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Reality TV Cast Sues To Legalize Polygamy

July 13, 2011 at 9:00 am

In NPR:

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.

Kody Brown and his family made their television debut on Sept. 26, 2010. "I'm a polygamist," said Brown. "But we're not the polygamists you think you know."

Brown and his four wives knew they were taking a risk when they signed the deal with the network TLC. But Robyn Brown, wife No. 4, told viewers they wanted to make a point.

"It's OK for us to live this way, honestly," she said. "I'm sorry — but this is a nation of freedom of choice. We should have this choice, and I want my kids to know that."

... This isn't about personal rights, says Marci Hamilton. It's about a state's ability to regulate marital relationships. Hamilton, an expert on polygamy law and a professor at Cardozo School of Law, says there is a mountain of evidence that polygamy is bad for women and children.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Law, Polygamy | Comments (16)

Update: Judge (Temporarily) Stops Illinois from Banning Catholic Charities From Foster Care

July 12, 2011 at 6:08 pm

An update on the situation we've been following closely in Illinois in the wake of the bad civil unions bill that went into effect there June 1st:

A judge in Springfield today ordered that Catholic Charities can keep serving foster children despite the state’s decision to eliminate their contract.

The order is temporary and a hearing will take place in August on the issue.

Sangamon County Judge John Schmidt issued the ruling after both sides offered lengthy arguments in court this afternoon. Schmidt said that his order freezes the state’s contract with Catholic Charities as it was before the state decided to cut it off earlier this month.

Three Catholic Charities groups sought the injunction to continue serving families and abiding by Catholic principles that prohibit placing children with unmarried cohabiting couples.

"We're not sure what the state is intending to do or how it's intending to do it," said Peter Breen, an attorney with the Thomas More Society representing Catholic Charities. "It's a surprise. But it's also very disturbing. The impact on the [nearly 2,000] children in Catholic Charities care will be catastrophic." --Chicago Tribune Clout Street blog

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Adoption, Catholic Church, Civil Unions, Illinois, Law, Religious Liberty | Comments (16)

Catholic Charities Asks For Immediate Injunction After Illinois Terminates Adoption Contracts

July 12, 2011 at 12:02 pm

More fallout from Illinois' bad civil unions bill, which is now about to push Illinois Catholic Charities out of doing adoptions and foster care state-wide:

Catholic Charities' long history of providing foster care services in downstate Illinois could hinge on a Sangamon County judge's decision after an emergency injunction hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Attorneys for three Catholic Charities agencies, including Peoria, filed for the emergency hearing - the latest round in a tug-of-war between Catholic Charities and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services that began when civil unions became law in June - after DCFS notified them their contracts would not be renewed for the 2012 fiscal year.

... According to the letter DCFS officials sent to Catholic Charities in Peoria, Joliet, Springfield and Belleville, the state agency could not renew the contracts "because your agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act."

... The suit seeks to continue Catholic Charities' agencies long-standing practice of licensing only married couples or single non-cohabiting individuals for state-funded foster care and adoptions. Before the civil unions law, DCFS and Catholic Charities had operated with the understanding that the agencies could refer co-habitating couples to other agencies.

The agencies have argued that the civil unions law could create unprecedented upheaval for more than 2,500 foster care cases in 89 counties unless the law is changed or clarified to allow them to continue the precedent already set by the state. --PJStar.com

Governor Quinn - who campaigned for the civil unions bill and signed it into law - supports the will of the state against the wishes of catholic charities:

“We're not going back,” he said. “They made a choice. Any organization that decides that because of the civil unions law that they won't participate voluntarily in a program, that's their choice.” --Chicago Tribune

Jack Smith, editor of the official newspaper for the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, documents the 180-degree switch completed by gay advocates on this question before and after the bill passed:

Opponents of the bill charged that creating civil unions would impinge on religious freedom. The bill’s proponents went out of their way to say it would not – in order to get it passed.

According to an op-ed in the Quad City Times,

The bill sponsor, Sen. David Koehler, clearly promised in his Senate floor testimony that the law would not impact “the social services” or the “adoption agencies” of religious organizations.

