Tag Archives: Topic: Marriage

OneNewsNow.com (AP): Alliance Defense Fund attorney Austin Nimocks, who sees little public support for the repeal of DOMA, told the committee the Defense of Marriage Act is still needed. “To repeal DOMA sends a profound public policy message that marriage between a man and a woman, which we know naturally builds families and gives hope that the next generation will carry that family into the future, …that that ideal is no longer important or necessary,” stated Nimocks. “But we know that kids need secure attachments to their mothers and fathers.

“Americans have unanimously voted that marriage should be one man and one woman,” said Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund. “That should be a resounding statement to Congress that the American people, the experts on marriage, believe that marriage is one man, one woman, and that should be preserved in federal law,” he told lawmakers.

CitizenLink: My friends at the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) were already working on that angle, it seems, because last Friday they released a memo to New York’s city and town clerks outlining their religious rights under New York law. ADF’s press release has more details.

Christian Post: In the wake of gay marriage soon becoming a legal institution in the state of New York, the Episcopal Bishop of Long Island, has ordered that homosexual priests wed their partners.

Daniel Blomberg at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: The President is using one time-honored preserver of our country—the military—to attack another—marriage. Defenders of marriage, though, should not be surprised. Marriage is so foundational an institution that it is related to most facets of life. Thus, for instance, defending marriage also means defending religious liberty. Now, due to the creativity of marriage’s attackers, it means defending the military itself.

Daniel Blomberg at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: But the actual situation now is much worse than a regrettable tale of political shenanigans and hypocrisy. The military’s attempt to brace service members for repeal—via painfully inadequate PowerPoint training slides—still relies on DOMA’s existence to answer many controversial problems. Thus, our troops are having a radical change imposed on them during a time of war by a Commander-in-Chief who is training them to rely on a law that his administration is actively trying to subvert. This is wrong. Misleading Congress is one thing. Misleading the men and women in harm’s way who must follow his leadership is a wholly indefensible other thing and should not be tolerated. Congress should demand that the President explain his duplicity to it and stop his mistreatment of our troops.

The Webcast is available on the Senate Judiciary website here. C-Span has posted the hearing here.

NPR (includes audio): As thousands of gay and lesbian couples are planning weddings in New York — and celebrating their hard-fought right to marry — others around the nation are fighting for the right to divorce.

Jeff Schapiro at the Christian Post: Can Christians ever escape being labeled as “hateful” people while standing firmly on the pro-family side of the gay marriage issue?

The statement of ADF attorney Austin R. Nimocks is available here in pdf format. A related ADF media advisory is here.

“But humanity remains unchanged – a collection of men and women. And because of the fundamental truth that children are the product of sexual relationships between men and women, and that men and women each bring something important and unique to the table of parenting, this government maintains a compelling interest in protecting and preserving the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

- Austin Nimocks, ADF Senior Legal Counsel, defending DOMA in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee

LifeSiteNews.com: The archbishop of Baltimore is warning Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley that he will have a vigorous fight on his hands if he tries to legalize same-sex “marriage.” The governor had announced Friday that he is making gay “marriage” a legislative priority, following the success of gay activists in New York.

ACLU: To read the ACLU’s testimony, go to: www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/aclu-statement-judiciary-committee-hearing-s-598-respect-marriage-act-assessing-impact

GantDaily.com: Also on the witness list were Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family and Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund and one of the lawyers for proponents of Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

CBN.com: New York law “explicitly allows a municipality to delegate a clerk’s duties concerning marriage licenses to a deputy clerk or any other municipal employee. A city or town should have no reason to deny a clerk’s request for an accommodation,” ADF noted in a memo. “Indeed, it is disturbing that public officials have so blithely dismissed New Yorkers’ sincerely held beliefs even though millions of New Yorkers believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman,” the ADF said.

Christian Post: “This move by the president and certain members of congress is disappointing in that it is attacking that fundamental building block for our society,” Blomberg told The Christian Post. “I see this as an attack on what 84 percent of Congress voted for in 1996 when they passed DOMA, and what 31 out of 31 states voted for when Americans had a chance to vote on this issue.” “Whether or not this is an endorsement [of gay marriage], which this seems to be very close to being, the fact is that the president is attacking what diverse cultures and faiths have recognized throughout history as the universal ideal, as the best way to promote healthy, natural families,” Blomberg said.

The Washington Post: Daniel Blomberg, an attorney for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, denounced the administration’s decision. “Our perspective is that it’s not only incorrect, but deeply disappointing, to have a politician claim support for marriage between one man and one woman on the campaign trail, then actively undermine that once in office,” said Blomberg, whose organization will testify in support of DOMA during Wednesday’s Senate hearing. “We are confident Congress will make the right decision here.”

Guided by the “minimum government, maximum freedom” ethos, libertarians should realize where their support for same-sex marriage will lead. The society gay-rights activists envision would destroy the very values libertarians claim to extol.

Brian Raum at Human Events: Marriage supporters have warned for years that fabricating same-sex “marriage” will only serve to usher in more and more assaults on the foundational building block of society. And now, in a perfect yet appalling example of what’s been foretold, polygamist Kody Brown is chasing the success of the homosexual agenda in New York State by filing a lawsuit to strike down the laws against polygamy in an effort to save himself and his four “wives” from prosecution.

Baptist Press: “It is disturbing that public officials have so blithely dismissed New Yorkers’ sincerely held beliefs even though millions of New Yorkers believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman,” said a legal memo ADF wrote for clerks throughout the state. “But New York law does protect an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Christian Science Monitor: Despite the president’s action, DOMA continues to enjoy significant support in Congress and among many Americans. “Congress rightly recognized that the lifelong, faithful union of a man and a woman is the fundamental building block of thriving societies,” Austin Nimrocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, which supports DOMA, said in a statement. “The union between husband and wife benefits society – especially children – in unique and special ways that cannot be duplicated by any other relationship.” He added: “We should not abandon what Congress wisely did … to appease a very small group of activists.”

Dakota Voice: “I applaud the Alliance Defense Fund’s effort to step forward and provide a legal resource for municipal clerks and other employees in New York who may face a dilemma when Governor Cuomo’s Same-Sex Marriage Bill goes into effect on July 24th. No one should have to resign from his or her job if issuing marriage licenses to gay couples violates his or her conscience.

WAMC (includes audio): When New York’s new definition of marriage takes effect on July 24, many county clerks will be confronted with the conflict between a surrendering to a new job requirement and adherence to their own religious beliefs. They may have some legal options – Capital District Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.

Charisma: Should New York’s clerks be forced to issue same-sex marriage licenses? That’s the subject of a legal memo the Alliance Defense Fund circulated Friday.

As a leading Senate Democrat prepares for hearings this week on repealing the federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman, the White House on Tuesday threw its support to overturning the Defense of Marriage Act.

LifeSiteNews: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has set the passage of same-sex “marriage” as a legislative priority for next year, after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s success last month.

NY Times: With the military’s ban on openly gay troops expected to end this fall, advocates for gay and lesbian service members are already looking ahead to the next battle: winning equal benefits for same-sex married couples.

EPPC: Thank you very much, Chairman Leahy and ranking member Grassley, for inviting me to testify before this Committee on S. 598, which is misleadingly titled the “Respect for Marriage Act of 2011.” I will briefly explain in my testimony why I oppose S. 598 and why I support the continuation in law of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”). S. 598 should also be understood in the broader political context of the Obama administration’s stealth campaign to induce the courts to invalidate DOMA and to invent a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. I will therefore discuss more extensively how, even before its February announcement of its formal decision to abandon defending DOMA, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice was systematically sabotaging its supposed defense of DOMA.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Ruth Sheldon, town clerk for 15 years in Granby, 25 miles north of Syracuse, said Monday that she has submitted her resignation effective Saturday.

