Free Republic

The state Supreme Court in California is allowing voters this November to consider a plan to define marriage as one man and one woman, a move that could overturn that same court's ruling in May that same-sex duos should be recognized as "married." Jennifer Kerns, communications director for Protect Marriage.com, which collected more than 1.1 million signatures on petitions in support of the vote, confirmed that the high court today simply dismissed the pending challenge to having Proposition 8 on the ballot. "Obviously, the Supreme Court decision delivers a significant blow to our opponents," she told WND. "It does send...

Same-sex union not recognized in Tennessee - In a brick house on a quiet street in Cordova live a newly married couple whose nuptials are getting national attention.Derek Norman, 23, and his partner of four years, Robert Blaudow, 40, were married in California on Monday, moments after the state's same-sex marriage ban was lifted. "This has given us the ability to make that proclamation to the world that we are just like everyone else," Norman said. "We love each other just like heterosexual couples, and we'd like to proclaim that love publicly." However, their proclamation was more spur-of-the-moment than planned....

The war in Iraq has left neither Iraq nor the world a safer place, the Vatican said on Wednesday, disputing a key claim of President George W. Bush a little over a month before the Nov. 2 U.S. election. "Everyone can see that it did not lead to a safer world, either inside or outside Iraq," Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States, told the U.N. General Assembly. "The Holy See believes it is now imperative to support the present government in its efforts to bring the country to normality and to a political system that...