Free Republic

SALT LAKE CITY — The Church issued the following statement Friday: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges that following today's ruling by the Supreme Court, same-sex marriages are now legal in the United States. The Court's decision does not alter the Lord's doctrine that marriage is a union between a man and a woman ordained by God. While showing respect for those who think differently, the Church will continue to teach and promote marriage between a man and a woman as a central part of our doctrine and practice." The Church has outlined its doctrine and position...

A document provided to Breitbart News shows the investment banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase has joined a long line of major corporations in putting pressure on employees to sign up for the cause of gay rights. And they have not-so-subtly let each employee know not signing up will be noted. Employees are being told “to help create an environment for open and honest dialogue.” The document notes descriptors such as “wife” and “boyfriend” are frowned upon, and “partner” is preferred. Not referring to your wife as your wife “offers up the opportunity for more inclusive conversations.” JP Morgan urges employees...

A series of events that has been described as a “troubling turn” has been found to have taken place at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the justices’ looming decision on marriage – whether they will affirm the millennia old standard of one man and one woman or whether they will create a right to homosexual “marriage.” The circumstances concern efforts to have Ruth Ginsburg and Elena Kagan recused from the marriage case because they both have taken public advocacy positions for same-sex “marriage” by performing those ceremonies even while the case was pending before the justices. WND reported just days...

Saying it's "obvious," best-selling author and national talk show host Hugh Hewitt is urging all of the nearly two dozen potential Republican presidential candidates to pick 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney as their vice presidential choice. In his upcoming book The Queen, directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hewitt said that Romney has the influence and status of former Vice President Dick Cheney, making him a formidable campaigner and White House partner. That, he added in the book provided to Secrets, will force Clinton to make an equally top-notch pick, not somebody like Joe Biden, the "lovable dolt" chosen by Barack...

Shortly after 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney withdrew from the presidential campaign of 2016, I suggested that he was probably pursuing a brilliant strategy intended to let the other Republican candidates wear each other down while the media investigated them all, paving the way for Romney to step in as the savior of the party. My Machiavellian theory early this year is starting to look pretty good today! In my column this week about the magic of Bill Clinton, I suggested that because of the great success of the Bill Clinton presidency, the vast experience of Hillary Clinton and huge...

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the Republican presidential candidate who believes that the gay “jihad” may soon lead to the imprisonment of pastors and the end of free speech, told a right-wing radio host yesterday that the legalization of same-sex marriage represents the greatest threat to religious liberty in the history of the United States. “We are seeing today profound threats to religious liberty in America, I think the greatest threats we’ve ever seen,” Cruz told conservative author and talk radio host Eric Metaxas.Cruz said that the fights over “religious freedom” laws in Indiana and Arkansas were “heartbreaking” examples of...

Legislators in Texas are considering bills that would seek to enforce a ban on gay marriage even if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to declare such bans unconstitutional. Last month, the highest court in the land heard oral arguments in an appeal to determine whether or not state-level bans on gay marriage were constitutional. Texas representatives have introduced measures, including House Bill 4105, which would bar government funds from being used to support gay marriage. "State or local funds may not be used for an activity that includes the licensing or support of a same-sex marriage," reads the bill. "A...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 11, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- The GOP's only female presidential candidate says that she supports gay civil unions and religious liberty -- and that "government shouldn't discriminate" when it comes to benefits.Speaking to the blog Caffeinated Thoughts, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina also said she would not support an amendment to overturn whatever decision the Supreme Court makes this summer. "I think the Supreme Court ruling will become the law of the land, and however much I may agree or disagree with it, I wouldn’t support an amendment to reverse it," explained Fiorina. "I very much hope that we...

During the recent Supreme Court hearing on same-sex marriage, Justice Samuel Alito questioned if finding for the plaintiffs would open the door to marriages of multiple partners. Most considered the rejoinder more quip than question, a reduction ad absurdum of the marriage equality position. But why can’t four (or more) consenting adults form a family together—perhaps not as a marriage, but as a family unit recognized by the state? Such cases have been brought for decades, especially in the 1970s heyday of communes, and have almost always lost. But a case currently working its way through the Connecticut court system...

(Editor’s note: Dr. Dobson has prepared this letter for the constituents of his ministry, Family Talk. It is being shared here before being widely disseminated.) Dear Friends, May I urge you to read this letter carefully? It has been written with a fervent prayer that you will recognize the urgency it conveys. It deals with a decision that is about to be announced by the U.S. Supreme Court, dealing with the definition of marriage. In late June or early July, the justices will reveal their decision to either affirm the definition of marriage as being exclusively between one man and...

