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New poll finds only 33 percent of Americans favor, a 9-point drop since April The number of Americans who support same-sex marriage has plunged over the last few months, according to a new poll. The CBS News/New York Times study found that 33 percent of respondents favor same-sex marriage. That represents a 9 percent drop since April. Everett Rice, legislative coordinator for the California Family Council, said he has a theory about the decrease. "People really recognize their core and their values, their heritage," he said. "When people want to go in and redefine that, it really goes against everybody's...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today told a federal court in San Francisco that the state does not dispute that Proposition 8 may violate the federal Constitution and called for quick action to resolve the legality of the ant-gay measure law. "Plaintiffs' complaint presents important constitutional questions that require and warrant judicial determination," the governor said in a written response to a federal challenge of the anti-gay marriage ballot measure. " In a constitutional democracy, it is the role of the courts to determine and resolve such questions. … The administration encourages the court to resolve the merits of this action expeditiously."...

By Cindy Frazier Updated: Friday, June 12, 2009 12:02 AM PDT There are No comments posted. haron and I went on vacation to the East Coast a couple of weeks ago and came back a married couple. Well, we are married in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Iowa, that is. Not in California — yet. But that’s OK, it’ll come back around in our home state. And if not, then the federal government will make our marriage legal in all 50 states before too many years pass. Or not. Our Connecticut marriage is safe and solid....

As more states-like Iowa-approve same-sex “marriage,” conservatives are claiming that freedom of religion is in peril. Same-sex “marriage” supporters accuse them of engaging in hysterical gay-bating. Who’s telling the truth? Let me share some stories with you from an excellent news broadcast produced by National Public Radio. Then you decide. Two women decided to hold their civil union ceremony at a New Jersey pavilion owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. This Methodist group told the women they could not “marry” in any building used for religious purposes. The Rev. Scott Hoffman said a theological principle-that marriage can only...

This "bride" Cindy Frazier is the news reporter in Laguna Beach who made mine and many other good American patriots miserable. While I was active in the movement she continued to write stories with blatant LIES. At one point she went so far as to post the name, address, and phone number of a woman who had just given birth to triplets, because the woman made a police report of a stolen wallet after her maid service left. When questioned the maids were found to be illegals and deported. This reporter, Cindy Frazier then sought revenge and retaliation on the...

British street preacher Andy Robertson says all he wants from his community in eastern England is the freedom to disagree. Police have threatened to arrest the U.K. preacher for allegedly making homophobic statements. Once a month Andy Robertson makes his way to this street corner in Gainsborough, England. He says he's been doing it for ten years as part of the Open Air Mission, a Christian organization that first began street preaching in England 146 years ago.

The California Supreme Court's decision not to retract Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage, has sent the issue back to the forefront of conversation across the country. Most recently, New Hampshire became the sixth state to legalize gay marriages. While some 18,000 same-sex couples have already tied the knot in California, those who wish to walk down the aisle today will not receive the same privilege. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says blacks have been falsely accused of passing Prop 8. Some in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community blame the passing of Proposition 8 last November on...

Last November, Jay Pimentel began hearing that people in his neighborhood were receiving letters about him. -SNIP-

THIS page has long supported full same-sex marriage, and still does. We hope our readers don't sign the petitions to put the new civil-unions law on the November ballot. But we condemn tactics to make citizens personally fearful to sign this or any other petition. Fear is the essence of what one gay-rights group is encouraging. You can see their Web page at www.whosigned.org. It announces an intention to offer a computer-searchable list of everyone who signed the petition for Referendum 71. The Web site says innocuously that this is to let voters have "a way to check that the...

Porterville, a small Central Valley town, was the only city in California to formally endorse Proposition 8, the measure that banned gay marriage in California. But now, some residents want the City Council to reverse course, arguing the endorsement has inflamed tension in Porterville. The mayor isn't backing down, and it's possible Porterville will take a stand if gay marriage supporters place a measure on the ballot attempting to repeal. According to ABC30, residents spoke out at a council meeting this week: The Porterville City Council got an earful from residents who said the council's public support of Prop 8,...

Attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies, who faced off in Bush V. Gore, have declared they are working together to do what they can to bring Prop 8 before a federal court claiming it violates the U.S. Constitution. Please watch the following interview with Chris Matthews to fully understand their contentions and my responses in this article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUlDZLZ1Gls&feature=player_embedded These two lawyers are claiming that Prop 8 violates fundamental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution and amounts to discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The analogies made by these attorneys are perverse. They equate gay marriage with interracial marriage....

Ever since Gavin Newsom opened San Francisco's City Hall to same-sex weddings in 2004, he hasn't shied away from the political, legal and social firestorm he helped fuel. Yet the San Francisco mayor's gubernatorial campaign has also been working doggedly to shed his single-issue candidate persona. Newsom and his handlers have tried to advance his image as a "hard-headed pragmatist" who gets things done, who reshaped San Francisco with green buildings and new housing and now is making tough city budget choices amid California's fiscal crisis. But when the California Supreme Court affirmed the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage...

Thousands of supporters of California's ban on same-sex marriage rallied in Fresno and San Diego on Sunday in what organizers described as a celebration of traditional wedlock and a thank-you to the California Supreme Court for upholding their voter-approved measure. The demonstrations followed Saturday's gathering of gay rights supporters in Fresno to renew efforts to reverse Proposition 8, which the high court let stand early last week. The dueling weekend rallies underscored the fact that, despite an election and a Supreme Court decision, the issue of same-sex marriage remains divisive in California. In San Diego, about 200 Proposition 8 supporters...

Let Them Eat Cake Don’t bother petitioning Barack Obama for a redress of grievances. Barack Obama, the imperious yet bowing vassal to the Saudi Arabian king, can’t be bothered to take notice of Americans with grievances. The maligned Marie Antoinette is falsely supposed to have replied to the hungry cries of French peasants for “bread!” with the uninformed and callous riposte “Let them eat cake.” Marie, was also blamed for the penurious French treasury and tarred with the epithet Madame Déficit. Barack Obama is our own real life Madame Déficit and yesterday he regaled Hollywood’s high and mighty powers...

That’s the plan from two Southern California pastors, who are getting out of the marriage business. Rev. Art Cribbs of San Marino Congressional Church and Rev. Anne Cohen of the First Congressional Church in Glendale will no longer be performing wedding ceremonies. Gay, straight, traditional, opposite -- no ceremonies of any type will be performed. The pastors’ decision is in response to the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage. The justices also ruled that about 18,000 same-sex couples who married between June and the November 2008 election -- a period when the high...

Ventura County advocates for gay marriage plan to visit churches and synagogues as part of their effort to put the issue back on the California ballot in 2010. “We don’t want to get into screaming and yelling matches, we just want to tell our stories,” said Lisa Hughes, a member of Equality Ventura County’s faith outreach subcommittee. Equality Ventura County met Thursday night at the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance offices in Ventura to discuss its next step, now that the California Supreme Court has upheld the voter-approved Proposition 8 prohibiting gay marriage. EVC is a task force that was organized...

Gay-rights lawyers on Wednesday welcomed longtime conservative lawyer Theodore Olson into the fight for same-sex marriage, but warned him and liberal colleague David Boies that they could hurt the cause more than help it by launching an attack on California's Proposition 8 in the federal courts. "There is no end run around the nitty-gritty work of social change," Evan Wolfson, executive director of the New York-based Freedom to Marry, said in a telephone call. "If it was just about hiring a good lawyer and filing a good brief, we'd have won decades ago." Olson, who represented George W. Bush in...

<p>NEW YORK - After keeping his private life out of the spotlight for years, David Hyde Pierce has announced his marriage to longtime partner Brian Hargrove.</p> <p>The former "Frasier" star spoke candidly in an appearance on ABC's "The View." Wearing a wedding band, Hyde Pierce revealed they tied the knot "very quietly" in California on Oct. 24.</p>

GOD’S mercy is not everlasting. That is why there is death and hell. Californians will vote Yes on Proposition 8 to establish marriage between a man and woman or they will go down for their wickedness. In November voters all over the United States should demand that its political leaders reconfirm that the United State is a GOD fearing country or it will move closer to becoming a Third World Country. GOD will bring this country to its knees via natural disasters that will turn into financial disasters. From the presidential to local candidates, every politician who stands with and...

After yesterday’s ruling from the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8’s ban on gay marriage but allowing the already-existing gay marriages to remain legal, I predicted that an inventive attorney would attack the judgment in federal court on equal-protection arguments arising from that Solomonic split. That challenge came more quickly than even I predicted, and from an unusual choice of attorneys. Byron York profiles Ted Olson’s decision to make a federal case out of Prop 8: ----------------------------------------------- "The suit argues that the state’s marriage ban, upheld Tuesday by the California Supreme Court, violates the federal constitutional right for same-sex couples...

Seven months after voters passed Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, the state supreme court ruled on May 26 that the ban is legal. The decision also maintained that the 18,000 same-sex couples who married before the election are still legally married. The decision is expected to be appealed in federal courts. Same-sex couples can legally marry in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Maine. The decision to uphold the ban on the gay marriage was disappointing, but not unexpected. Since March 5 when the hearings began, the word had been that the odds were not in our favor....

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Gay advocates on Wednesday warned against taking the fight to legalize same-sex marriages to federal courts, saying doing so will make it more difficult to gain marriage equality. The same day, lawyers who were at opposing sides of the Bush v. Gore case in the 2000 presidential race filed a lawsuit appealing the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold Proposition 8. In a joint statement, the American Civil Rights Union (ACLU), Lambda Legal, National Center for Lesbian Rights and other prominent liberal groups said filing "ill-timed, premature" lawsuits based on the federal Constitution. "Pushing the federal...

With the ink barely dry on the California Supreme Court's decision upholding a ban on same-sex marriages, proponents are already preparing new political and legal efforts to overturn the ban. But at least some pollsters and legal experts think those efforts may be too soon to have a good chance to succeed. "I think the pro-side would have a significant challenge in 2010," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "I think it would be less of a challenge in 2012." DiCamillo's observation was echoed by Mark Baldassare, director of research at the Public Policy Institute of California. "It...

Gay rights advocates Wednesday blasted two veteran attorneys for filing a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, California's voter-approved same-sex marriage ban, saying the move is premature and could be disastrous for the marriage movement. While they knew of the objections, attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies - who opposed each other during the 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential election case - filed the suit Friday in San Francisco on behalf of two same-sex couples who wanted to be married but were denied because of Prop. 8. The suit claims the voter-approved measure, which the California Supreme Court...

Obama hits Hollywood on fundraising trip U.S. president to tap movie, music executives at Beverly Hills hotel LOS ANGELES - President Barack Obama looked not for votes in California on Wednesday but for millions of dollars to aid Democratic campaigns, including at a fundraiser hosted by such Hollywood names as Steven Spielberg. Like Bill Clinton and other top Democrats before him, Obama visits the Golden State now and then to tap wealthy, liberal-leaning activists, especially in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Wednesday night's two-tiered event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel offered tickets ranging from $1,000 to $15,200. The lower prices bought...

Olson Files Federal Lawsuit Supporting Gay MarriageFormer President George W. Bush’s first Solicitor General has irked fellow conservatives by filing a lawsuit asking a federal judge to look at the enforcement of California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The lawsuit claims a federal right for gay couples to marry. Theodore Olson, the attorney who argued Bush v. Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Mr. Bush, joined his former adversary in filing a case he hopes will take him back to the High Court. In filing a case on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, Mr....

Los Angeles (myFOXla.com) - Two attorneys who squared off in the legal battle that decided the 2000 presidential election will team up Wednesday to file a federal lawsuit claiming that the ban on same-sex marriage imposed by the passage of Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution. Theodore B. Olson and David Boies plan to file the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on behalf of two gay men and two lesbian women, arguing that the proposition violates the U.S. constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process. The complaint will also ask for an injunction blocking Proposition 8...

Yesterday - less than three months after Kenneth W. Starr and I appeared in the California Supreme Court on behalf of our ProtectMarriage.com Campaign to defend Prop 8 - the Court finally issued its decision... all 185 pages of it! By a 6 to 1 vote, a nearly-unanimous majority of the Supreme Court upheld the vote of the people by which Prop 8 was passed into law to protect traditional marriage in our State Constitution. You can read the decision here as it appears on the Court's website. While there were no real surprises in the decision, and it looks...

On March 5, 2009, the California Supreme Court heard oral argument in five consolidated lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the controversial November 2008 California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which added an amendment to the California Constitution to limit "marriage" between one man and one woman. Lawyers who represent public interest groups, universities, official campaigns, individuals, companies, churches, and various other organizations who advocate and oppose Proposition 8 offered their best arguments to the seven justice panel regarding why Proposition 8 should or should not be overturned. Regardless of how the court ends up ruling, however, only one winner will clearly...

