Free Republic

When the New York state legislature rammed through a law “legalizing” same-sex “marriage” this last summer, countless New Yorkers disagreed with the decision. Among them were Christian town clerks who could not in good conscience sign marriage licenses for a union they consider sinful. Clauses were written in the law that supposedly protect clergy from being forced to act against their faith. However, such clauses do not apply to town clerks or any other government official. Clerks are told point blank, either accept the law, or resign. Town clerk Rose Marie Belforti of Ledyard, New York found out the hard...

.“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me,” he said to applause from several hundred GOP donors in Aspen, Colo. “That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.”

Contrada details how Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney supported the homosexual and transgender agenda on same-sex ‘marriage,’ sexual-radical indoctrination in the schools, and societal transformation – while posing as a defender of the Constitution and traditional family values. Mitt Romney is no conservative, despite his attempts to appeal to that element in the Republican Party. He is an ‘establishment fixer’ – a preserver of the status quo at best, or a promoter of social liberal causes and institutions at worst. In Massachusetts, the establishment – protected and advanced by Romney – was uniquely committed to the radical homosexual and transgender agenda....

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign said Tuesday that he will not sign a conservative Iowa Christian group's far-reaching pledge opposing gay marriage, making him the first Republican presidential candidate to reject it. Two of Romney's rivals for the Republican nomination, Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, have signed the The...

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Friday that he expected same-sex marriage legislation to be approved before the end of the legislative session next week, and indicated that to win passage of the measure he is prepared to yield to Republican concerns for greater protections of religious groups. “I am a proponent of marriage equality, and I’m working very hard to make that a reality in New York,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters on Friday as lawmakers prepared to go home for the weekend. “I am also a proponent of religious freedom, and separation of church and state, so these...

We can't stop homosexual "marriage" with a Marriage Amendment. This isn't pessimism, it's reality. Moreover, I am not going the route of libertarian-infatuated Glenn Beck and giving up, or conceding the point that this whole debate is irrelevant. However, It has become clear in recent months that feminist proponents of homosexual "marriage" in America aren't about to let a little thing called a Constitutional Amendment slow down their assault upon the world as God made it. Suppose we pass this Vitter sponsored Marriage Amendment (HJ 56): SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of...

If you’re a conservative activist or major Republican donor, you have some interesting social options in front of you this month. Tea or cocktails? A small-government rally or a fundraiser for same-sex marriage? Pack yourself in with the grass roots at a mass meeting or rub shoulders with the legal elite in a posh drawing room? But more is at stake than options on a menu of social gatherings. With the same tension that has existed in past efforts by some GOP elites to play down social issues or envelop them in a “Big Tent” — but with far more...

Ken Mehlman's fundraiser for same-sex marriage will be, among other things, a gathering of some of the most high-profile -- and deep-pocketed -- backers of gay marriage on the right. The names of Bill Weld, Christie Todd Whitman, Steve Schmidt, and Mary Cheney's didn't surprise me. Other names did a bit: Bush aides Mark and Nicolle Wallace are on there, as is top GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg. Most notably, Mehlman's fundraiser extends the reach of same-sex marriage backers to the very top Republican donor pile: The private equity titan Henry Kravis (who's also Mehlman's boss at KKR) is among the...

A growing number of Republicans are breaking with the party's traditional stance to publicly state their support for same-sex marriage, a shift strategists say stems as much from demographics as from the renewed focus on economics and the "tea party" movement. A solid majority of adults younger than 30 - about six in 10 - support the right of gay and lesbian couples to legally wed, according to a Washington Post poll in February. But even many older Americans and self-identified social conservatives have changed their view on an issue that just six years ago galvanized voters in support of...

SAN FRANCISCO – The federal judge who overturned California's same-sex marriage ban has more bad news for the measure's sponsors: he not only is unwilling to keep gay couples from marrying beyond next Wednesday, he doubts the ban's backers have the right to challenge his ruling. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Thursday rejected a request to delay his decision striking down Proposition 8 from taking effect until high courts can take up an appeal lodged by its supporters. One of the reasons, the judge said, is he's not sure the proponents have the authority to appeal since...

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother. Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father... To further his case that the well-being of children is no bar to declaring same-sex marriage a right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, Judge Walker...

Judge Vaughn Walker’s verdict on Proposition 8 this week - overturning the California referendum which upheld the traditional view of marriage between one man and one woman - was nothing more than a DEMONstration of activist judicial tyranny that amounts to a fascist takeover by the federal bench. Walker’s single act of base totalitarianism was a spit in the face to the 7 million voters in California, 300+ million Americans, our Founding Fathers and - most of all - Almighty God, the Creator and Maker of Heaven and Earth. The Left are waging war on Almighty God and the natural...

Yesterday’s ruling by a California federal court striking down the state’s ban on gay marriage opens a constitutional Pandora’s Box. The court ruled that the gay marriage ban violates the Equal Protection Clause because homosexuals should be just as free to marry whoever they choose as heterosexuals. The court concluded that there is no rational basis for a distinction between the marriage of a man and a woman and the marriage of a man and a man. Whether the failure to see any rational distinction there is itself rational will be decided on appeal. But as of now the decision...

An openly homosexual federal judge in California ignored a warning from the state's own Supreme Court about the coming chaos of polygamy and incest if same-sex "marriages" are established to enjoin enforcement of the state's constitutional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman only – and now he is being targeted by an impeachment campaign. Judge Vaughn Walker, who openly has lived a homosexual lifestyle, yesterday issued an order that the state could not enforce its own constitutional requirement that marriage is between members of the opposite sex only. The ruling from Walker said, "race and...

Let's look at how the gay-marriage thing in California has unfolded so far: The state’s Supreme Court in 2008, on a one-vote margin, decides to redefine marriage to dump one key parameter that had always and everywhere in human history been part of marriage: that it be between complementary sexes, not identical ones. Within months, the voters of the state overrule the court, amending their constitution to say that, no, you can’t redefine basic social institutions against the will of the people. The losers sue the state. And Wednesday, a federal judge – a judge, as in one – overrules...

Same-Sex Marriage: A federal judge decides marriage is a constitutional right and overturns California's Proposition 8 forbidding such unions. The issue is headed to a Supreme Court that Elena Kagan will be sitting on. The imperial judiciary has struck again, with Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker striking down California's Proposition 8, passed in November 2008 with 52% of the vote, on the grounds that the voter-approved law was a violation of gay couples' civil rights. Walker's ruling follows a Massachusetts federal judge's ruling last month that the state's married gay couples, also established by judicial fiat, were being wrongly...

Judge Walker’s fervent ideological bias in favor of same-sex marriage has been clear from the outset of the anti-Prop 8 case, and more recent reports that he is gay and has a same-sex partner have merely added some possible explanatory detail. As law professor...Gerard Bradley explains in this essay, the very manner in which Walker wrote his opinion reveals his bias: "We can now look at Judge Walker’s opinion and ask: is this the handiwork of an impartial and open mind on the subject of same-sex marriage? Or does the opinion rather resemble an ad hoc rationale for conclusions reached...

Journalism: Funny how practically no one knew that Judge Vaughn Walker was openly homosexual before his seismic ruling Wednesday. Why was such an obvious predisposition worth so little media attention? All federal judges must swear they "will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me ... so help me God." But can a judge given the opportunity to knock down a law that declared homosexual marriages invalid be impartial when he himself is openly homosexual? That question should have been part of the public discourse over the high-profile trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco...