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Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Ky., refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because she believes same-sex marriage is immoral. According to Davis, her religious convictions prevent her from issuing the license: “To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience.” In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear ordered all county clerks in the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but Davis refused. A federal district court ordered her to comply and...

Government officials in North Carolina can refuse to perform same-sex marriages by citing religious objections under a law enacted on Thursday by the Republican-led legislature, which voted to override the governor's veto. The law protects the jobs of magistrates and other officials who refuse to perform marriages of gay couples by citing a “sincerely held religious objection.” Governor Pat McCrory, also a Republican, had said the officials who swore to defend the Constitution and perform their duties of office should not be exempt from upholding their oath. The state House of Representatives overrode his veto by reaching the three-fifths majority...

Upon her election to the role of Rowan County Clerk in November 2014, Kim Davis said she felt "humbled" and "blessed." Speaking to the Morehead News, she made three promises: "I promise to each and every one that I will be the very best working clerk that I can be and will be a good steward of their tax dollars and follow the statutes of this office to the letter." Davis's willingness, or unwillingness, to follow those statutes are now the subject of intense national focus. She has refused on religious grounds to grant marriage licenses -- to both same-sex...

The ACLU of Kentucky filed a motion in federal court Tuesday asking a judge to hold county clerk Kim Davis in contempt of court for failing to comply with the Supreme Court and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In court papers, the ACLU lawyers note that following the Supreme Court's order late Monday night, the plaintiffs in their case went to the Rowan County Clerk's office at 8 a.m. Tuesday to obtain a marriage license. "Unfortunately , they were again denied by a deputy clerk who asserted that no marriage licenses would be issued," the ACLU said in a...

The Associated Press @AP BREAKING: Supreme Court rejects Kentucky gay marriage case, clerk must issue licenses despite religion

HOLLYWOOD, CA, August 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- Comic book superhero Wonder Woman will officiate a same-sex "wedding" in an upcoming issue. Jason Badowerhe, Wonder Woman's cartoonist, says it was his idea to make Wonder Woman, as the comic will say, "a proponent of gay marriage." Badowerhe says DC Comics was "fantastic" over the idea. He told The Sydney Morning Herald that his editor "was like, 'Great! I love it! Let's do it!'" In the comic, Wonder Woman solemizes two women's "marriage." "By the power vested in me," is replaced with "Bound by the lasso of truth." At the conclusion of...

LOS ANGELES, CA, August 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The GOP's leading presidential candidate said that he has been to a gay "wedding" and that conservatives should accept the Supreme Court's redefinition of marriage. In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Donald Trump was asked whether the issue of marriage's redefinition is "a dead issue for the GOP at this point." "Some people have hopes of passing amendments [to the U.S. Constitution]," said Trump, "but it's not going to happen. Congress can't pass simple things, let alone that. So anybody that's making that an issue is doing it for political...

One of the same-sex marriage movement’s most potent polemical tools has been, and surely will continue to be, its equation of same-sex marriage with interracial marriage. On this telling, today’s opposition to same-sex marriage is akin to the opposition to interracial marriage mounted by yesterday’s racists and segregationists. If this assumption were granted, then the legal recognition of same-sex marriage would seem to realize a legitimate equality. A public—like our own—that had largely accepted this parity could at least acquiesce in such a step once it has been imposed by the Supreme Court.Now the Supreme Court has actually taken such...

WASHINGTON D.C., August 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The Obama administration has announced last week that it will award federal benefits to several homosexuals who were “married” - although the states in which they lived did not recognize the marriages at the time. Lambda Legal, which was arguing in federal court for Social Security spousal benefits for two homosexuals who had “married” illegally before the court ruling in June and since had both been widowed, announced last Thursday. Lambda Legal`s Susan Sommer said the change “could right a wrong for hundreds of same-sex spouses” married in the 11 states where same-sex...

Several members of the Denver City Council have stalled a lease for a Chick-fil-A restaurant at the city's international airport due to the fast-food chain's opposition to same-sex marriage. The Denver City Council's Business Development Committee has paused the seven-year deal for two weeks, according to The Denver Post, which said none of the 10 members who attended this week's meeting rose to defend Chick-fil-A. If the committee, which is scheduled to meet again on Sept. 1, chooses to reject the lease, any member can introduce it in the full council. Robin Kniech, the council's first openly gay member, was...

