Free Republic

There were fewer than 200,000 weddings in Italy last year, the lowest level since records began, national statistics agency Istat said on Thursday. There were 197,091 marriages in Italy last year, amounting to 3.3 per thousand and “the lowest ever documented in Italian history”m according to Istat. The figure fell by around 10,000 on the previous year - to 207,138 - and was far from the 246,611 happy couples tying the knot in 2008. Marriage was still, however, proving popular in southern Italy, with a rate of 3.9 per thousand compared to 2.9 in the north. Wedding vows were at...

The first gay marriage will be registered in Naples on Monday after the city’s mayor made it obligatory for his administration to record the marriages of same-sex couples who wed abroad. Roberto, from Naples, and Manuel, a Spaniard, will register their marriage at the city council on Monday after attending Naples Gay Pride this weekend, La Repubblica reported. Two other couples are preparing to register their marriages after the controversial measure was introduced by mayor Luigi De Magistris earlier this month. De Magistris said the move not only had a symbolic value, but also a legal one, and that it...

A solid majority of Americans now support equal treatment for same-sex couples despite religious objections, according to the State of the First Amendment survey released this week by the First Amendment Center. Sixty-one percent of respondents agree that the government should require religiously affiliated groups that receive government funding to provide health-care benefits to same-sex partners of employees – even when the religious group opposes same-sex marriage. And 54% of the public agree that a business providing wedding services to the public should be required to serve same-sex couples, even if the business owner objects to gay marriage on religious...

NEW YORK (AP) — A state lawmaker pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges in a deal that requires her to resign from office, admitting that she obtained legal residency and ultimately citizenship through a sham marriage and then lied to bankruptcy authorities years later to erase $30,000 of debt. Assemblywoman Gabriela Rosa, 47, told U.S. District Judge Denise Cote that she "falsely got married" to a U.S. citizen and referred to it as a real marriage when she became a citizen in 2005. **SNIP** Although the two false statements charges carry a combined potential penalty of 10 years in prison,...

A married young Saudi man attending his sister’s wedding accepted a bet by friends and jokingly asked a man at the party to let him marry his daughter. To his shock, the man quickly agreed and called a Maazoun (marriage performer) to finalize the contract as friends stared in disbelief. “The young man then said he was joking and that he does not have money to pay dowry…but the man told him he would let him marry his daughter even for SRone,” the Arabic language daily Jazan News said in a report from the southern Jazan province. “The young man...

ear Demetria: I am the mother of two. I have an amazing husband and father to my children. The last child is not his, and he is unaware. His best friend and I had a one-night stand two years ago when my hubby was out of town. I can’t bring myself to come clean. I just started going to therapy about this. The guilt is making me miserable. I feel honesty would break our whole family apart. I'm afraid to find out what my husband may do. —Anonymous My grandmother had a saying about truth: “What’s done in the dark...

Cardinal Baldisseri discusses the working document yesterday (CNS) The Vatican has released the eagerly awaited instrumentum laboris, or working document, of the family synod in October. The 73-page text, which takes about an hour to read, consists of 159 numbered paragraphs, divided into three sections. The first is devoted to “the Gospel of the Family”, the second to challenges to family life, and the third to “openness to life” and parental responsibility.The document is based on responses to questions in the synod’s preparatory document, released last November. It’s written primarily for the select group who will take part in October’s...

The Synod of Bishops has released the instrumentum laboris, or working document, for its upcoming 3rd extraordinary general assembly, which will take place from October 5 to 19. The instrumentum laboris acknowledges the severe difficulties facing the family today, and “the growing conflict between the values on marriage and the family as proposed by the Church” and those prevailing in contemporary societies. The 75-page document suggests that most people— including many Catholics—are not acquainted with the Christian vision of marriage. While showing clear support for Church teachings on controversial issues such as birth control, divorce, remarriage, and same-sex unions, the...

National Organization for Marriage rally against same-sex marriage July 28, 2010, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Credit: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr.com (CC BY 2.0). Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2014 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A federal court has ordered the IRS to pay $50,000 to the National Organization for Marriage due to the leak of confidential tax documents, but the organization has called for further investigation to determine the extent of the wrongdoing. “Thanks to a lot of hard work, we've forced the IRS to admit that they in fact were the ones to break the law and wrongfully released this...

The city of St. Louis on Wednesday evening issued marriage licenses to four same-sex couples, a direct challenge to Missouri's constitutional ban on gay marriage. The couples were married in Mayor Francis Slay's office. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is now likely to sue the city, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

(CNN) – Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, indicated her support Wednesday for same-sex-marriage, becoming the fourth sitting Republican senator to do so. “A number of states, including my home state of Maine, have now legalized same-sex marriage, and I agree with that decision,” Collins said according to the Bangor Daily News in response to one of its reporter's questions. She joins Republican Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rob Portman of Ohio in expressing support for the marriage equality movement.

Boulder County, Colo. – In response to the historic ruling in the 10th Circuit Court today, Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall will begin issuing same sex marriage licenses immediately, beginning today, June 25, 2014 in our Boulder office at 1750 33rd Street, and in our Lafayette and Longmont offices starting Friday, June 27, 2014. Because 10th Circuit decisions are binding in the State of Colorado, the precedent established by Kitchen v. Herbert is applicable to the same-sex marriage ban contained in the Colorado Constitution. The Tenth Circuit found that “those who wish to marry a person of the...

DENVER (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled for the first time Wednesday that states cannot prevent gay couples from getting married, extending the movement's legal winning streak and bringing the issue a big step closer to the U.S. Supreme Court. The three-judge panel in Denver ruled 2-1 that states cannot deprive people of the fundamental right to marry simply because they choose a partner of the same sex. "It is wholly illogical to believe that state recognition of love and commitment of same-sex couples will alter the most intimate and personal decisions of opposite-sex couples," the judges wrote, addressing...

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that states outlawing same-sex marriage are in violation of the U.S. Constitution. By upholding a Utah judge’s decision, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals became the first appeals court to rule on the issue, setting a historic precedent that voter-approved bans on same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment rights of same-sex couples to equal protection and due process. But the court stayed the implementation of their decision, pending a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeals court upheld U.S. Judge Robert Shelby’s December decision, which struck down Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage. The...

U.S. Conference of Mayors had a 4-day conference that ended on Monday. More than 200 mayors participated in this gathering that took place in Dallas. The result of this was U.S. Conference of Mayors urging federal courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow same-sex couples nationwide to marry. The same conference was held back in 2009, that time too it endorsed the freedom of same-sex couples to marry. The same thing it reaffirmed in this current resolution. The major noting of the group was that that 19 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex couples to marry....

Two years after activists for same-sex marriage obtained the confidential tax return and donor list of a national group opposed to redefining marriage, the Internal Revenue Service has admitted wrongdoing and agreed to settle the resulting lawsuit. The Daily Signal has learned that, under a consent judgment today, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage as a result of the unlawful release of the confidential information to a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, that is NOM’s chief political rival. “Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter...

Florida banned gay marriage in 2008ORLANDO, Fla. —The Orlando City Council is throwing its support behind a lawsuit challenging Florida's gay marriage ban. .......... The city is filing a "friend of the court" brief that is supporting a lawsuit by the city of Miami Beach that seeks to invalidate the marriage ban.

President Obama and wife Michelle slept in separate bedrooms due to a marital fight during a first-term Martha’s Vineyard vacation, according to an excerpt from Ed Klein’s newly released book “Blood Feud.” “They slept in their own bedrooms,” a Blue Heron Farm staffer told Klein for his expose on the Obamas’ relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton, released Monday. “They both had stacks of books by their beds. The president was reading The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell and Rodin’s Debutante by Ward Just. I don’t know if they visited each other’s bedroom at night, but I didn’t see any...

Cardinals defensive lineman Darnell Dockett isn't afraid to speak his mind, and it usually takes place on Twitter. Often, it's funny, other times it's just weird (and ultimately not true). But on Saturday, Dockett probably would've been better off saying nothing at all.

Be it resolved that the Presbyterian Church in America expresses its gratitude to the Lord for sustaining by His grace ministers of the gospel, chaplains, and Christians serving in the public sphere who are experiencing ostracism, penalties, and persecution for taking a Biblically faithful sand for the sanctity of human life and declining to participate in the cultural redefinition of marriage.