Free Republic

The left is still in mourning over the retirement of Jon Stewart from "The Daily Show." One poor fellow at The Atlantic just wrote a piece that suggests he needs a grief counselor. "Slowly, though, it began to sink in: the dimension of our loss. Jon Stewart was gone -- our sanity, our balance," James Parker wrote. "In nuking the news-givers, petarding the pundit class, he became one of the -- became, in fact, the pundit/news-giver for a generation of viewers." Say what you will about his politics, Stewart was a jester giant, a comedy Cronkite, next to his successor,...

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is one of the preeminent Christian leaders of our day. He is as clear-headed as he is courageous, always a source of truth and sanity in the midst of a deeply confused culture. Dr. Mohler has also played a significant role in addressing the issue of homosexuality and the church, demonstrating both humility and conviction, thereby helping to set an example for pastors and leaders trying to navigate their way through an emotional and spiritual minefield. How do we stand against gay activism in our society while at the same...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Under pressure from more than five dozen House lawmakers, the Navy late Tuesday abruptly reversed its decision that would have allowed chaplains to perform same-sex unions if the Pentagon decides to recognize openly gay military service later this year. In a one-sentence memo obtained by The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Tidd, chief of Navy chaplains, said his earlier decision has been "suspended until further notice pending additional legal and policy review and interdepartmental coordination." The Navy said its lawyers wanted to do a more thorough review of the legal decision that allowed Navy chaplains to receive...

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...

WASHINGTON (AP) - If gay service members are allowed to serve openly, the military will face another tough question: Should gay partners be entitled to military benefits? Momentum appears to be building for ending the ban on gays in the military. New rules ordered Thursday by Defense Secretary Robert Gates make it harder to discharge men and women under the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." His decision is intended as a stopgap measure as Congress weighs whether to go along with President Barack Obama's request to repeal the law. Since the draft ended in 1973, spousal benefits have...

Baltimore, Md., Nov 18, 2009 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- On the final day of their annual meeting, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published a  pastoral letter on marriage titled “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan,” which restates and clarifies the Church's teachings to empower those seeking to defend marriage against the cultural currents of cohabitation, contraception, divorce and same sex unions. “Thank goodness this is out there, clearly stated, with ample documentation and very reasonably put forward,” Baltimore's Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien told the Baltimore Sun. “I think it's going to be a very positive...

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) is ready to re-start a debate over domestic benefits to gay federal employees and their spouses. Lieberman told The Hill he hopes to push a bill onto the Senate floor by the end of the year that would grant the same benefits to gay federal employees and their spouses as given any married federal employee and their spouse. Benefits include federal health insurance, enhanced dental and vision care, retirement and disability provisions and life insurance and benefits in cases of death or disability. Members of the military would be excluded. Lieberman said he expects to hold...

Quakers 'to allow gay marriages' The Quakers have supported same-sex unions for more than two decades One of the UK's oldest Christian denominations - the Quakers - looks set to extend marriage services to same-sex couples at their yearly meeting later. The church has already held religious blessings for same-sex couples who have had a civil partnership ceremony.But agreeing to perform gay marriages, which are currently not allowed under civil law, could bring the Quakers into conflict with the government. The issue of active homosexuality has bitterly divided other churches. But the BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the...

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada. In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.” The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses. In a videotaped...

LUXEMBOURG - EU nations that recognize same-sex unions as legal marriages must grant surviving partners the same pension rights as given to those in traditional marriages, the EU Court of Justice ruled Tuesday. The Luxembourg-based court ruling was seen as a victory for a German man who was denied his partner's retirement plan payments after his partner died in 2005. The EU court said pension plan had discriminated against the man on the grounds of sexual orientation because the men's relationship had been recognized under German law as a legally registered life partnership equivalent to a traditional marriage. The court...

Obama: Sermon on Mount Justifies Same-Sex Unions By Terence P. Jeffrey CNSNews.com Editor in Chief March 03, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him "less Christian." "I don't think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state,"...

