitimacy of Miklosovic’s pagan lesbian marriage, and she was convicted of felony sex offenses and sentenced to prison. Today’s...