Tag Archives: Topic: Homosexual Agenda

Volokh Conspiracy: That’s H.F. No. 826, which requires schools — including private schools that get any “public funds or other public resources” — to ban, among other things, “bullying” at school, defined as . . . .

Columbia Law School: Amicus Brief Argues U.S. Supreme Court Should Consider Example of Other Liberal Democracies, Which Have Determined Excluding Gay Couples From Marriage Violates Their Fundamental Rights

Cass Sunstein at Bloomberg: The Department of Justice argued last week that in the context of marriage (and everywhere else), courts should treat discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation with essentially the same hostility they apply to discrimination on the basis of race and sex. To understand the importance of that argument, detailed in a brief opposing a 2008 California law banning same-sex marriage, we need to step back a bit.

AP: A Mennonite pastor who helped a still-missing woman and her daughter flee the country – and a custody fight with the woman’s former lesbian partner – joined his supporters in song Monday after being told his 27-month prison sentenced could be put on hold while he appeals his conviction.

AP: Sixteen Democratic senators are calling on the Veterans Affairs Department to keep granting waivers so that same-sex spouses can be buried in national cemeteries.

Wall Street Journal: The Supreme Court has allotted an hour and 50 minutes of argument time for one of the two gay-marriage cases it is hearing in late March, nearly twice the usual length of arguments at the high court.

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review: If the Canadian Supreme Court is happy to indulge the prosecution of those whose speech apparently “opposes the targeted group’s ability to find self-fulfillment,” then I wonder if it wouldn’t also be happy to bring back Spectral Evidence, which William Stoughton allowed into his courtroom with such famous success at the Salem Witch Trials.

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute: The point is that people should not have to compromise their religious convictions to do business in America. If that means we see some healthy, reciprocal “discrimination” happening, I’m okay with it. I support the right of business owners to conduct business according to their religious and moral convictions. I also support the right of patrons to choose whom they support and whom they do not. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my Chick-Fil-A sandwich.

Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson & Robert P. George at National Review Online: Here, we respond to some challenges that even those sympathetic to our views might raise: Why worry about same-sex marriage in particular? Why worry about marriage policy? If marriage policy does matter, why not “broaden the definition” of marriage to promote family values? How would recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages harm marriage? Isn’t ours a losing cause, or at best a secondary one? And why privilege anyone’s sectarian values at all — doesn’t that compromise freedom and equality? We address each of these questions in turn.

AP: California lawmaker has introduced legislation aimed at guaranteeing that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms and participate on sports teams that correspond with their expressed genders.

CNSNews: More than 60 state and local Texas lawmakers signed a letter urging the Boy Scouts of America to maintain policies that support “family values and moral principles.”

CNSNews: The Obama Justice Department is arguing in the United States Supreme Court that children do not need mothers.

David W. New at the Washington Times: In 1954, the Supreme Court effectively amended the U.S. Constitution to add an equal protection clause to the Fifth Amendment. In 1977, the Supreme Court called this phantom clause the Fifth Amendment’s “Equal Protection Component.”

Washington Examiner: According to the Malibu Times on Sunday, Pepperdine University has announced a new scholarship aimed towards individuals who “have demonstrated a commitment to the LGBT community”.

Washington Times: Jorge Fernandez Diaz made the comments — that gay unions don’t guarantee “the survival of the species,” United Press International reported — as Spain’s highest court upheld same-sex unions as constitutional. Gay activists were outraged.

DW.de: Senior members of Merkel’s conservative party want to open up on issues related to equal rights for homosexuals. They are looking into taxing same-sex partnerships like married couples. But the party’s base is divided.

Montreal Gazette: I’m happy to see that Quebec has launched a campaign to raise awareness and fight homophobia and transphobia. The province will run TV and radio advertisements, and also has set up a site where people can take a short survey.

Christian News Network: The Commonwealth of Virginia has sworn in its first openly homosexual judge, according to reports.

Delaware Online (includes video): At least half of Delaware’s voters would support legislation granting marriage rights to same-sex couples and two-thirds say such a law would have no real impact on them personally, according to a poll done for Equality Delaware, the advocacy group that worked to pass the state’s civil unions bill two years ago

Denver Post: Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb on Saturday confirmed the fears of some Republicans, saying civil unions aren’t enough and the next step for same sex-couples is gay marriage.

