Despite a constitutional amendment that protects marriage as the union of husband and wife in the state of Ohio, U.S. District judge Timothy Black is taking it upon himself to selectively decide when the law does and does not apply.

A federal judge on Monday recognized the out-of-state marriage of a gay Ohio couple, granting a temporary restraining order as one of the men nears death.

U.S. District judge Timothy Black issued a temporary restraining order Monday, recognizing [James] Obergefell as [John] Arthur’s spouse, and suggested that failing to recognize the couple’s out-of-state union violated their rights to equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

“This is yet another example of an activist federal judge substituting his views for those of the people. The people of Ohio have determined through overwhelmingly enacting their state marriage amendment that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and the federal government must respect that decision,” said Frank Schubert, national political director for the National Organization for Marriage [emphasis added]. -Washington Post

There is an important piece of legislation gaining steam in Congress that you should be aware of: HR 2565: The STOP IRS Act.

This bill is part of an ongoing process to hold the IRS accountable for felony targeting of political enemies and gross mismanagement.

Click here to look up your Representative and write to him or her to SUPPORT HR 2565, the STOP IRS Act and to ensure that this important bill comes to a vote!

Click here to expand this post and see a list of the current bill co-sponsors. If you see your Representative on the list, please be sure to write and express your thanks!

Let's see which of our leaders in Washington will stand for the people and our First Amendment rights, and which ones will instead stand in the way of justice for federal appointees who feel that they can circumvent and abuse the law for political gain.

Read More »

Following last week's Royal Assent for same-sex marriage in England, all traditional Indian marriage ceremonies are being halted to avoid legal repercussions: an example of the kind of consequences that same-sex marriage advocates constantly claim will never come about, but which always end up happening when marriage is redefined...

Sikh temples have been advised to halt all civil marriage ceremonies on their premises to protect them from possible legal challenges for refusing to conduct same-sex weddings.

It is the first example of a religious group altering its marriage practices to avoid potential litigation based on equalities or human rights law.

Other groups, including the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the orthodox Jewish organisation United Synagogue, also resisted the legislation, but they have not indicated that they will go as far as to surrender their marriage licences.

Lord Singh, the director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, told the House of Lords that he feared opponents of same-sex marriage would be “coerced” into accepting the new legal definition of marriage. The network also advised members that it believes faith groups could end up being “bullied” into conducting same-sex marriages.

...“We have no authority, neither has the Government, to change our scriptures,” said Mr Singh. “We are bound by our religious teachings and we have been put in a difficult situation.”

He added: “Civil marriage is, with respect, a paper exercise.” -Telegraph

Eric Owens at The Daily Caller reports on Boston College Law School professor Kent Greenfield's admission that the arguments in the recent SCOTUS cases in favor of same-sex marriage can easily be employed to legitimize a host of other relationship types being included in the definition of marriage.

“The left is in this bind in part because our arguments for expanding the marriage right to same-sex couples have been so compelling,” Greenfield brags proudly. “Marriage, we’ve said, is about defining one’s own family and consecrating a union based on love. We’ve voiced these arguments in constitutional terms, using claims arising from the doctrines of ‘fundamental rights’ and equal protection.”

[…]

Greenfield then pops the question: under such a legal rubric, “why can’t people in polyamorous relationships claim that right as well?”

[…]

He observes that he frequently hears a couple answers “in private conversations with leaders in the marriage movement”—that’s presumably the gay marriage movement, not the traditional marriage movement. “The first is that there is no political energy behind a fight for incestuous or polygamous marriages. The second is that they would be fine if those restrictions fell as well but, in effect, ‘don’t quote me on that.’”

You can read more at The DC.

Another reason why cohabitation just doesn't provide the benefits -- to both men and woman -- that marriage does.

...unemployment among men across all sorts of employment classes (service-sector workers, sales workers, unskilled laborers, professionals) is lower among those who are married than among those who are single or cohabiting. This gap in unemployment between men of different marital states has persisted across 50 years of labor history, recessions included.

Furthermore, this isn’t a matter of less-employed men being unable to get married (i.e., a so-called selection effect­); it’s a matter of fewer men being trained through the institution of marriage to straighten up, fly right, and hang onto their jobs. Men who are already inclined to work less or who are only able to work less aren’t just shifting into cohabitation or singleness. Were that the case, as marriage declined and as less-employed men dropped out of the highly-employed group of married men, married unemployment would drop even further.

Finally, the difference in the labor habits of those men who are and those who aren’t married, and our culture’s shift away from early and lasting marriage, should be cause for concern—if we’re at all concerned for the health of our economy. These two factors alone account for about half the fall-off in men’s labor participation since the 1960s.

Marriage is a formative institution—to say nothing of the courtship process leading thereto. Speaking as a recently-married twenty-something, I can attest to the fact that there’s something about a girl ruling out the prospect of living together before he puts a ring on it that tends to weed out the slackers and commitment-phobes. And the guy who marries a girl, formally and legally, will become more productive as he works to provide for her and their children than he ever would have otherwise. -LifeSiteNews