GAY TRUTH

March 3, 2014 ( FRC ) - At 680 words, Arizona 's  SB 1062  didn't take a yeoman's effort to read. But it was an effort, unfortunately, that few people bothered to make. If they had, the debate over the state's religious liberty measure would have been met by more yawns than pitchforks. Instead, Arizona's innocent attempt to tweak a law once embraced by the likes of Ted Kennedy turned into a blowup of national proportions. In a matter of days, liberal activists from across the country descended on Arizona and whipped up a frenzy of opposition based on what even liberal law professors called "egregious misrepresentations." The media's coverage stunned supporters of SB 1062, who wondered how the press could be talking about the same bill the legislature had just passed. To hear reporters tell it, the measure was a license for widespread discrimination -- when in reality, the only thing being discriminated against was the truth! All SB 1062 did was e

IT now seems certain that before too many years elapse, the Supreme Court will be forced to acknowledge the logic of its own jurisprudence on same-sex marriage and redefine marriage to include gay couples in all 50 states. Once this happens, the national debate essentially will be finished, but the country will remain divided, with a substantial minority of Americans , most of them religious, still committed to the older view of marriage. So what then? One possibility is that this division will recede into the cultural background, with marriage joining the long list of topics on which Americans disagree without making a political issue out of it.  If one looks at the results of the 1960's sex revolution today emboldened and always promoted by Hollywood, everybody sleeps with each other, promiscuity rules, no one marries and if they do they commit adultery, people rarely marry but live together for various reasons, have kids out of wedlock, single mums get dumped by irresponsib

February 28, 2014 ( Heritage ) - Cases have been popping up across the country where individuals have declined to bake cakes or take photos for same-sex wedding ceremonies—and government has punished them . This week, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) vetoed a bill that would have put religious liberty protections in place in her state. We sat down with Ryan Anderson , Heritage’s William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society , to get some answers about this debate. The Foundry: How did people’s beliefs about same-sex marriage become an issue for private businesses? Ryan Anderson: In New Mexico, a photographer declined to use her artistic talents to promote a same-sex ceremony because of her religious beliefs. The couple complained and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ordered her to pay a fine of nearly $7,000. Christian adoption and foster-care agencies in Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington, D.C., have been forced to stop providing those services because they b

February 26, 2014 ( Heritage )  - Editor’s note: Amid the heated debate over Arizona ’s SB 1062 law, which aims to protect religious liberty, it’s worth looking back at some of the ways that religious beliefs have come under attack in the public square in recent years. The language in this post that is quoted originally appeared in a  National Review Online  article  by Ryan T. Anderson and Leslie Ford. Kelsey Harris also contributed to this article. 1. Elane Photography Elane Huguenin and her husband, Jon, run Elane Photography, a small business in Albuquerque, N.M. Alliance Defending Freedom Back in 2006, the couple declined a request to photograph a same-sex ceremony because of a difference in beliefs. Elane explained: “The message a same-sex commitment ceremony communicates is not one I believe.” Elane Photography never refused to take pictures of gay and lesbian individuals, but it did decline to photograph a same-sex ceremony. Meanwhile, other photogr

PHOENIX, AZ , February 27, 2014 ( LifeSiteNews.com ) – Facing an intense national campaign of media and economic pressure, Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have given Arizona business owners greater legal protections to exercise their faith in public. Senate Bill 1062  would have made it more difficult to sue business owners who refuse to participate in commerce that violates their religious convictions, such as making a cake for a same-sex “wedding.” “Senate Bill 1062 does not address a specific and present concern related to religious liberty in Arizona,” Brewer  said . “I have not heard of one example in Arizona where a business owner’s religious liberty has been violated.” However, lawsuits have been filed against a  Christian photographer in New Mexico ,  bakers in Colorado  and  Iowa , and an  elderly florist in Washington state  who refused to take part in same-sex ceremonies. Brewer obliquely referred to the  economic threats her state faced if she sig

PHOENIX, AZ , February 26, 2014 – The backlash created by the  recent passage of Arizona’s SB 1092 , a bill to protect the religious freedom of business owners, continues to escalate as politicians, both Democrat and Republican, and various Arizonan businesses and public officials urge Governor Jan Brewer to veto the bill. Last week, SB 1062 was passed by Arizona’s legislature.  The bill protects business owners from lawsuits filed as a result of refusing their services to potential customers on the basis of religious belief.  This legislation has been blasted by both Republicans and Democrats as being discriminatory and biased, as it would allow business owners to deny working with and for same-sex “weddings.” Arizona’s Republican federal senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake ,  have declared their opposition to the bill .  “I know that the entire business community is galvanized, in a way that I’ve never seen, against this legislation,” said McCain.  In an interview with