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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...

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...

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...

The US government announced Friday it would recognize same-sex marriages in seven additional states, after the Supreme Court declined to take up the debate. A total of 26 of the 50 US states, and the capital Washington, now legally recognize gay and lesbian marriages, giving them the same legal rights and federal benefits as married heterosexual couples. "We will not delay in fulfilling our responsibility to afford every eligible couple, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, the full rights and responsibilities to which they are entitled," US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video message. "With their long-awaited unions, we are...

A state magistrate in Pasquotank County could face disciplinary action after refusing to marry two men following the end of North Carolina's gay marriage ban. Magistrate Gary Littleton declined on Monday to perform the couple's civil ceremony, citing his religious views that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Under state law, a magistrate who fails to perform his or her legal duties can face removal or suspension.

According to the Pew Research Center, half of Americans think business owners should be required to provide their services for same-sex weddings even if doing so violates their religious beliefs. In a September poll from the group, respondents split down the middle on the following question: If a business provides wedding services, such as catering or flowers, should it be allowed to refuse those services to a same-sex couple for religious reasons, or required to provide those services as it would to all other customers? The number saying businesses should be required to provide such services included a majority of...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says its doctrine on marriage will remain unchanged despite Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively legalized gay marriage in five states, including Utah, and opened the door for legalization in six more. “As far as the civil law is concerned, the courts have spoken,” the church said in a statement reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision. “Church leaders will continue to encourage our people to be persons of good will toward all, rejecting persecution of any kind based on race, ethnicity, religious belief or nonbelief, and differences in sexual orientation.” In...

Legal momentum for extending U.S. marriage rights to same-sex couples accelerated on Tuesday as a federal appeals court struck down bans on gay matrimony in Idaho and Nevada a day after the U.S. Supreme Court let stand similar rulings for five other states. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled the bans in Idaho and Nevada violated the constitution and cannot be enforced, adding to a growing list of states where same-sex unions are now legal. "Idaho and Nevada's marriage laws, by preventing same-sex couples from marrying and refusing to recognize same-sex marriages celebrated elsewhere, impose...

“Putting the paddles on the chest of a divisive issue with absolutely no hope of the outcome he promises is a hallmark of Ted Cruz,” says GOP consultant Rick Wilson acidly, the memory of last year’s doomed “defund” effort firmly in mind. Okay, but the fine print on what Cruz wants to do is interesting. Typically when social conservatives start talking up amendments aimed at gay marriage, they’re thinking of a substantive change — namely, a new law of the land that says marriage involves one man and one woman and no other combination. Once that’s in the Constitution,...

Friend- Earlier this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court announced marriage is legal for same-sex couples in Virginia. And the Fourth Circuit Court issued a mandate so that same-sex couples across the Commonwealth can be issued marriage licenses, starting right away! This is amazing news. Just days into office, I conducted a rigorous and thorough review and concluded that Virginia's marriage ban is unconstitutional. Together, we have put Virginia on the right side of history in one of the defining civil rights issues of our time. But the real heroes are the same-sex couples in Virginia and across this nation who...

RICHMOND — The Supreme Court on Monday effectively allowed same-sex marriage to go forward in Virginia, deciding not to take up a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the commonwealth’s ban on same-sex marriages. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mandate to remove the last barrier to same-sex marriage in Virginia. The first same-sex marriages were performed in Charlottesville and Richmond shortly after 1 p.m. At the same time, the commonwealth recognized marriages already performed in states as legal. ---snip--- Virginia state Del. Bob Marshall (R-Prince William), co-author of the state’s marriage ban, decried the move...

Add 11 more states to the list where same-sex marriage is legal. Gay marriage supporters have had a lot to cheer over the past two years thanks to a series of landmark rulings that have paved the way for marriage equality in an ever-increasing number of states. But on Monday morning (October 6), it was something the Supreme court didn’t do that will make same-sex marriage the law in the majority of the country. At the start of the new Supreme Court term, the justices announced that they had rejected appeals from five states that were seeking to prohibit same-sex...

NEW YORK (AP) — As same-sex marriage cases cascade through the federal courts, Republican politicians find themselves awkwardly split into three camps. There's a small but growing number who favor legalizing gay marriage, a hard-core faction that continues to denounce it, and a sizable group in between that seems to wish the issue would disappear. At one end of the spectrum, at least eight GOP members of Congress have endorsed same-sex marriage, and two openly gay GOP candidates for the House hope to join them. In Massachusetts, Richard Tisei has run ads featuring his husband. In California, Carl DeMaio ran...

One of the most dispiriting storylines of the Obama era has been that Republicans have largely stood on the sidelines while a major cultural transformation has taken place: The country’s shift on gay rights. Republicans have either put up nominal resistance, or had nothing at all to say, as one change after another has come in rapid succession and majorities have come around on gay marriage. And yet you’d think the GOP cannot forever put off a real intra-party debate over whether the party will evolve culturally along with the rest of the country. That’s why it’s potentially significant that...

The case was brought by 10 same-sex couples who are represented by the ACLU. Missouri must recognize the marriages of same-sex couples that were granted elsewhere, state Judge Dale Youngs ruled on Friday. “[T]o the extent these laws prohibit plaintiffs’ legally contracted marriages from other states from being recognized here, they are wholly irrational, do not rest upon any reasonable basis, and are purely arbitrary,” Youngs wrote. The ruling followed a hearing in September on the case, which was brought by 10 same-sex couples represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Missouri has finally recognized our couples’ marriages as being...

In fairness, the culture-war right has done less damage than the neocons and the super rich have. But they’re still the ones on the ropes.I’m not sure what’s come over me and I suppose it’ll pass, but at just this moment I’m feeling a little bit sorry for evangelical conservatives. They were apparently pretty droopy, these proceedings over the weekend at the Values Voter Summit, as my colleague Ben Jacobs described things. Oh, yes, Ted Cruz fired them up, and some of the old stalwarts put in respectable appearances, but they have to know deep down that they’re like the...

I wish Pew had provided older numbers to use as a yardstick here. Can’t tell if this has been fairly constant for a few years now or if opinion is starting to move towards gays on public accommodations as well. The fact that more people support compulsion in the name of antidiscrimination than the right of the business owner to refuse for reasons of conscience is newsy, though. Say, wasn’t there another splashy poll by a famous pollster on this subject last year? Yep, sure was — Rasmussen asked a similar question in June 2013 and found, no typo, that...

Eighty legislators from Utah have submitted an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in which the legislators warn the Court that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to the legalization of incestuous and polygamous marriages. The brief comes following the request for a writ of certiorari from both Utah's Attorney General, Sean Reyes, and the plaintiffs in Kitchen v. Herbert, the case that found both both a district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of marriage equality in Utah. As Joe.My.God points out, "the brief is signed by 22 of the 29 members of the state...

Should we really care if more than two consenting adults want to marry each other, or if polygamy advocates see the LGBT movement as an inspiration? A few years ago, when I was rushing my daughter to pre-school one morning, a similarly tardy and exasperated-looking mom passed us on the stairs. My daughter took this as an opportunity to announce, “I have two moms.” The exasperated mom picked up her hunched shoulders to turn to Willa and, after a sigh, say, “You don’t know how lucky you are.” This has happened to us a lot. On more occasions than I...