Tag Archives: Topic: Marriage

AFP: France’s National Assembly decided Monday to bring forward the final vote on France’s gay marriage bill to April 23, raising the prospect of more mass demonstrations by opponents in the coming days.

William Baude at Slate: In the wake of the Supreme Court arguments about same-sex marriage, there has been widespread agreement that the justices aren’t likely to create a right to gay marriage throughout the land—thereby invalidating the ban in 41 states that don’t perform it. And there has also been lots of confusion about what, practically speaking, a ruling that stopped short of legalizing gay marriage in 50 states would mean. If the Supreme Court leaves the laws of most states intact, but strikes down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, will it create “legal chaos” as the federal government tries to figure out which marriages to recognize where? Or is it relatively obvious which couples will receive federal benefits?

The HIll: The Republican National Committee has reaffirmed its opposition to gay marriage with a slate of resolutions passed unanimously at its spring meeting.

AZ Central: The Bisbee City Council has backed down in the face of legal pressure from Arizona’s attorney general and will rewrite its controversial ordinance granting civil unions.

Doug Mainwaring at Public Discourse: Our recent juridical and legislative history is rife with assaults on the rights and needs of children, always trumped in favor of selfish adults. No more. I am confident that the naked overreach of the media and progressive activists on this issue will invite a voter backlash that will either meet or exceed the same-sex marriage movement’s achievements, leading to a thorough rethinking of Roe v. Wade, no-fault divorce, and our debilitating, anti-family, anti-father welfare state.

Washington Times: After South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson’s embrace of gay marriage last week, activists who have made the issue a litmus test for Democratic Party officeholders are cranking up the heat on the three remaining holdouts among Democrats in the Senate.

Jena McGregor at Washington Post: It’s also not leadership. The abrupt surge of officials trying to follow political winds is the opposite of the sort of courageous, principled way most of us hope our officials will lead. Rather than speak out about their true beliefs — it’s impossible to believe at least some of these 14 senators didn’t privately support gay marriage before — they waited until they had the political air cover of Hillary Clinton, one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party.

Ruth Institute: Truth is, African American pastors have been engaged in the real civil rights battle for decades, fighting to end violence and respect human dignity in their communities, while largely ignored by the media. Now that their voices are speaking out on the hot button issue of marriage law, they’re getting attention. But some media seemed not to have noticed that the day they gave the story prominence was the anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Oh, the irony.

NBC Chicago: The African-American Clergy Coalition, a group founded to fight the same-sex marriage bill in the General Assembly, has spent only $11,250 on radio ads, but so far, it’s been enough to keep the bill bottled up in the state House.

MPR: The study from the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at UCLA School of Law found support for gay marriage in Minnesota at 43 percent.

Washington Post: The Republican National Committee passed resolutions Friday reaffirming its commitment to defining marriage as between a man and a woman, and calling on the Supreme Court to “uphold the sanctity of marriage” as it weighs rulings on two landmark cases involving gay marriage.

The Age: Larousse, the authoritative French dictionary, has infuriated right-wing MPs after it altered its definition of marriage to a union of “two persons” rather than “between man and woman”.

AP: The French Senate voted Friday to legalize same-sex marriage in France, putting a landmark bill on track to become law by summer.

Illinois Review: As for evangelicals, a failure on Saturday won’t push them to leave the ILGOP. Instead, it will likely confirm to evangelicals that the Illinois Republican Party has left them.

Ed Whelan at NRO: Nearly everyone seems to assume that, if she gets past the standing/jurisdiction issues to reach the merits, Justice Elena Kagan will vote to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8. Somehow clinging to a naïve faith in the power of reason, I continue to hold out a tiny (okay—a very, very tiny) hope that she, and all of the other justices, will instead recognize that DOMA and Prop 8 are constitutionally permissible—that it is legitimate for the federal government in its realm and for the state governments in their realms to maintain the perennial definition of marriage as a male-female union.

Peter Sprigg at LifeSiteNews: Admittedly, society’s tangible interest in marriages that do not produce children is less than its interest in marriages that result in the reproduction of the species. However, we still recognize childless marriages because it would be an invasion of a heterosexual couple’s privacy to require that they prove their intent or ability to bear children.

Washington Post: Some social conservatives are threatening to decamp from the Republican Party if officials do not recommit to their issues.

Austin Ruse at C-FAM: Homosexual advocates seem obsessed by a social science study that goes against them. They say the research is unimportant but can’t stop talking about it.

Christopher C. Roberts at First Things: Consider: If marriage is grounded in the procreative potential of sexual difference, then it is grounded in something prior to the human will, and therefore prior to positive law. If marriage is the way we humanize and acculturate mammalian mating, then marriage has a rationale with which government interacts but which government does not invent.

Delaware Online: “If you promise to do your part and to assure that the marriage equality bill reaches my desk this year, I make a promise to you. I will sign it.”

Clarion Ledger has posted this report with a map and data from the UCLA Williams Institute.

KOLOTV.com: SJR13 was approved Thursday on a 3-2 party line vote by the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections. It now goes to the Senate floor.

Jessica Valenti at The Nation: Conservatives need to understand that what they’re pushing for is an impossible sell: Women’s subservience to the domestic as a cultural grounding force, while men get to work and explore and create? No thank you. We don’t want the good of society on our relationships’ shoulders.

Daily Herald: What is the definition of marriage? Is marriage simply the deep, emotional relationship of two people or does it go beyond that? Authors Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson and Robert George say that the answers to these questions are at the heart of the gay marriage debate, not equality.

Wall Street Journal: Uruguayan lawmakers voted to legalize gay marriage, making the South American country the third in the Americas to do so after Canada and Argentina.

Delaware Online: Democratic lawmakers will introduce legislation today to legalize same-sex marriage in Delaware, a measure proponents have aggressively sought in recent months and are determined to make law before the close of this year’s General Assembly session.

Daniel Kuebler at Public Discourse: There are two problems with this type of reasoning. First, it’s questionable whether sexual orientation is biologically determined. Second, even if genetic and developmental factors cause one to have same-sex attractions, it does not follow that one’s biology should determine one’s behavior, much less dictate one’s morality.

Tufts Daily: Tufts Democrats and Tufts Republicans last Thursday joined the leaders of 49 other collegiate Democrat and Republican organizations in a statement supporting marriage equality for LGBTQ couples.

The Drudge Report has linked to this InfoWars report: Photo of Gay Man Who Walked Through Muslim Suburb of Paris With Boyfriend Causes Shock.

Reportedly, the victim was in a French Muslim neighborhood known for criminal activity. Yet, many are attempting to blame the crime on those who oppose marriage redefinition. See, e.g, reports on Google News.

Boston Globe: Uruguay’s lawmakers were debating Wednesday night whether to legalize gay marriage.

Guardian: The Church of England has ruled out offering blessings to same-sex couples, insisting that such public gestures belong only to heterosexual marriage.

UPI: A key article of a bill that would allow same-sex unions in France cleared the Senate on a 179-157 vote following 10 hours of floor debate.

Ken Blackwell at Townhall: We can all agree that the topic of same-sex marriage draws intense emotions from both sides. But those emotions do not justify branding people who disagree with us as liars or bigots. That’s a cheap way to silence dissenters, when there is real and substantive debate to be had. It’s also a grave insult to honest, truth-seeking individuals, and a violation of the principles of American society. All people should be free to explore and define their beliefs. And all should be free to speak, act, vote and advocate according to their beliefs.

American Independent via Huffington Post: In addition to NOM, the brochure’s listed sponsors included the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, and the Heritage Foundation, all social conservative groups based in Washington, D.C. The first “consequence[] of redefining marriage” listed in the brochure is that, “Redefining marriage would hurt children. Decades of social science – including very recent and robust studies – show that children do better when raised by a married mom and dad.” The endnotes cited Regnerus’ New Family Structures Study findings to support this claim.

SCOTUS Blog has posted its most recent Petitions to watch. Alliance Alert readers may find a couple of cases of particular interest.

CBN: Senator Rand Paul: “I think it’s important that people know that for the country to get better it needs more than just politicians. Politicians aren’t enough and it needs resurgence through churches, through revivals through a spiritual cleansing of the people.”

News9.com: Two freshman Democratic senators from conservative states, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, have joined the growing chorus of lawmakers who say they support gay marriage.

Newson6.com: The House approved the resolution Monday on an 84-0 vote. House Democratic Leader Scott Inman and openly gay Rep. Kay Floyd of Oklahoma City were among more than half of the chamber’s 29 Democrats who walked out of the chamber instead of voting.

Patheos: I have to admit that even I didn’t see this coming. As you read this, try to remember that homosexual couples aren’t infertile. It is simply physically impossible for them to procreate. But if gay marriage is, in fact, equal to marriage, then this is the kind of thing that no one will be able to stop.

CNSNews: Sen. Rand Paul (R- Ky.) said keeping the same-sex marriage debate at the state level will allow supporters of traditional marriage to turn public opinion that he said is shifting to the other side.

Christian Institute: Unnamed Tory MPs have said they are being blackmailed by the Chief Whip for voting against gay marriage. The MPs say their expenses records are being used to “bully” and “victimise” them because they failed to support the Government’s unpopular policy.

