Free Republic

It's a judge's duty to preside at the marriages of any couple that comes to him—heterosexual or homosexual—and if he is unwilling to do so, he "needs to step down.” That is the view of the  executive director of the LGBT rights group Equality Toledo,  Nick Komives, reacting to news of a Toledo, Ohio, judge who excused himself from the civil marriage ceremony of two lesbians.  “They didn’t deserve to be humiliated; they didn’t deserve to be inconvenienced,” Komives told the Toledo Blade. “That’s just wrong, and we won’t tolerate it. It is his duty to perform this ceremony, and...

Some states already had legalized same-sex “marriage” before the Supreme Court’s ruling at the end of June. Other states had to start accomodating them. And then there are the American territories. Most have voluntarily complied with the Supreme Court decision, according to the Associated Press: In Puerto Rico, Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla signed an executive order soon after the ruling. U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp has signed a similar executive order. In Guam, there is no effort to ignore or challenge the ruling, said territorial legislative Vice Speaker Benjamin F. Cruz, who is gay. The Commonwealth of the Northern...

In Korea, the only "god" he knew was the country's leader, Kim Il-Sung, and any perceived blasphemy against him could land a person in a prison camp. So when Joseph Kim finally crossed the Tumen river into China, he did what he was told—follow the cross—even though he didn't know what a cross or a Christian was. Kim tells his story in a new book, Under the Same Sky: From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and at a time when North Korea occasionally surfaces in the headlines for its continuing beligerence towards the...