Free Republic

Obama hailed gay "marriage" as one of his proudest accomplishments and looked forward to the day when Americans would shed traditional sexual morality to embrace homosexuals in his final State of the Union address last night. He said he found hope in "the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and the father whose love for that son overrides everything he's been taught" about homosexual behavior. To underscore his commitment to the issue, First Lady Michelle Obama invited James Obergefell, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, as one of her special guests. Ohio Congressman...

Defying history, the law, and common sense, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has issued an order prohibiting Alabama probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Those judges now face a choice between disobeying the law of the land and disobeying their boss. Moore issued his law not as chief justice, but in his administrative role as head of the Alabama court system. This is not Justice Moore's first Hail Mary in the lost cause against gay marriage -- and he's not alone. All over the country, activists and law professors are wasting paper on fatuous proclamations that Obergefell...

Back in 2008 on the day of the Iowa caucus, when I was reporting on my first election for Townhall.com, I happened to be grabbing lunch in the same hole-in-the-wall restaurant as then-Huckabee National Campaign Advisor Ed Rollins. He sat in the cafe loudly trash talking the Romney campaign to any reporter he could call on his cell phone. Expletives and insults flew. Anyone sitting in the eatery could hear him. I, stunned any known operative would be so foolish to speak in such a way in a public place, wrote it up as an item. These are the same...

This morning the Politico came out swinging at Ted Cruz with the headline “What Ted Cruz said behind closed doors” as if to suggest it would be different from what he says publicly: In June, Ted Cruz promised on NPR that opposition to gay marriage would be "front and center" in his 2016 campaign.In July, he said the Supreme Court's decision allowing same-sex marriage was the "very definition of tyranny" and urged states to ignore the ruling.But in December, behind closed doors at a big-dollar Manhattan fundraiser, the quickly ascending presidential candidate assured a Republican gay-rights supporter that a Cruz...

Slovenia rejected on Sunday a law that would give same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children in its second vote on gay rights in four years. About 63.4 percent of voters rejected the law in a referendum while 36.6 percent supported it, a preliminary result of the State Electoral Commission showed after 99 percent of votes were counted. Parliament passed a law in March giving same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children, but the measures have not been enforced because a civil society group called For Children appealed to the top court, calling for a referendum....

Democracy and common sense teach us to seek the truth by listening to one another. If we will not even provide a room for people who want to talk with one another because we do not like what they say, then democracy is impossible.When I was a junior in college and looking for a summer job to defray the next year's tuition, I answered an ambiguous ad in a newspaper and found myself selling high-quality pots and pans, china, and cutlery to unmarried working girls. It actually was a good job for a good company. I ended up selling $20,000...

Editor's note: Below is an excerpt from an interview with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) conducted by Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University that aired November 25 on EWTN. The interview series, titled "Candidate Conversations 2016," will pose a number of questions to presidential candidates on topics of particular concern to Catholic voters. The passage below addresses the question of how public officials should best respond to the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling on so-called same-sex "marriage" decided last summer. Here, Senator Cruz publicly endorses a position advanced by Prof. George and others who argue that unconstitutional decisions of...

Making history on Monday a majority of Northern Ireland's Assembly members voted in favor of same-sex marriage for the first time. But the motion was immediately blocked by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) who submitted a "petition of concern" requiring that the proposal achieve a cross-community majority to pass, effectively vetoing it. Forty one nationalists backed the proposal, but it was approved by only four unionists, ensuring it fell. It was the fifth time same-sex marriage was voted on by the assembly, with the four previous votes falling on a simple majority basis. ...

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson said in a radio interview Friday that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy. The retired neurosurgeon was on air talking to conservative radio host Eric Metaxas. The conversation took an interesting turn when Carson said he had “nothing against gay people whatsoever” but wanted to know what he could do to make it up to the LGBT community if he continues to oppose same-sex marriage. “The other thing you have to recognize and this is a very important issue,” Carson said. “If you change the definition of marriage for one group what defense do you...

A state judge in Alabama is arguing that since the U.S. Supreme Court – a branch of the federal government – created “same-sex marriage,” Washington can just go ahead and administer the licenses. The arguments come in a new court filing from Probate Judge John Enslen. In Alabama, probate judges are the only ones authorized to issue marriage licenses. WND reported just days ago that in Alabama, the state Supreme Court still has pending a case regarding how the state should implement the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage ruling. Prior to the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision, a federal judge in...

A group of 64 legal experts and scholars have signed a statement calling on Americans to oppose the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide.The Washington, DC-based American Principles Project posted the legal experts' statement Thursday on their website in which they denounced the 5-4 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. "The Court's majority opinion eschewed reliance on the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution, as well as the Court's own interpretative doctrines and precedents, and supplied no compelling reasoning to show why it is unjustified for the laws of the states to sustain marriage as...

The owners of an Oregon bakery are refusing to pay state-ordered damages to a lesbian couple after a dispute over a same-sex wedding cake, reports say. Aaron and Melissa Klein, who own Sweet Cakes by Melissa, were ordered by the Bureau of Labor and Industries to pay $135,000 to Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, reports OregonLive.com. The Kleins have filed an appeal of the ruling, claiming financial hardship even though crowdfunding efforts have raised more than $500,000 for the couple, according to OregonLive.com. Herb Grey, a lawyer representing the Kleins, tells Reuters the couple has raised far less than $500,000, but...

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.”