Equality Illinois, a major proponent of the bill, even put together a widely distributed Q & A on the bill intended to dismiss “myths” about the bill’s intentions. One question read:

5. How would the Act affect religious affiliated adoption agencies?

Answer: The Act would not impact faith-based adoption agencies or adoption procedures. The Act does not amend the Adoption Act, which governs both public and private adoption agencies.

But then the bill passed, and religious freedom went out the window as some in state government, the Catholic governor included, began to argue that the passed bill does not in fact exempt Catholic Charities from facilitating adoptions to those in civil unions.

... Other states would do well to consider Illinois’ experience. When it comes to the hierarchy of freedoms in a post-civil union/same-sex marriage state, the desires of same-sex couples for affirmation trumps every other right – no matter how well you craft your legislation.

Welcome to yet another example of religious liberty being curtailed in the public square by gay rights advocates.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Adoption, Catholic Church, Civil Unions, Illinois, Law, Religious Liberty | Comments (31)

NY DA: Refuse a Marriage License to NY Gay Couple? You Risk Jail

July 12, 2011 at 11:02 am

LetThePeopleVote.comIn response to Barbara MacEwen (a town clerk in Volney NY) saying she does not want to personally issue same-sex marriage licenses, the Nassau County DA responded as follows (PDF link):

“The Marriage Equality Act provides that an application for a marriage license cannot be denied on the grounds that the applicant parties are of the same sex and the law affords no discretion to public officials charged with granting marriage licenses. Therefore, any such refusal may be subject to criminal prosecution.

“The religious exemptions in the Marriage Equality Act are inapplicable to town and city clerks serving in their license-granting roles, and a public official’s intentional refusal to issue marriage licenses to qualified same-sex couples may constitute Official Misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor defined in section 195.00 of the New York State Penal Law.”

Or, as one gay blog headlined this story, "NY DA: Refuse Marriage License to Gay Couple and Your A** is Headed to Jail."

Welcome to one of the first practical consequences of redefining marriage.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Religious Liberty, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (66)

NY Sen. Diaz: "My Spirit Continues To Be Uplifted"

July 12, 2011 at 10:28 am

LetThePeopleVote.comFrom his official page on the NY Senate website:

During the past two weeks, I have worn a badge of honor as the only Democrat in the New York State Senate to oppose Governor Andrew Cuomo's legislation to redefine our definition of marriage from one man and one woman.

Christians are never afraid to be alone because we know that we are never alone.

I have been blessed the past two weeks with an outpouring of support from countless New Yorkers who have embraced me on the street, called me, written to me, and posted online thanking me for standing strong for my convictions. These include:

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan: "I have read your July 7 piece. Bravo! Consider me a grateful ally who admires you deeply." In Christ, +Timothy M. Dolan

Pastor Beverley Kazmierczak from Lancaster, NY: "Keep on fighting for the truth of GOD’s word."

Unification Church in Latham, NY: "Thank You! and God Bless You Ruben Diaz! for Standing With God’s Viewpoint! Dios de Bendiga!"

He goes on to list many more messages of support, from New York and across the nation as well.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Religious Liberty, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (2)

Will SSM Lead to Gay Adoption Boom in NY?

July 12, 2011 at 10:10 am

LetThePeopleVote.comVia the AP:

... adoption lawyers and agencies in New York say they're getting ready for a baby boom as same-sex couples emboldened by the state's new gay marriage law take the next step and try to adopt children.

... For lesbian couples, the road to parenthood is relatively easy. All that's needed is a sperm donor or a cooperative male friend who will agree to terminate parental rights when the baby is born. The other partner then adopts her partner's child through a "second-parent" adoption.

... For men or for women who can't conceive, the process is more complicated.

Cowen and Truong said the urge to start a family began after they got married in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2005. They looked into hiring a surrogate mother, but that route was expensive and fraught with legal hurdles. New York prohibits surrogacy-for-hire, so they must be done in another state.

Adopting from another country was a difficult option because most countries bar same-sex couples from adopting.