NPR: The court could, as some predict, strike down the section of the law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages but leave unsettled questions related to state recognition of such unions. If that happens, health coverage problems for same-sex couples could persist, say advocates.

5 News Online: I am opposed to gay marriage,” he said in an e-mail. “In the interview with KFSM done on April 5, I also discussed whether gay couples should receive benefits if they work for the federal government. On the benefits issue, I said to ‘put me down in the undecided category.

BBC: A prominent gay rights activist has been arrested in Zambia after appearing on a live television calling for same-sex relations to be decriminalised.

UKSC Blog: One reason for the absence of legal contest over these issues in the UK is the lack of a mechanism for constitutional challenge to the validity of laws. The powers of parliament not being limited by a written constitution, there has traditionally been no way of testing the propriety of laws against general principles. However, things are slowly changing.

Huffington Post: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is not joining the ranks of his fellow senators who have come out in recent days and endorsed marriage equality. But he is backing civil unions for same-sex couples, saying he believes it could be a way to preserve “traditional marriage” for heterosexual couples.

Christian Post: Long-time evangelical Left leader Jim Wallis, founder and CEO of Sojourners, has changed his position on government recognition of same-sex marriage. He announced his support in a Friday interview with The Huffington Post.

National Journal: Call it Rainbow Spring, where lawmakers are coming out in support of gay marriage faster than raindrops refract colors across the land. (Note: It rather could be colored purple, red, or pink — see The Atlantic’s brief history of color use in LGBT-rights campaigns).

Chicago Tribune: State Rep. Ed Sullivan Jr. of Mundelein said Sunday he will support a bill to allow gay marriage in Illinois, becoming the second House Republican to do so and first among leadership.

AP: South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson says he now supports legalizing gay marriage.

NECN: New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is drawing criticism from a liberal advocacy group for vetoing legislation that would have required the state to expedite the occupational and professional licenses of domestic partners of gay military members.

Liberty News: The headline for the Daily Mail article focuses on David Epstein’s equation of sex with his biological daughter with homosexual sex, but I was stunned by the admission that a member of the Political Science staff at Columbia was having sex with his adult child . . .

Christian Institute: Legal action could be used to force same-sex marriage on Northern Ireland, according to two groups that back gay marriage.

LifeSiteNews: “Gay marriage is inevitable.” That’s what we’re told by gay activists. It’s a taunt devised to pick off the more faint-hearted clingers-on of traditional marriage by exploiting the human instinct to be on the winning side. And sometimes it works.

MSNBC: Ella explains who a person can and can’t marry and how in New York a person can marry anyone they love. “Girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys in New York and a girl can marry a boy in New York too,” Ella told Krystal.

Austin American Statesman via InsuranceNews.net: In December, conservative groups Texas Values and the Alliance Defending Freedom submitted a brief to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asking that his office find the Pflugerville district and other government entities in violation of the state constitution.

World Magazine: Now that the future of marriage is center stage, Kellie Fiedorek hopes that the Supreme Court does not offer a radical ruling that cuts short the debate. A lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, Fiedorek, 29, sat in the courtroom as the justices heard the arguments. She’s been to seven states this year testifying before legislatures about the ways redefining marriage would interfere with religious freedom. She’s learned that many citizens have never had to think about the meaning of marriage and why it matters. Now that people are alert, social conservatives have the opportunity to make their case to a young generation that has both rallied for life and dealt with the aftereffects of divorce. “I think that, as more young people engage in the issue, we will see more of them eager to defend marriage, recognizing how important it is to parents and children,” Fiedorek said.

Catholic Culture: By a 23-8 vote, Uruguay’s senate has approved same-sex marriage. The nation’s lower house, which approved a different same-sex marriage bill, is expected to vote in favor of the senate version, and President José Mujica, an atheist and former guerrilla leader who was elected in 2010, has said he will sign it.

Yahoo News: “The Republican Party is going to be torn on this issue. The bulk of the party is going to be very resistant and is very supportive of traditional marriage, and parts of the party are going to flake off. Parties do that,” Gingrich told a group of reporters at a breakfast meeting at National Review magazine’s Washington, D.C., office. “The country is gradually evolving. The country is thinking this thing through. It creates complexities.”

NPR: Lexicographers know they’re on the hot seat as they confront the changing uses of the word. When Merriam-Webster revised its definition a few years ago, it went with a two-state solution. It kept an older definition for “marriage” as “the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex,” but it added a second definition as “the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of traditional marriage.” Not surprisingly, that triggered headlines like “Webster’s Redefines Marriage” on conservative websites.