Following the Supreme Court’s majority decision in June to legalise same-sex marriage in the United States, New York Times columnist David Brooks appealed to “conservatives” (those who do not accept the possibility of marriage between people of the same sex) to stop fighting a losing battle over sexual morality. Instead, he suggested, they should take their Christian values into underprivileged areas and help people overcome material and spiritual poverty.This struck Dr Thomas Lickona, director of the character education centre at the State University of New York and a fan of Brooks’ writing on character, as a false choice, and he...

A Kentucky state employee has maintained her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite a recently issued court order mandating that her office do so. Kim Davis of Rowan County has declined to follow a court order issued Wednesday by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. "The Court must … point out that the act of issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple merely signifies that the couple has met the legal requirements to marry. It is not a sign of moral or religious approval," read the order. "Davis, in her official capacity...

A lot is happening at a very rapid rate. And with all the discussion that’s been going on, I’ve been kind of eager to get to you, and maybe help to give you a perspective. And I know that there have been comments made from this pulpit—exceptionally helpful, clear, well-chosen comments on the issues that face our country today. But I need to just kind of add some of my own insights and perceptions, and then direct you to a particular portion of Scripture. This country talks a lot about terrorist attacks—and rightly so. Almost anybody in America can give...

TOLEDO, Ohio, August 14, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Judge C. Allen McConnell is a Christian. As such, he said he could not officiate a homosexual "wedding," because it would go against the teachings of his religion. Now, the Ohio Supreme Court advisory board says McConnell's position violates judicial ethics and that all Ohio Christian judges must relinquish their religious freedom and perform same-sex "marriages." When he refused to marry two lesbians last month, the 71-year-old Toledo judge apologized to the women, and they were "married" a few minutes later by another judge. But McConnell also officially asked for the Ohio Supreme Court's...

A state appeals court in Colorado ruled Thursday that a baker could not cite religious beliefs in refusing to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. The decision is the latest in a series of similar rulings across the country that have been cheered by civil rights groups but attacked by conservative Christians as assaults on religious liberty. Whether photographers, florists, bakers and other vendors who are Christians should have a right to refuse services for same-sex marriages has emerged as a major cultural and legal battle, one that has intensified since the Supreme Court decision in June establishing same-sex marriage...

WASHINGTON D.C. July 31, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- Revelations that a half dozen well-heeled liberal foundations are pouring millions of dollars into a concerted campaign to force religious organizations to accept same sex “marriage” have defenders of religious rights warning of a new “wave” of litigation. “Attacking religious exemptions is the next big wave,” Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, told LifeSiteNews. “Gay rights are only the pretext. These groups won’t be satisfied till every trace of religion is erased from public life in America.” After investigating their financial and annual reports, The Catholic News Agency has released the names...

Some highway billboards are the same wherever you go across this great land of ours: McDonald’s, Target, Walmart. Others are more regional (where is the line at which Carl’s Jr. becomes Hardee’s, anyway?). Some are particular to states, and those road-tripping through Oklahoma will likely see billboards directing them to visit online adult toy shops and to alert law enforcement about any methamphetamine use they come across. And in one small part of the state—the town of Durant, in the southeast corner—visitors and residents may now feast their eyes upon a message against marriage equality. The plea comes from Betty...

I have said that the proponents of the idea that a man can feasibly marry another man call their desire a trivial variation from a statistical norm, like being left-handed. I have shown that on the face of it that cannot be so, because the left-hander uses his hand as a hand, just as the right-hander uses his. But now suppose that the proponent concedes the point. “All right, I grant that it is not the same at all. But so what? We are just like everybody else in all important respects.”The first answer to that is that the proponent...

Public opinion is swinging back, thanks to progressives’ excesses. I woke up yesterday morning deeply confused. If there is one thing that I thought I’d learned over the past few weeks, it’s that history has a “side,” and I don’t happen to be on it. My views — pro-life, pro-traditional-marriage — were yesterday’s news. The rainbow White House, rainbow Facebook, and — most important — the rainbow Supreme Court all told me so. The culture war was over. All that was left was the mop-up operation. I should hightail it back to my “house of worship” — which the Left...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came out with a new video on Tuesday, highlighting a straight Iowa couple who operates a wedding services business and refused to do business with a same-sex couple. It's a marked contrast with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who used her presidential launch video to draw attention to same-sex couples who were about to get married. While some GOP candidates have tried to avoid talking much about same-sex marriage, Cruz has been more vocal in his opposition. In April, he introduced legislation to push a constitutional amendment protecting states that barred marriage equality. And...