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Showing posts from June, 2013

The supremes and marriage: the battle goes on BY ERIC METAXAS

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Yesterday, by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court , as expected, overturned part of the Defense of Marriage Act , or DOMA. At the same time the Court declined to rule on California’s Proposition 8 , citing what lawyers call a “lack of standing.” Here's the bottom line: Same-sex marriage is not the law of the land. The Supreme Court did not issue a Roe v. Wade type of decision for gay marriage. Yes, DOMA is gone. But same-sex marriage in California is still up in the air, and everywhere else the battle goes on. The DOMA decision, U.S. v. Windsor, involved the estate of a woman who left everything to her same-sex spouse, a marriage recognized by the state of New York. The surviving spouse was barred from claiming the federal estate tax exemption by Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for federal purposes. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld the District and Appeals Court’s rulings that DOMA was unconstitutional. Writing for the ma

We will never stop defending the truth - that marriage is between a man and a woman

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Days from now, our country will be celebrating an America that its founders would barely recognize. Freedom, Alexis de Tocqueville once said, requires virtue. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that the pillars of both are under attack. By a single vote, five unelected justices determined that they know better than God and struck at the heart of marriage in America. It was a powerful rebuke of a law FRC helped develop, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- but not the final blow. To the disappointment of many, this was not the sweeping nationwide redefinition of marriage that homosexual activists were hoping for. Instead, the Court's majority decided that the federal law is unconstitutional in states where same-sex "marriage" is legal. There, couples will have full access to the 1,100 federal benefits, rights, and protections that naturally married spouses enjoy. While it wasn't a complete dismantling of marriage, the Court's ruling paves

The Supreme Court’s marriage decisions by the numbers

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June 27, 2013 ( blog.heritage.org )   -   The morning after two important—and troubling—Supreme Court decisions in the Proposition 8 and Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) cases, here’s the lay of the land. The important takeaway: The marriage debate is every bit as live today as it was yesterday morning…and that means it’s time to redouble our efforts to stand for marriage across America . Some key numbers following the decisions: 50  - The number of states whose marriage laws remain the same after the Court’s marriage decisions. 38  - The number of states with laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. That includes California , where the scope of today’s Prop 8 decision beyond the specific plaintiffs will be the subject of ongoing debate and, most likely, further litigation. 12 -  The number of states that can now force the federal government to recognize their redefinition of marriage. The Court struck Section 3 of DOMA, which means that it must recognize

After granting foreign immoral same-sex ‘marriage,’ Canadian Senate now approves gay divorce bill

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Legislation tabled by the Conservative government last year to allow foreign homosexual couples to divorce after taking advantage of the country’s liberal same-sex “marriage” law has sailed through the Senate. It had previously escaped a word of debate in the House of Commons . C-32  will amend the Civil Marriage Act so that the “marriages” of foreign same-sex couples who travel to Canada for the ceremony will be considered valid in Canada, “even if one or both of the non-residents do not, at the time of the marriage, have the capacity to enter into it under the law of their respective state of domicile.” Rob Nicholson The bill allows a “new divorce process” to be established that “allows a Canadian court to grant a divorce to non-resident spouses who reside in a state where a divorce cannot be granted to them because that state does not recognize the validity of their marriage.” Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women Canada, told LifeSiteNews that the amen

‘The Roe v. Wade of marriage’: pro-family advocates respond

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The Supreme Court rulings on Proposition 8 and DOMA defy thousands of years of history and the findings of sociology, undermine citizen democracy, open the door to polygamy, and rewrite thousands of federal laws on family policy with the stroke of a pen, according to pro-family advocates. “Today the Supreme Court issued the  Roe v. Wade  of marriage,” said Penny Nance , president and CEO of  Concerned Women for America (CWA)  after news of the rulings broke. “These rulings will continue to divide our Republic just as  Roe  continues to do 40 years later.” "The Supreme Court rulings fly in the face of reams of research showing that the best household arrangement for children is a married mom and dad,” said Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of  CWA 's Beverly LaHaye Institute. “It represents a national experiment in social reconstruction at the expense of our children's futures and the future of America." “For thousands of years marriage