The admission was made by Barack Hussein Obama's lawyer, the sitting Solicitor General of the United States, Donald Verrilli, Jr., on Tuesday, April 28, 2015, during questioning by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Samuel Alito, Jr. Solicitor General Verrilli, using a public office to defend same-sex marriage on behalf of the United States, was asked by Justice Alito if religious institutions could be at risk of losing their tax-exempt status due to their beliefs about Biblical marriage. Verrilli's reply was, "It's certainly going to be an issue."

If you aren’t following the arguments over same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court, you should be. Even if you don’t cater weddings or sell pizza in Indiana, your religious freedom is in danger. For detailed accounts of the debate and the questions asked by justices that might be readable tea leaves, see Ryan Anderson’s analysis and the capsule summary provided by Russell Moore and Andrew T. Walker.The outcome of this week’s debate will determine whether orthodox American Christians will fall to the status of dhimmis, the third-class Christian citizens of sharia Muslim states. (Dhimmis have bare freedom of worship, but...

Does the United States Constitution require states to allow members of the same sex to marry each other? Does the Constitution require states to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples who were legally married in another state? These are the two questions the Supreme Court of the United States will ponder as it listens to oral arguments Tuesday. It seems simple. But the roads that have led to this point have been anything but. After years of legal challenges to state bans on same-sex marriage, many of them successful, as well as voter referendums in which the traditional definition of marriage has...

The LGBT-Gestapo adapts rather quickly.  After Memories Pizza raised $842,432 in just a few days, and Arlene’s Flowers raised over $173 thousand on GoFundMe, the Gaystapo couldn’t let Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the now-shuttered Sweet Cakes by Melissa, use that fundraising platform. A GoFundMe account was established for the Kleins, and raised over $6,000, until the website took it down. The website GoFundMe said in a statement Saturday that it took down the page because the campaign violated the policy against raising money “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.” “The...

This is the third and final post on B. Carmon Hardy’s Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy: Its Origin, Practice and Demise (Arthur H. Clark Co., 2007). The simple story of the end of LDS polygamy is that it ended in 1890 with the Manifesto. The not-so-simple story involves a Second Manifesto in 1904, which raises the obvious question, “If the First Manifesto ended polygamy, why the need for a Second Manifesto?” The First Manifesto did not end the officially sanctioned LDS practice of polygamy. In fact, it took twenty years to fully execute that momentous institutional change of...

(Courthouse News) – Two former magistrates sued the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts claiming it violated their religious rights by forcing them to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies or face discipline, termination, and even criminal prosecution. Gilbert Breedlove and Thomas Holland claim in a lawsuit filed in the Wake County Superior Court that they resigned from their positions after the AOC and its director, John Smith, made no attempt to accommodate their religious beliefs while attempting to comply with the change in law on same-sex marriage. Instead, they say, the AOC forced them to choose between “taking an act...

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio says he does not believe sexual orientation is a choice for the "enormous majority of people."The Florida senator's comments came Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, where he said that it should be up to states rather than the Supreme Court to define marriage and that he considers marriage to be between a man and a woman. "I also don't believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for the vast and enormous majority of people. In fact, the bottom line is, I believe that sexual preference is something people are born with," Rubio said. He and...

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- The Republican Party's platform formally supports natural marriage. But in what may be a sign of the times, the GOP-controlled Senate has approved a non-binding resolution in support of granting marriage benefits to couples who have contracted same-sex “marriages.” The resolution asked the Senate's budget negotiators to make sure that "all legally married same-sex spouses have equal access to the Social Security and veterans' benefits they have earned and receive equal treatment under the law pursuant to the Constitution." Approved by a voice vote, the resolution received no opposition by any senators, nor...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-16/marco-rubio-tries-to-find-the-middle-ground-on-same-sex-marriage

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), the newest and youngest official Republican candidate for president, has said he believes marriage should be “traditional”—between a man and a woman.So Fusion’s Jorge Ramos asked him: If someone in his family or on his staff were gay and getting married, would he attend the wedding?“If it’s somebody in my life that I care for, of course I would,” Rubio told Ramos in an interview on Wednesday.“I’m not going to hurt them simply because I disagree with a choice they’ve made or because I disagree with a decision they’ve made, or whatever it may be,” he...