Free Republic

There’s a bit of good news out of Maryland. A bill legalizing same-sex marriage, which had been passed in the Senate, has been sent back to the Judiciary Committee, effectively killing it for the year. That may not sound like a huge deal, but when you consider the circumstances leading up to this, it’s nothing short of amazing. For months preceding the non-vote, it was widely assumed that this bill would sail through the Maryland congress, with the signature of Democrat Governor Martin O’Malley guaranteed after passage. But, as the Washington Times reports, things didn’t go as the homosexual activists...

Chicago - Middle-aged married people who worry a lot have at least one thing to look forward to: Their risk of eventually developing Alzheimer's disease may be significantly less than carefree people of the same age who remain single. That's the take-home message from two studies presented jointly Wednesday in Chicago at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease. One study followed 1,449 men and women in Finland for an average of 21 years. It found that those who had a partner in midlife were about 50% less likely to develop dementia in late life - ages 65 to 79 -...

A small majority of Canadians are in favour of same-sex marriage Canada's government has introduced a bill to parliament in Ottawa to legalise same-sex marriage. As he announced the bill, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler defended it as a critical step in constitutionally defending minority rights. Same-sex marriage is legal in several provinces, but the proposed law is still controversial. The issue has split the governing Liberal party, with several MPs vowing to vote against the bill. "The government cannot and should not pick and choose which rights they will defend, and which rights they will ignore," Mr Colter told a...

WASHINGTON, November 29, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The US Supreme Court rejected Monday a bid challenging the Massachusetts law allowing same-sex "marriage." The Court declined the hearing without comment. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the state government to rewrite marriage laws to include same-sex couples. Since the decision, approximately 3,000 same-sex Massachusetts couples have 'married'. Robert Largess, Vice President of the Catholic Action League, along with eleven Massachusetts legislators launched the suit. Their initial challenge, heard at the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, was lost. In 2006, it is predicted that the issue will come...

A lot has been lost in the debate about so-called "gay marriage." At the top of that list is the effect that redefining marriage will have on people of conscience and religious believers. Marriage is an institution that has been present since the beginnings of recorded history. It has meant the union of a man and a woman, and provided within that union the stability necessary to create and nurture the next generation. While not all such unions produce children, procreation is the reason that most governments give some special consideration in law and tax to marriage and the resulting...

<p>So Mayor Gavin Newsom -- having sounded the trumpet in the battle over same-sex marriage -- walks into a room filled with the Bay Area's Irish Catholic old guard and a bunch of priests.</p> <p>Sounds like the setup to a corny joke, right? Well, no joke. It happened at the American Ireland Fund's annual dinner at the St. Francis Hotel, when Newsom, as well as his father, the Hon. William Newsom, a retired California appellate court justice, were honored with the charitable organization's Distinguished Leadership Award.</p>

"[T]he germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary." --Thomas Jefferson ______----********O********----______ FEDERALIST PERSPECTIVE Top of the fold -- The Constitution as dictionary? In the wake of a relentless homosexual assault on the basic building block of our society, in answer to the sordid shenanigans of the homosexual lobby in Massachusetts, and in response to the San Francisco mayor's decision to issue homosexual marriage licenses in defiance of state law, President George W. Bush has officially endorsed a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as it was instituted by God and nature -- and...

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court has ruled that common-law partners do not have a guaranteed right to a 50-50 split of assets when their relationships end, a decision critics say will have a devastating effect on hundreds of thousands of women and children. In an 8-1 decision, the court found estranged cohabitants can fight it out in court, but provincial matrimony property laws do not have to be expanded to automatically cover people who are not married. Justice Michel Bastarache concluded "choice must be paramount" for couples who have not legally wed. "With married couples there is a permanent and...