Nobody can accuse the broadcast networks of objectivity when it comes to gay "rights." ABC, CBS and NBC combined devoted nearly 11 minutes of air time during their evening and morning news shows to the May 26 California Supreme Court ruling that upheld Proposition 8, the 2008 state constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage. The networks gave gay rights activists more than seven minutes of air time, through interviews and footage of their protests, while they gave Prop 8 supporters less than one minute to talk about their victory.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The large rainbow flag that waves in Harvey Milk Plaza was lowered to half-staff after California's highest court upset a string of gay rights victories in other states by upholding a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages. But the mourning period represented by the black stripe hoisted in the gay pride flag's place did not seem destined to last long. Within minutes of the Supreme Court's 6-1 ruling, gay leaders said they were moving into campaign mode with an eye toward trying to repeal Proposition 8 at the ballot box as early as next year.

As most know, yesterday the California Supreme Court ruled that California's Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is Constitutional. The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law. The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists said they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.

California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ardent proponent of traditional family values, put the issue of gay marriage to a referendum. It became the most expensive referendum in US history. The results of the 160-million-dollar vote became quite sad for American gays and lesbians. The decision to ban gay marriage in California may play a low-down trick with Arnie against the background of the recent budget vote in the state. Schwarzenegger’s adversaries are ready to use the Puritans to finally destroy him as a politician.

A strange-bedfellows duo of top constitutional lawyers said today they are challenging the legal validity of Proposition 8, the November 2008 ballot measure that prohibited same-sex marriages in California. Speaking at a Los Angeles press conference, attorneys Theodore B. Olson and David Boies said they had filed a suit in federal court on behalf of two gay California couples, and would seek an injunction to stay the law while arguing it is a violation of the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, represented former President George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, which decided...

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- On Tuesday morning, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 — the gay marriage ban passed back in November 2008 — and on Tuesday night some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities joined thousands of protesters in the streets of West Hollywood to voice their anger, frustration and hope of a future overturning of the proposition. Celebrities in attendance included Drew Barrymore, Kathy Griffin and her mother Maggie Griffin, George Takei and husband Brad Altman, Kelly Osbourne and finance Luke Worrell, Deborah Gibson, Emmy Rossum, Sophia Bush, Perez Hilton and Shanna Moakler. Access Hollywood caught up with Kathy...

This CBS News story is a snapshot of where the gay-marriage debate is taking us. At a rally in West Hollywood, Drew Barrymore revived the old narrative that family structure doesn't matter: "Children need families, people need to love and we need to move forward, not backward," Barrymore said. "What defines a family? We do!" A rabbi calls the idea that marriage means a husband and wife "religious bigotry," i.e., not religious liberty. The headline of the story is Ted Olson's decision to help bring a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Prop 8. I'm not sure the Human Rights...

The next same-sex marriage battle in California will be fought over a referendum aimed at the November 2010 ballot that is likely to include door-to-door campaigning in Bible-belt areas of the state that backed Proposition 8. The battlegrounds will not be in San Francisco or West Hollywood but in places like Fresno, the geographic center of California where proponents of same-sex marriage will hold their first high-profile event Saturday. Starting with a 14.5-mile march in Selma - the Fresno County town with the same name as the Alabama city iconic to the 1960s civil rights movement - and ending with...

"Like it or not," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his handlers made a point of not trying to electrify any crowds after Tuesday's state Supreme Court decision upholding the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. Instead, the mayor offered up a cooler, calmer message delivered over the course of three hours in individual interviews with a string of local, state and national reporters. "We just feel one-on-one offered the best opportunity to get our message out," said mayoral spokesman Nathan Ballard. The sit-downs also guaranteed that there would be no repeat of Newsom's infamous, growling declaration in the City Hall...

Both sides of the debate over same-sex marriage said Tuesday's California Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 8, the second defeat in a row for gay-marriage supporters, may have ended the legal battle on the ballot initiative but not the fight over the issue. In a 6-1 decision, the court rejected arguments that the November ballot measure amending the state constitution to state that marriage is the union of one man and one woman violated the "inalienable" rights of same-sex couples to marry. The justices, however, did let stand the same-sex marriages performed before the initiative's passage. "The identification of a...

Former Bush administration solicitor general Theodore Olson is part of a team that has filed suit in federal court in California seeking to overturn Proposition 8 and re-establish the right of same-sex couples to marry.

The California Supreme Court upheld the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage in California, putting lots of politicians on the defensive, and giving rise to the question of when judicial review of the public will is appropriate.

Around 175 people were arrested in San Francisco while taking part in peaceful protests against a California Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage, police said. A spokeswoman for the San Francisco Police Department said the arrests came as demonstrators blocked an intersection near the court building. Those arrested were released at the scene, Sergeant Lyn Tomioka told AFP. California's Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a referendum that outlawed gay marriage, but said 18,000 same-sex weddings carried out before the ban would remain valid. Gay and lesbian activists had sought to overturn the result of a November...

As I wrote last week, I firmly felt that the court even taking the case was akin to putting themselves in a position of authority ABOVE the constitution. In taking on the case they were essentially putting themselves in position to say that their authority outranked the document by which the entire legal system in the state of California is organized, operated, and established. They ruled in the only way they possibly could to save face and not create absolute tyrannical legal chaos and anarchy. For if they HAD taken out the scissors and claimed that a part of the...

Two top attorneys who argued Bush v. Gore on opposite sides have now joined forces to strike down Prop 8 in federal court, filing for a preliminary injunction against same-sex marriage ban until the case is resolved, which would immediately reinstate the right for all Californians to marry. Theodore B. Olson and David will officially announce their case tomorrow morning in downtown, according to the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Olson, a former U.S. Solicitor General represented President Bush, against Al Gore, who was represented by Boies. The pair is representing two gay men and two gay women who were...

'It bears emphasis . . . that our role is limited to interpreting and applying the principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs and values." That sigh of judicial restraint was actually issued by the California Supreme Court, which yesterday upheld Proposition 8, last year's ballot initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage in the state. The gay rights lobby is apoplectic, though we suspect the decision will eventually be seen as a victory for gay rights -- precisely because it respected the ordinary rhythms of democratic debate. That wasn't the case earlier in 2008, when...

At Daily Kos, there is a blog today on how to repeal Prop 8 in the future. LINK BELOW. Keep black and Hispanic turnout low, and counter Mormon Money... The title of the blog is "To Repeal Prop 8, Keep Black and Hispanic Turnout Low, And Counter Mormon Money." Does this sound to you like libs/Dems cherish black and hispanic votes? Does this sound to you like libs/Dems are against suppressing the minority vote? Don't libs/Dems want every vote to count? Could it be that libs/Dems only care about advancing liberalism and socialism and really don't care what they have...

Religious supporters of Prop 8, the voter initiative that banned same sex marriage in California, might feel good now that the state's Supreme Court has ruled that the measure can stand. ...Prop 8 has made it a lot easier in California for a simple majority of voters to strip away the rights of an unpopular minority. What happens when it's your time to be the unpopular minority? ...

San Francisco police arrested about 175 protesters who were part of a group that blocked a major intersection for hours today in response to the state Supreme Court's ruling upholding Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. Hundreds of people filled the intersection of Grove Street and Van Ness Avenue late this morning after word spread of the ruling. The court also ruled that roughly 18,000 existing same-sex marriages in California remain valid. Around 12:45 p.m., officers were seen placing plastic handcuffs on protesters and leading them to police vans waiting nearby. With each new arrest, the crowd cheered....

Tuesday May 26, 2009 BREAKING: California Supreme Court Uphold Same-Sex Marriage Ban 18,000 same-sex "marriages" obtained under Supreme Court ruling allowed to stand By Peter J. Smith SAN FRANCISCO, California (LifeSiteNews.com) - The California Supreme Court has struck down a constitutional challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment to the state constitution that upholds marriage as the union between a man and a woman. However the ruling does not apply to the 18,000 homosexuals who received marriage licenses from the state of California before November 5, 2008. The justices voted 6-1 to uphold the amendment, which effectively bans...

Help provide a counter protest/celebration in Richmond VA bring signs and video cameras if you can. Below is the original post. --------------------------------------------------------- Join The Impact Richmond Virginia DAY OF DECISION: California Supreme Court will announce its ruling on Prop 8 10 AM Pacific Time 5/26 To celebrate or protest the CA Supreme Ct decision we will assemble at the Federal Court House Broad and 7th st in Downtown Richmond on Tuesday 5/26 at 6 pm EDT. prepare for protest or celebration. The original plan for this event related exclusively to the Prop 8 decision, however, with other campaigns going strong,...