Free Republic

A wedding is not just two people exchanging rings; it is an entanglement of their personal, legal, and business affairs. For better or for worse, marriage affects a broad and substantial list of rights involving inheritance, property, child custody, and more. Now that gay marriage is legal in all fifty states, both the people involved in gay relationships and the legislators drafting the laws that govern all these rights need to carefully analyze the issues presented. As it turns out, those who cheered the decision [legalizing homosexual marriage] may have their own reasons to worry. The Law of Unintended Consequences...

Gay couples in Kentucky are questioning the validity of altered marriage licenses issued by a defiant county clerk and have asked a federal judge to order her to reissue the licenses or put the office in receivership and have someone else do it.

Politicians who may have thought they wouldn’t have to say much at all about gay marriage once the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized it now must answer a different question: Do you support Kim Davis? The Rowan County clerk, who has become a darling of many conservatives despite being a Democrat, cited “God’s authority” and religious liberty in choosing jail time over issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Some social conservatives have cast Davis as a hero, shifting the gay marriage debate from one about civil liberties—a matter that appeared to have been settled—to one about religious liberty. …

The Electoral Acts may need to be amended after the Supreme Court said difficulties were caused by the same-sex marriage referendum being signed into the Constitution before it could consider a challenge to the result.

A Methodist pastor who was told to resign from his Michigan church because of his sexuality visited the Bay Area to share his story. Rev. Benjamin Hutchinson spoke to the Twin Towers Methodist Church in Alameda on Friday and discussed the life-changing moment when he was told to resign because he is gay. He said he has decided to take his story on the road and change minds along the way. Hutchinson said he was forced to resign from Cassopolis United Methodist Church after he told the bishop about his gay partner. According to the United Methodist Church's guidelines, that...

When is it OK to break the law? When can you disobey the authorities? Should you be punished for meaning well? Before reflexively answering, let’s imagine some possibilities. Say the government came looking for spies hiding in your house. Is it OK for you to have allowed the spies to hide there? Isn’t it even worse if you cover up by denying the spies are hiding? Should you compound your treason by helping the spies escape? Next hypothetical: Should you disobey a law legitimately enacted and legally upheld by the highest court in the land? Last hypothetical: Do you think...

Dear Pope Francis, On behalf of my coreligionists, I convey our heartfelt appreciation for your recent comments criticizing the Allies’ failure to bomb the railroad tracks leading to the concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Pat Fagan, the director of the Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religious Research Institute, suggested yesterday that marriage equality opponents start referring to gay men’s marriages as “garriage” and lesbians’ marriages as “larriage,” with the overarching term for “homosexual marriage” being “harriage.”

More than 30 North Carolina magistrates so far have refused to perform weddings since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriages in all 50 states. But they’re not likely to suffer the fate of Kim Davis, the Tennessee county clerk who was recently jailed for her refusal. It turns out that taking this position is legal in North Carolina, according to CBN.com. Shortly after the Supreme Court’s June decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex marriage is a constitutionally guaranteed right, the North Carolina legislature passed a law enabling officials to opt out of performing marriages altogether. The...

George Stephanopoulos grilled Mike Huckabee today over his strong support of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk sent to jail for repeatedly refusing to comply with multiple orders to issue gay marriage licenses. Huckabee has been one of her strongest defenders, saying a few days ago that her jailing is further proof of the “criminalization of Christianity” in the United States. On This Week today, Huckabee told Stephanopoulos it represents “judicial tyranny.” RELATED: Chris Hayes Battles Kim Davis’ Attorney: Is Denying Interracial Marriage Licenses Okay? Stephanopoulos asked Huckabee exactly what’s the difference between Davis’ actions and refusing to issue interracial marriage...

Rowan County, Ky., is a lesson for America in how not to resolve social conflict. The local head clerk is sitting in jail, and a judge has ordered her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in her absence.When the Supreme Court redefined marriage for the nation in an activist decision this June, it took the issue out of the democratic process and made it much harder for citizens to navigate our differences on this fundamental institution. Both sides of the debate knew the decision would have significant social effects. For civil servants like clerks who issue marriage...

The left is going bananas over Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis and her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gays. They applaud the heavy hand of the government and rejoice that a judge has taken the extraordinary step of having her placed behind bars, guarded by U.S. Marshals. The double standard revealed her is astonishing. Now keep in mind that gay marriage is in no way every mentioned in the constitution. Nor is marriage generally. But the 2nd Amendment makes it abundantly clear that every American has a right to keep and bear arms. There is no question on this. None...

About 200 supporters of a Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to hand out marriage licenses to gay couples rallied and prayed Saturday as she faced a third day behind bars.

They are not being issued under the authority of the Rowan County clerk's office. They are not worth the paper that they are written on," said attorney Mat Staver after meeting with Davis in the Carter County jail in Grayson. Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins previously dismissed that argument, saying deputy clerks can issue valid marriage licenses without their boss's approval.

GOP presidential hopeful Ted Cruz criticized a federal judge for ordering a Kentucky county clerk to be jailed after she defied the Supreme Court by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. The Texas senator said he “unequivocal” stands with Kim Davis, who was put in federal custody for contempt after testifying before Judge David L. Bunning Thursday that marriage is between one man and one woman. “Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny,” Mr. Cruz said in a statement. “Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This...

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...

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky County Clerks Association will propose removing clerks’ names from the document in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage. Overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage has prompted Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and two others to deny licenses to all couples, drawing a federal lawsuit against Davis as well as calls to change the licensing process. Leslie County Clerk James Lewis, chairman of the association’s elections committee, told reporters Tuesday that his group is drafting “a simple solution” to the matter. “You would have the county and the county seat listed...

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...

A friend recently went through statements published by the Irish Bishops’ Conference between 2012 and 2015 to examine the language the bishops used about morality, especially in response to the initiatives of the Enda Kenny government. During this period the Irish government legalised both the killing of unborn babies through abortion and the treatment of homosexuality as equivalent with heterosexuality through so called same-sex "marriage". The statements from the Bishops’ Conference show the Irish bishops failing to name the evil of abortion and homosexual sex even though the Second Vatican Council named abortion an “unspeakable crime” (Gaudium et Spes, 50)...

After its success in Ireland and then the United States, the movement to legalise same-sex marriage is now knocking on Australia's doors to the dismay of devoted Christians in the Land Down Under.Australian Archbishop Anthony Fisher revealed recently that "there are voices in our culture that no longer think marriage need be for life, or be open to children, or be exclusive, or be between man and wife."Addressing the faithful during the Annual Marriage Mass with Renewal of Vows at Saint Mary's Cathedral in Sydney last July 12, Fisher said those behind this movement "write off as benighted and bigoted...