... A 2009 Census Bureau survey showed no evidence of an increase in the percentage of same-sex couples adopting in Massachusetts after that state legalized gay marriage in 2004. But the sample was so small—only about 100 couples—that estimates are very imprecise, Gates said. Figures from the 2010 Census should offer a more accurate look.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Adoption, New York, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (13)

Study Argues Tax/Spend Policies Less Important to Economy than Healthy Families

July 11, 2011 at 4:00 pm

A reminder that what we are fighting for --a healthy marriage culture-- will help solve our nation's economic woes as well:

A new study from the Family Research Council argues that the health of the family is the single most important factor in the American economy.

“The key investors in both physical and human capital throughout America’s history have been stable, married families,” the authors note. Yet government policies have consistently undermined family life. The resulting problem is summed up in the title of the study: “We cannot tax, spend, and borrow enough to substitute for marriage.” --Catholic Culture

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, Research/Study | Comments (11)

Curt Smith to NY GOP: There's No Courage in Changing Gay-Marriage Vote

July 11, 2011 at 3:30 pm

LetThePeopleVote.comCurt Smith, author and host of WXXI radio's "Perspectives" show goes on to list some questions the media failed to ask during the debate over marriage in New York. Here's a couple:

1) Traditional-only marriage has been accepted by, among others, Jesus, Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle, Hubert Humphrey and Martin Luther King. “Pray tell,” as Churchill said, what does the Gang [of pro-SSM GOP Senators] know that all of the above did not?

3) As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia notes, if gay marriage and sodomy are legal because all morality-based laws are unconstitutional, prostitution, polygamy, bigamy and pornography must beconstitutional. This might please Alesi’s new progressive base. Will it please him?

5) Me-too Republicans have backed Democratic tax-and-spend, blown 23rd and 26th District special elections, and have now ensured losing the State Senate in 2012. (Given GOP deceit, who would ever trust it again?) How will the Gang feel about Dems again owning statewide everything there is to own?

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By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (3)

Gay Activists Organize Against Berlin's Incoming Archbishop

July 11, 2011 at 3:00 pm

From a Catholic Culture summary:

Gay activists in Berlin are already mounting opposition to Archbishop-elect Rainer Maria Woelki, because of the prelate’s public statements against homosexuality.

The new archbishop, who was appointed last week, will not be installed until August 27. But secular leaders in Berlin have questioned whether a Church leader who “openly has a problem with gay people” can survive there, and have denounced his “backward” religious beliefs.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Europe, Religious Liberty, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (9)

What Next After SSM? New York Archbishop Concerned Christians Will Be Sued

July 11, 2011 at 2:30 pm

LetThePeopleVote.comVia LifeSiteNews:

American Christians may one day find themselves facing legal penalties simply for believing marriage can only exist between a man and a woman, a fate already suffered by believers in other countries, said the leader of America’s most influential Catholic pulpit this week.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York reflected on his blogThursday on the recent legalization of gay “marriage” in New York, and what repercussions true marriage supporters can expect in the future.

... “If the experience of those few other states and countries where this is already law is any indication, the churches, and believers, will soon be harassed, threatened, and hauled into court for their conviction that marriage is between one man, one woman, forever, bringing children into the world,” wrote the archbishop.

Christians in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere have lost their jobs, been dragged through lengthy “human rights” proceedings, and faced steep fines for questioning the dangerous homosexual lifestyle, declining to facilitate gay “marriages,” or even failing to acknowledge “gay pride” events.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Catholic Church, New York, Religious Liberty, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (20)

Obama's DOJ Escalates Attack on DOMA: Says Motivated by "Animus" Towards Gays

July 11, 2011 at 2:00 pm

Via the AP, the strongest words we've seen yet from the Obama administration against anyone who disagrees with them about marriage.

We wonder if the administration is comfortable with ascribing the motivations impugned outlined below to all the Democrats and President Bill Clinton who signed DOMA into law in 1996?

In a strongly worded legal brief, the Obama administration has said the federal act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman was motivated by hostility toward gays and lesbians and is unconstitutional.