Tablet Mag: First, gracing the cover of the Times business section was Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who in speaking out in favor of gay marriage last month, thought he was part of a new wave. It turned out he was alone, but not for long.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line: But before getting into the weeds, we should step back in awe of the fact that the Supreme Court will likely decide the issue stated above. Assuming that threshold issues such as standing don’t prevent a ruling on the merits, nine glorified lawyers are about to tell us whether the traditional definition of marriage as requiring members of the opposite sex is rational and/or useful (whether the standard is “rationality” or “utility” is up for grabs in the case).

Christian Post: A Minnesota-based organization advocating for laws defining marriage as being between a man and a woman will be holding a demonstration against a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

LifeSiteNews: Controversy is escalating over the Manitoba NDP government’s proposed anti-bullying law, which would force schools – including independent religious schools – to accommodate homosexual student clubs under the name gay-straight alliance (GSA).

Harry R. Jackson at Townhall: From the very beginning, homosexual “marriage” activists have sought to hijack not only the moral authority of the Civil Rights Movement, but also the legal arguments which liberated minorities from centuries of legalized oppression and discrimination.

Education News: Rollins College in central Florida has decided that Christian student clubs that require Christian leaders are in violation of the school’s “non-discrimination policy.” Rollins has decided that all Christian student groups who refuse to allow non-Christian leaders will cease to receive university funds.

Dale Carpenter at Volokh Conspiracy: Our view is that Section 3 fails equal protection review for a reason quite distinct from the standard approaches relying on heightened-scrutiny analysis. Whatever else may be its constitutional defects, Section 3 is not a constitutional exercise of any enumerated federal power. It is also not a “necessary and proper” measure to carry into execution any of Congress’s enumerated powers. Instead, it is an unprecedented expansion of federal authority into a domain traditionally controlled by the states.

LA Times: The shift in favor of gay rights may have an effect on the justices. If not, it could still doom restrictive marriage laws in liberal states like California.

AP: “If it is true that my actions flow out of my faith in Jesus, and from my deeply held moral believes – and I sincerely think they do – then it must follow that whatever judgment is being brought against me by the United States of America, is judgment on my faith and conscience and deeply help moral beliefs,” he wrote.

Erwin Chemerinsky at LA Times: But there is also a third possibility. Justices could dismiss the case on procedural grounds, which would have the effect of leaving in place a court ruling that allows gay marriage in the state.

LifeSiteNews: After this week’s Supreme Court ruling finding him guilty of “hate speech,” Canada’s most controversial Christian activist says he will continue publicly witnessing against homosexuality.

Washington Post: Below, we take a closer look at how the fight has been unfolding across the country, state by state. This map, from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life details where gay marriage is and isn’t legal. It also points out the states with same-sex marriage bans, and the states where same-sex marriage is neither legal nor banned

Christian Institute: The controversial push to redefine marriage is one of the reasons the Conservatives came third in yesterday’s important by-election, critics say.

Times of Malta: Marks argues that the APA’s conclusion is not empirically-warranted: the data presented does not validate their hypotheses. The samples used are not representative, they are too small and do not include data of the comparison groups. Additionally, the diversity of same-sex parenting studies was dismissed and only a limited scope of children’s outcomes was studied.

WPRI.com: Same-sex marriage has been a national and state battle for years, and the latest poll by Brown University shows 60.4% of Rhode Islander’s are in favor of giving the right to marry to gay and lesbian couples.

Frank Turke at Townhall: The government has only three options in addressing human behavior. It can prohibit a behavior, it can permit a behavior or it can promote a behavior—the three P’s.

NY Times: Gay rights have quickly emerged in Germany as a campaign issue in this parliamentary election year, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats struggling to catch up to changing attitudes among voters on issues like gay marriage and adoption.

Marty Lederman at SCOTUS Blog: All of the amicus briefs have now been filed in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the California same-sex marriage case.  In light of the parties’ opening briefs and a preliminary review of some of those amicus briefs, including the landmark filing by the United States (see Lyle’s post), and the briefs of California and of 13 other states (see my post here), it is more evident than ever that there are (at least) five possible outcomes in the case — a rich menu of choices for the Court.  | The Hollingsworth link above links to the court filings and a wealth of material related to the litigation.

Blog of the Legal Times: Although stopping short of urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that gay couples have a fundamental right to marriage, the Obama Administration brief in the California same-sex marriage case charts a legal path towards the eventual undoing of all state gay marriage bans, said a lawyer for the challengers to that state’s ban.

LA Times: When Meg Whitman ran for California governor as a Republican three years ago, she said marriage was “between a man and woman” and voiced her support for Proposition 8. But after what she called “a period of careful review and reflection,” Whitman has joined the legal fight to overturn the gay marriage ban approved by California voters in 2008.