ACLU: Representatives of religions that do not have ordained ministers must be permitted to perform marriages on the same basis as ministers, priests, rabbis, and other ordained clergy, Chief Judge Dennis J. Smith of the Circuit Court of Fairfax County ruled on Friday.

Carson Halloway at Public Discourse: The oral arguments on Proposition 8 at the Supreme Court suggest that there is very good reason to believe that the declaration of a “right” to same-sex marriage will set us on the path to polygamy.

Chicago Tribune: With the measure a dozen votes or less shy of the 60 required for final approval, advocates on either side of the issue consider the 20 black House members key swing votes in the spring session.

Boston Globe: France’s upper house of parliament has begun debating a bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children, weeks after the divisive reform was passed in the lower house.

Indian Congressman Marlin Stutzman has issued this press release that includes this: “Regardless of any ruling, referendum, or law, marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” said Stutzman. “Washington cannot redefine marriage any more than it can govern gravity. As the cornerstone of society throughout history, marriage is a unique institution and the safest environment for raising children. My commitment to marriage is matched by my abiding commitment to the civil rights of all individuals—every American must be treated with dignity and respect. However, marriage is neither a civil right nor a political platform . . . ”

The Hill: Salmon continued that his father’s opposition centers on the definition of marriage. “As far as it goes with marriage for him it’s a matter of what marriage means to him — to him marriage is defined as between a man and a woman,” Salmon said. “It has nothing to do with the way he views a person’s relationship, and that’s the thing that I think is hard for people to understand.”

Kellie Fiedorek at Washington Examiner: In their recently filed brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, advocates for redefining marriage argued that “gay men and lesbians are a suspect class” and thus need special judicial protection of the “politically powerless.”

Ilya Somin at Volokh Conspiracy: Co-blogger Eugene Volokh recently linked to a Virginia state court decision striking down as unconstitutional a state law that allowed religious societies without official clergy to designate only one member as having the power to perform wedding ceremonies, while religious groups that do have clergy can designate more. The court concluded that the First and Fourteenth Amendments bar this law because “The General Assembly [Virginia's state legislature] cannot favor one type of religion over another without a compelling government interest and a narrowly tailored method.”

AP: The results are a marked changed from 1995 when only 34 percent said they moved in together. Now it is 48 percent. Back then, 39 percent said they married first, compared to 23 now.

Ross Douthat at NY Times: The notion that nobody would have entertained what Drum later calls the “esoteric” idea that marriage has an essential link to the way that human beings procreate if desperate social conservatives hadn’t grasped at it is apparently quite a popular view, judging by the fact that other writers raised it on Twitter over the weekend, and its popularity testifies to the way that the gay marriage debate has encouraged a strange historical amnesia about the origins of marriage law.

ChrisAdamo.com: So perhaps the Supreme Court in its arrogance believes it can forcibly impose a redefinition of marriage on America. Let it next endeavor to strike down the law of gravity as “unconstitutional” on the basis that it clearly affects citizens in a decidedly disproportionate manner and thus is a primary source of “inequality” among the people. Then every concurring jurist, bureaucrat, and countercultural activist who regards the court’s decision as credible will be free to find a high precipice from which to test its merits. We will then see benefit that can actually be reaped from blind faith in liberal arrogance.

Speak Up Movement: You may be tempted to think if marriage is redefined to include same-sex couples, then the whole issue may just go away and the two sides can come to some sort of grudging peace. Everyone can get on with their lives, right? Well, not so fast. One of the things that is often overlooked in the debate over marriage is the effect redefining marriage will have on religious freedom. In short, redefining marriage to include same-sex couples poses a significant threat to religious freedom. Examples abound to illustrate this fact . . .

Minneapolis Tribune: The fight to legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota is about to get a new twist at the Capitol as a group of legislators unveil a proposal to allow civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.

Joan Frawley Desmond at NC Register: Cooper would not retreat: “[S]ociety’s interest in responsible procreation isn’t just with respect to the procreative capacities of the couple itself,” he said.
“The marital norm, which imposes the obligations of fidelity and monogamy, Your Honor, advances the interests in responsible procreation by making it more likely that neither party, including the fertile party to that … marriage will engage in irresponsible procreative conduct outside of that marriage,” Cooper continued. “That’s the … marital norm.”

Christian Institute: Over two thirds of Christians feel part of a victimised minority and David Cameron is making that worse by redefining marriage, the Coalition for Marriage says. In a new poll commissioned by the group, almost eight in ten said the Prime Minister’s same-sex marriage plan will lead to those who back traditional marriage facing the sack.