State Sponsored Sodomy Dishonors Marriage Contact: Phil Magnan, Director, Biblical Family Advocates, 619-962-0659 phil@bfamilyadvocates.com SAN DIEGO, June 5 /Christian Newswire/ -- The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, responding to a potential legal action by the ACLU will be changing its regulations to accommodate conjugal visits by homosexuals. In an article from the San Francisco Chronicle, Gays and lesbians allowed conjugal visits in prisons, "the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has begun to allow overnight visits for inmates with registered domestic partners and is to adopt permanent regulations later this year." Biblical Family Advocates Director (BFA) Phil Magnan responded...

The man who allegedly admitted to murdering nearly two dozen men told authorities he did so to keep them quiet after raping them. Ronald Joseph Dominique, 42, of Bayou Blue, is formally charged with killing 11 men over a period spanning nearly a decade. Police say he’s admitted to killing 23, and there may be others whose deaths haven’t been discovered yet. He targeted men with a transient life-style, those who walked or relied on a bicycle for transportation and may have had drug or alcohol problems. Some of those men were gay, others performed sex acts with men or...

Should Gay Couples In New Jersey Have The Same Rights To Benefits As Heterosexual Couples? Choice Votes Percentage of 4415 Votes Yes 2144 49% No 2271 51%

There is a breaking story in Washington State today that goes something like this: Straight Woman Seeks Equality Under Gay-Rights Law. I just finished an interview with KING 5 TV in Seattle and the news people are still trying to sort out all of the ramifications. Sandi Scott-Moore, an employee of Honeywell International in Redmond, WA, claims health insurance coverage for her male partner was denied because the unmarried couple is not of the same gender. Robert Ferris, of Honeywell, says the company does provide health benefits for partners of its gay and lesbian employees. He is also saying Honeywell...

Straight woman seeks equality under gay-rights law: Unwed Redmond worker wants her male partner to receive health benefits One of the first tests for Washington's new gay civil rights law has an intriguing twist: The complaint was filed by a heterosexual woman. The state's discrimination watchdogs are investigating the case, which claims unmarried straight people should get the same domestic partner benefits as their gay and lesbian co-workers. But officials are treading carefully, Human Rights Commission Director Marc Brenman said, because upholding the claim could set a sweeping new precedent for Washington businesses. ... The complaint, filed last week, is...

Australia Strikes Down Law Recognizing Same-Sex Unions By Gudrun Schultz CANBERRA, Australia, June 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Australian government has followed through on its pledge to quash a law recognizing same-sex unions in the Australian Capital Territory. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock drew on rarely used Commonwealth authority Tuesday, asking Governor-General Michael Jeffrey, Australia's representative of Queen Elizabeth II, who is Australia's official head of state under the terms of the nation's consitutional monarchy, to declare the law invalid. "The ACT civil relationships ordinance has been disallowed," Mr Ruddock told reporters in Canberra. "Legislative amendments introduced to establish a civil arrangement...

At last a senior and respected clergyman has stood up in New Zealand and addressed in no uncertain terms the vexed question of some churches' attitudes to sexuality. In fact, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Rev Peter Jensen, has gone so far as to say that human sexuality is correctly the issue at which Anglican churches should consider breaking fellowship. But it is not just the Anglican Church torn apart by this controversy; the Presbyterian and Methodist churches are similarly afflicted. Archbishop Jensen made his comments in an address to a conference of the evangelical Latimer Fellowship in...

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court today dismissed a challenge by two Orange County men to a law denying federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples, saying a couple that isn't legally married under state law has no right to contest the federal definition of marriage. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached the result urged by gay-rights groups, which opposed the federal suit because they are trying to overturn California's marriage law in state court. The appeals court also refused to consider the constitutionality of the state's ban on same-sex marriage, saying it should be addressed first by...

U.S. Immigration Law Inhumane to Same-Sex CouplesHRW via BBSNews - Washington, D.C., May 2, 2006 -- Thousands of U.S. citizens and their foreign same-sex partners face enormous hardships, separation and even exile because discriminatory U.S. immigration policies deprive these couples of the basic right to be together, Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality said in a report released today. As Congress debates immigration reforms, it must end the discrimination that lesbian and gay Americans and their foreign partners endure under U.S. immigration law. The 2000 U.S. Census estimated that in the United States there were almost 40,000 lesbian and...