Christian Science Monitor: “Californians voted for (traditional) marriage twice in the only polls that really matter,” said Jim Campbell, an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents opponents of gay marriage in the case that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Christian Post: Alliance Defending Freedom, who is a co-counsel in the Supreme Court case in favor of upholding Proposition 8, previously told The Christian Post that it hoped the Supreme Court would uphold the definition of traditional marriage. “The wisest course of action is for the Supreme Court to allow the debate over marriage to continue in this country and not judicially impose same-sex marriage on Americans,” ADF told CP.

AP: More than 200 congressional Democrats are urging the Supreme Court to overturn a key provision of the federal law against gay marriage.

LifeSiteNews: Brazilian lawmakers are seeking pass a law prohibiting “homophobia,” which would potentially outlaw all criticism of homosexual behavior. The bill is part of the country’s criminal code reform currently being undertaken in the National Congress, according to members of Brazil’s newly-formed National Association of Evangelical Jurist (ANAJURE). (Piero Tozzi in the video)

SCOTUS Blog: At their Conference this morning, one of the many issues the Justices will take up is the motion for divided argument in the Windsor challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. A divided argument order provides for oral argument by more than just the petitioner and respondent.

SCOTUS Blog: Here was the government’s key argument why the Golden State’s ban on same-sex marriage fails the constitutional test the administration suggested: ”California’s extension of all of the substantive rights and responsibilities of marriage to gay and lesbian domestic partners particularly undermines the justifications for Proposition 8.”

Adam J. MacLeod and Andrew Beckwith at Public Discourse:
Since redefining marriage requires us to deny sexual differences, even school children now have to conform to that principle at the risk of punishment.

C-FAM: Pro-life organizations spoke at a special forum at UN headquarters this week to ask the UN General Assembly to reform treaty bodies which deviate from their mandates by pushing abortion, homosexuality and controversial sex ed programs. The UN is in the midst of a full review of the treaty bodies to identify ways to reform a system riddled with backlog, inefficiencies and abuse of authority. (also reported in LifeSiteNews)

CNN: Which bathroom should be used by a child who identifies as a different gender from his or her body? Where’s the line between accommodation and discrimination? At what point is a child old enough for that to even be an issue? The case focuses on Coy Mathis, a 6-year-old born with a boy’s body. She identifies as a girl, and her family is raising her as a girl.

SCOTUS Blog: The State of California itself has today filed this amicus brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry, in which it argues not only that California’s own Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment, but also that the petitioners–four of the Proposition 8 sponsors–do not have article III standing to represent California’s interests in federal court, notwithstanding the ruling of the California Supreme Court that California law assigns such a function to those sponsors to represent California’s interests as a matter of state law  . . . In addition, 13 states and the District of Columbia have filed this brief urging the Court to affirm the judgment of the court of appeals declaring that Proposition 8 is invalid.  – See more at: http://www.scotusblog.com/#sthash.SB3z2dOx.dpuf

Wesley J. Smith at National Review: This post is about the rule of law, not same sex marriage. When California voters passed Proposition 8, which defines marriage in the California constitution as exclusively heterosexual, some gay couples sued to have it declared unconstitutional. They won in the trial court and court of appeals, and now the case is to be argued in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Huffington Post: New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley plan to file a friend-of-the-court brief on Friday, their offices said. Officials in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia, will join the amicus brief.

Christian News Net: The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Biblical speech opposing homosexual behavior, including in written form, is essentially a hate crime.

Pete Williams at NBC: Obama administration to express support for gay marriage before Supreme Court

Administration officials say the Justice Department will urge the U.S. Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage to resume in California, wading into the protracted legal battle over Proposition 8 and giving gay-rights advocates a new court ally.

Business Insider: “[A]dministration lawyers worry that taking such an expansive view in legal briefs could unnerve some justices in the Supreme Court’s conservative wing, the people familiar with the matter said,” the Journal reported.

The video is here.

Ed Whelan at National Review Bench Memos: In the Prop 8 case, an amicus brief filed on behalf of former New York chief justice Judith Kaye, law professor Stephen Gillers, and others undertakes to refute the case that I made in the last quarter of my amicus brief that both Ninth Circuit judge Stephen Reinhardt and trial judge Vaughn Walker improperly failed to recuse themselves. (I don’t yet have an online link to the Kaye/Gillers brief; I’ll add it in when I find it.) The Kaye/Gillers brief commits critical errors and evasions.

