Free Republic

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Britain's most prestigious art galleries put a block of slate on display, topped by a small piece of wood, in the mistaken belief it was a work of art. The Royal Academy included the chunk of stone and the small bone-shaped wooden stick in its summer exhibition in London. But the slate was actually a plinth -- a slab on which a pedestal is placed -- and the stick was designed to prop up a sculpture. The sculpture itself -- of a human head -- was nowhere to be seen. "I think the things got...

Arizona's ban on gay marriage is constitutional, a state appellate court ruled yesterday, dashing the hopes of two Phoenix men who wanted legal recognition of their vows. "Although many traditional views of homosexuality have been recast over time in our state and Nation, the choice to marry a same-sex partner has not taken sufficient root to receive constitutional protection as a fundamental right," wrote Presiding Judge Ann A. Scott Timmer for the unanimous three-judge panel in Phoenix. The state has a reasonable interest in seeing that procreation happens in a marriage between a man and a woman, the court wrote...