ADF Media: Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks will be available for media questions Wednesday immediately after providing testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the proposed repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, passed by 84 percent of Congress and signed into law by then-President Clinton in 1996.

AP: Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that more than 760 couples will be selected to get married on Sunday in the city clerk’s five borough offices.

WBEZ: The county clerk’s office says 831 civil licenses were issued in June. That was the first month couples could get them.

Religion Clause Blog: Now, however, Constitutional Law Prof Blog reports that the Alliance Defense Fund last week sent a memo (full text) to New York Municipal Clerks telling them that they are entitled to claim a religious accommodation to exempt them from issuing same-sex marriage license.

The Spiritual Herald: New York’s approval of same-sex marriage is just the first round in what will be a lengthy and fractious heavyweight legal battle that will wind up in the laps of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court next year. ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero, who is gay himself, spelled out a robust list of lawsuits the organization has filed in states across the nation.

Metro Weekly: In the second panel, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese and Freedom to Marry president Evan Wolfson will be joined by two marriage equality opponents. David Austin R. Nimocks is the senior legal counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been the driving legal force behind most anti-LGBT litigation in recent years . . .

ADF legal memo outlines freedom protections for clerks affirming marriage as only a union of husband and wife

Capitol Confidential: The Alliance Defense Fund has issued the below memo explaining the rights of clerks to refuse to issue licenses.

Advocate.com: The Alliance Defense Fund has issued a legal memo in defense of New York municipal clerks who object to issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and officiating the ceremonies on the grounds of religious belief.

Politics on the Hudson: According to a memo from the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that defends religious freedoms, said in a memo on the new same-sex marriage law that state statute requires New York employers “accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs.” The memo refers to city and town clerks who have religious objections to officiating same-sex marriage ceremonies.

LifeSiteNews.com: A pro-family coalition in New York is organizing marches and rallies throughout the state on the day the new same-sex “marriage” law takes effect, to demand that the legislature allow the voters to make the final decision on the definition of marriage.

Catholic Culture : In her more recent monthly column devoted to Catholic issues from a Latino perspective, the assistant director of media relations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops likened the legalization of same-sex marriage to a farcical decree that mandates that apples be called “oranges.”

NY Law Journal: Almost 60 judges in New York City have volunteered to help remove the last legal roadblock to the immediate weddings of gay and lesbian couples once they finally are recognized by the state on a Sunday in 10 days, court officials said yesterday.

Defining marriage down isn’t hard, for elected officials as blithely unconcerned with the will of the electorate as the New York Legislature. It helps, of course, if you have contempt for the Constitution and can immunize yourself against the realities of life and human relationships.

Tim Dalrymple at WORLD Magazine (Jul 30, 11): When sexual liberty and religious liberty are pitted against one another, says the Alliance Defense Fund’s Austin R. Nimocks, the elevation of one always diminishes the other. The religious liberties and conscience rights of individual professionals and business owners, Nimocks says, are in particular peril. Since they do not fall beneath the “religious umbrella” the law creates, wedding planners or florists or clothiers who decline to offer their services to same-sex couples may face lawsuits or other forms of government pressure. Marriage counselors and adoption attorneys, if they are not employees of a religious group, also could be accused of illegal discrimination if they do not serve gay couples. Even those beneath the “religious umbrella” may be less protected than they would like to believe. In spite of the conscience provision, there are “huge gaping holes” in the language of the law, says Nimocks.

The Australian: The divorced nurse from the Sunshine Coast town of Nambour, who once trained as a nun, has accused Labor members supporting the proposed changes of being brainwashed by a “global gay Gestapo”, which is lobbying political parties and governments worldwide.

OneNewsNow.com: Homosexual activists in Maine have announced future ballot plans for a referendum on same-gender “marriage.”