Yahoo News: A debate about how religious schools should handle homosexual students is at the forefront again, as a Manitoba Christian academy fights back against new anti-bullying legislation that would force them to allow the creation of a gay-straight alliance.

ChristianNews.net: However, over two dozen individuals and organizations have filed contrary briefs with the court supporting Biblical marriage. According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is at the forefront of the cases currently before the court, attorney generals from 19 states have filed joint briefs with the Supreme Court in favor of marriage remaining between a man and woman, and at least four legal organizations discussed the religious liberty concerns that the legalization of homosexual “marriage” would raise.

Mike Florio at NBC Sports: The fact that the NFL isn’t ready for openly gay players continues to be proven by the words and actions of men who currently occupy, who previously inhabited NFL, and who will be joining NFL locker rooms.

Politico: Along with more than 80 prominent Republicans, the “Dirty Harry” star has signed an amicus brief in opposition to California’s Proposition 8, Breitbart News firstreported.

My Fox Austin: You can find it in Chapter 21 of the Texas penal code. It’s the chapter that addresses sexual offenses. Section 21.06 is titled “Homosexual Conduct”, which reads that it is a misdemeanor if a person engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.

Topeka Capital-Journal: Citing a first-of-its-kind Kansas Supreme Court ruling made Friday, Topekan Angela Bauer on Wednesday sought the right to intervene in a case in which the state contends sperm donor William Marotta is legally the father of the daughter born to her former lesbian partner, Jennifer Schreiner.

World Net Daily: President Obama, who simply said his administration would stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act because he doesn’t like it, has admitted in a court brief that the law that says for federal purposes only marriage between one man and one woman will be recognized is constitutional. That’s from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a premiere civil and religious rights legal team that analyzed the Obama team’s filings in a challenge now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. [more]

River Front Times: In Missouri, when state troopers are killed in the line of duty, the state provides “survivor benefits” for spouses in the form of an annuity of the late employee’s salary. But because the state doesn’t recognize same-sex couples, Glossip hasn’t been able to obtain any of these benefits since his spouse, a Highway Patrol corporal, died.

San Francisco Chronicle: “I think it’s a strong indication that the people are grappling with these issues, which means that there is absolutely no reason for the Supreme Court to cut short the political dialogue that is under way,” said John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University and chairman of the National Organization for Marriage. “The wisest course is for the Supreme Court to resist demands to prematurely end the national debate over the future of marriage,” said attorney Jim Campbell of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Prop. 8′s sponsors.

Christian Post: “The Supreme Court has made clear that defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is constitutional as a matter of public policy,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Austin R. Nimocks. “Thus, Congress and President Clinton acted constitutionally when DOMA was enacted. The wisest course is for the Supreme Court to resist demands to prematurely end the national debate over the future of marriage. The court should respect the freedom of both Congress and citizens to affirm a bedrock social institution that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western Civilization.”

NY Times: The brief drew 278 signers, including more than 200 companies — among them giants like Citigroup, Apple, Mars and Alcoa — as well as city governments, law firms and other groups.

Religion Clause Blog: In Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v. Whatcott, (Sup. Ct. Canada, Feb. 27, 2013), the Supreme Court of Canada, in a 116-page opinion, upheld the constitutionality of a key provision in theSaskatchewan Human Rights Code, Sec. 14.

AP: A record 61 percent of Californians now approve of allowing same-sex couples to marry, according to a poll released Thursday.

Buzz Feed: The president, who has said he personally supports marriage equality, has never said whether he believes the Constitution requires it. Supreme Court briefs supporting the challenge to Proposition 8 are due February 28.

SCOTUS Blog: All sides in the case on the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to more than double the time for oral argument on March 27, and to hold separate arguments on the constitutional issue and on the Court’s authority to decide the case.  The motion in the case of United States v. Windsor (12-307) is here. The Court has not yet acted upon it. – See more at: http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/separate-doma-arguments-urged/#more-160200

The News-Gazette: And Kellie Fiedorek, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, insisted that the measure offers inadequate religious freedom protections to individuals and some organizations. “I analyzed this bill and it contains no language that will provide comprehensive safeguards for the religious freedom of citizens and religious organizations in the state of Illinois, no language that purports to address, let alone protect, the right to religious freedom of every citizen,” Fiedorek said.

World Magazine: Before the committee vote, Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Kellie Fiedorek criticized the bill, according to the Chicago Tribune, telling lawmakers it “advances religious intolerance and discrimination towards Illinois citizens with sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Pink News: Kellie Fiedorek, an official with the Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the bill “advances religious intolerance and discrimination towards Illinois citizens with sincerely held religious beliefs.”