The brief was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco in support of a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit claiming the government wrongly denied health coverage to her same-sex spouse.

... "The official legislative record makes plain that DOMA Section 3 was motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships, and Congress identified no other interest that is materially advanced by Section 3," the brief reads, referring to the section in the act that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in DOMA, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (16)

Prof. Michael Filozof on The Need For A Militant Conservative Movement

July 11, 2011 at 1:30 pm

LetThePeopleVote.comProf. Michael Filozof urges conservatives to become proactive instead of reactive to organized cultural pressure from the left:

The political strategy of conservatives and Republicans for the last several decades has been purely reactionary -- to wait for leftists in power to screw up, then reap the electoral rewards...But this strategy concedes the agenda to the left. At no time has the right actually been in control of the national agenda in any meaningful sense.

... By failing to form a militant conservative movement, defend bourgeois values, and suppress leftist radicalism, the right has created a monster. The left has already gotten nearly everything it wanted -- abortion, pornography, welfare, homosexual marriage, socialized medicine, a submissive and internationalist foreign policy, out-of-control federal spending, and federal interference in virtually every facet of American life.

... The right's strategy of conceding the national agenda to the left is exceedingly dangerous. The left's solutions to any one of a number of issues on the table -- deficit spending, cap-and-trade, energy security, Iran's nuclear program, illegal immigration -- could deal a mortal blow to the nation.

Biographical note: Filozof is an adjunct professor of political science at the State University of New York at Brockport. He says he was denied tenure by his faculty peers because of his pro-Bush/Iraq War views.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (11)

Erica Jong Asks in NYTimes: "Is Sex Passé?"

July 11, 2011 at 1:00 pm

Erica Jong asks if trends are changing among the next generation:

While editing an anthology of women’s sexual writing called “Sugar in My Bowl” last year, I was fascinated to see, among younger women, a nostalgia for ’50s-era attitudes toward sexuality. The older writers in my anthology are raunchier than the younger writers. The younger writers are obsessed with motherhood and monogamy.

Here's what she thinks should mark the relationships between the sexes:

... Different though we are, men and women were designed to be allies, to fill out each other’s limitations, to raise children together and give them different models of adulthood. We have often botched attempts to do this, but there is valor in trying to get it right, to heal the world and the rift between the sexes, to pursue the healing of home and by extension the healing of the earth.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Marriage | Comments (18)

Prof. Robert George on Standing Up to Bullies: "It Always Works"

July 11, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Sheila Liaugminas on interviewing Prof. Robert George about what happened in New York:

Prof. George was a guest on my radio show this week. He sounds the same in person as he does in print. Certain. Determined. Resolute.

... Citizens have to be informed and engaged, George said sternly. And even though I say that same thing often in print and on the air, it somehow seemed to carry more gravity when he said it.

As for the cover NY Governor Andrew Cuomo promised those politicians who helped him muscle this law through, George had this to say:

“Andrew Cuomo is a powerful politician, no doubt, he’s a tough guy. But we have to be just as tough…The great thing about standing up to a bully is that it always works.”

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Civility, Culture, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (3)

Star Parker: A Few Rich Libertarians Help Undermine Freedom

July 11, 2011 at 12:15 pm

LetThePeopleVote.comIn TownHall:

... Yet these same libertarians, who accept the gravity of changing the meaning of words in a document several hundred years old, in a blink of an eye use money and political power to change the meaning of a word thousands of years old.

Not just any word. A word – marriage – central to human social reality.

... Rosa Parks was not trying to redefine what a bus is. She was asserting her right to sit wherever she wanted on it.

Preservation of language as a vessel for underlying truths has always been central to racial justice in our nation. As Lincoln made clear at Gettysburg, we wound up with over a half a million dead fighting over the integrity of the word “equal.”

... Check on the quality of freedom in our inner cities today, where young black men and women have the same regard for marriage as do these hedge fund managers.

It’s been said that when words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty. It’s something all of us, even wealthy libertarians, should keep in mind.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (4)
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