In a snapshot summary of her memoir released on Tuesday, In Spite of Everything, Susan Gregory Thomas gives a firsthand account of what remains of children and parents after the devastation of divorce. Thomas presents a vivid portrait of the children of divorce in her neighborhood who, with her, wandered as “sad-eyed, bruised nomads.”

The Albany Times-Union reports that Grisanti raised $153,469.19 in the second quarter, making him the eighth biggest Senate fundraiser. The Buffalo News reports that approximately $50,000 came from same-sex marriage advocates, including a $10,000 donation from activist Tim Gill.

LifeSiteNews.com: Chile’s president Sebastian Piñera, who bills himself as a social conservative and is known for his defense of the right to life, is preparing to introduce a bill in the nation’s congress instituting “civil unions” for homosexual couples, according to the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, which says that it has seen a recent draft of the legislation.

N.Y. Republican Senators Rewarded for Marriage Vote | News | The Advocate: The four New York state Republican senators who voted for marriage equality last month have been rewarded with generous campaign contributions from advocates including New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined others in giving the maximum amount allowed to the lawmakers.

Christian Post: Some of the Episcopal Church bishops in New York will require its gay clergy to avail themselves to the state’s Marriage Equality Act that legalizes same-sex marriage when it goes into effect on July 24

FoxNews.com: The Obama administration’s policies on immigration and gay marriage are being tested in another case of a gay man fighting deportation by citing his marriage to a U.S. citizen.

ADF attorney Jim Campbell at The Christian Post: Thus, like the schoolyard bully who hides his fear by creating it in others, the groups attacking marriage display a front of academic superiority, knowing all the while that a breach of that façade will expose the alarming void within.

Neo-neocon Blog: City and town clerks are in an unusual position, because they are government officials. On Long Island, the Nassau County district attorney, Kathleen M. Rice, sent a sternly worded letter to clerks last week, warning that they could be subject to criminal prosecution if they declined to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. | The NY Daily News has published the text of the letter in an article by Celeste Katz, dated July 8 and titled: Nassau DA Kathleen Rice To Clerks: Don’t Even Think About Refusing Gay Marriage Licenses

Thomas M. Clark, The Problems of Perry: Exposing the Flaws of Its Assault on Traditional Marriage, Human Life Rev. (Winter/Spring 2011)

Baptist Press – : This gender nonsense serves as a strong reminder that the cultural war over same-sex “marriage” is not really about pension benefits and hospital visits for long-time same-sex couples. At heart, it’s a culture war over whether human beings get to redefine the contours of normal sexuality, overriding natural anatomy and reproductive purposes. In short, ignoring God’s design for human beings.

AP: Pawlenty said Wednesday he agrees with the principles behind the Family Leader’s Marriage Vow. But he says he prefers “to choose my own words, especially seeking to show compassion to those who are in broken families through no fault of their own.”

LifeSiteNews.com (see video): State Senator Jim Alesi told a crowd gathered to celebrate the passage of same-sex “marriage” in New York that his priest embraced him and gave him Holy Communion when he attended Mass after voting to pass the legislation.

LifeSiteNews.com: Reacting to the news that the first New York State town clerk has resigned rather than sign her name on a same-sex “marriage” license, Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted Tuesday that “the law is the law.”

Gay ‘Marriage’ and Fidelity, Christian News: There’s nothing “unclear” about this at all. The evidence Oppenheimer cites and Savage’s own counsel make it very clear that marriage is unlikely to change the habits of gay men. But, as Oppenheimer notes: Savage believes that heterosexual couples will learn from gay couples’ example. So “gay marriage” will inevitably undermine all marriages. That is very bad news for our culture.

Lambda Legal: Yesterday, Lambda Legal filed an amicus brief in a case involving Cristina Ojeda and Monica Alcota, a married binational lesbian couple from Queens, New York. The friend-of-the-court brief argues that immigration officials are incorrectly relying on an inapplicable case for authority to continue deportation proceedings while the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is being challenged. | Brief

Tucson Citizen from USA Today: The National Organization for Marriage — now revving up a campaign to drive New York Republicans who voted for gay marriage out of office — and the Alliance Defense Fund say religious protections in marriage-legalization bills are inadequate to protect individuals and damaging to religious institutions, particularly faith-based non-profit organizations. Alliance attorney Austin Nimocks cites an example: The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston ceased offering adoption services because it would not allow gays to adopt children.

NPR (includes audio): The latest episode in Sister Wives is playing out in the courtroom, not on cable. On Wednesday, the Brown family — the husband, four wives, and 16 children who star in the reality TV show — plans to file a lawsuit in federal court in Utah. The family members say the state’s anti-bigamy law is unconstitutional and that Supreme Court precedent backs them up.

Let The People Vote: Governor Cuomo and the New York Legislature imposed same-sex marriage on New York with no vote of the people. Voters in 31 other states have been able to decide the definition of marriage for their states, but New Yorkers have been denied that right! Stand up to protest the redefinition of marriage and demand your right to vote! If New York is going to change the definition of marriage, it should be the People and not the politicians who make the decision! Let the People Vote! Join us on July 24 in NYC, Albany, Rochester and Buffalo to let your voice be heard! Additional details coming soon…

Reuters: A town clerk in western New York has resigned to avoid being forced to sign marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples, citing religious objections to same-sex marriage.

ABC News: As the right to marry gains momentum across the United States, same-sex couples are redefining the traditional roles of husband and wife, and bureaucrats are scrambling to keep pace with the social revolution.

Christian Concern: It is high time that the Church began to lead rather than simply cowering before the secular agenda.

Elizabeth F. Emens at NYTimes.com: The summer of 2011 is a watershed moment for marriage equality in New York. To prepare for same-sex marriage, bureaucrats across the state are busily revising marriage license application forms to make the forms sex-neutral. Say goodbye to separate lines labeled “bride” and “groom.” In the interest of gender equality, and in compliance with the law, the new forms should include prominent statements of the marital naming options.

Judith Stacey at NYTimes.com: As the United States gradually makes the membership rules to marriage gender-inclusive, it risks deepening our sharp class and race disparities in marriage and family life. If we wish to avoid this fate, we should not be celebrating the benefits of marriage. Instead we need to develop family policies that give greater recognition and resources to the growing array of families formed, as Nancy Polikoff titled her book, “Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage.”

W. Bradford Wilcox at NYTimes.com: The roots of this growing marriage divide are economic (the postindustrial economy favors the college-educated), cultural (less-educated Americans are abandoning a marriage mindset even as college-educated Americans take up this mindset) and legal (less-educated Americans seem particularly gun shy about marrying in a world where no-fault divorce is the law of the land). Alas, the same-sex marriage debate has crowded out any serious effort to remedy this marriage inequality.

Ralph Richard Banks at NYTimes.com: The cases against polygamy and incest are not nearly as strong as most people imagine. Yet they will not become legal anytime soon. To see why, it helps to understand the evolution of moral assessments of interracial and same-sex marriage.

Race and sex play qualitatively different roles in our interactions with each other, making sex rationally relevant to our social and political policies in a way that race is not.

Family Research Council Washington Update: Now, however, Frum has changed his mind. In a short CNN op-ed last week, he wrote that “the case against same-sex marriage has been tested against reality. The case has not passed its test.” Tested? Only five out of the fifty states (soon to be six, when New York’s new marriage law takes effect) and the District of Columbia currently allow same-sex “marriage.” Of those, only one (Massachusetts) has had it for more than three years.

The document, which has a total of fourteen points is called, “The Marriage Vow-A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family”

Hotline On Call: Democratic political operatives overwhelmingly say the time has come for gay marriage, while a majority of Republicans now believe they should just avoid this issue, according to this week’s National Journal Political Insiders Poll.

OneNewsNow.com: conservative military watchdog is throwing its support behind a House bill that will ensure defense tax dollars aren’t used to implement policy changes that violate the Defense of Marriage Act.