Free Republic

If States license same sex marriages the Fourteenth Amendment may mandate the issuance of categories of marriage licenses akin to types of state diplomas.... Pregnancy is never a consequence of sexual relations in same sex marriage. No spouse in a same sex marriage who elects to have a child by natural means can do so without committing adultery. 100 percent of births to persons in same sex marriages are out-of-wedlock. No spouse in a same sex marriage who elects to have a child by natural or artificial means can do so without proliferating out-of-wedlock-births. These two facts alone establish that...

While the United States Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin vacated the judgment and remanded the case for determination of whether the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the issue under the Constitutionally mandatory strict scrutiny guidelines, a concurring Opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas and the dissenting Opinion of Justice Ruth Ginsburg elevate the case to near landmark status. The issue preserved is the constitutionality of benign racial engineering in higher public education by state actors... The Court’s narrowly tailored Opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin did not require decision on whether there...

Society will survive and law and order will prevail. And it is within the realm of possibilities that some extremists will propose draconian measures requiring, for example, that offenders be corralled in their own neighborhoods behind concrete barriers and chain linked fences. This would be a pretty ugly America.

Imprudent financial policies have led to the crisis on Wall Street. For the moment in supporting unprecedented solutions, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says in effect he’s playing the hand dealt by his predecessors. And as for his role in essentially advocating nationalizing financial institutions, Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke is quoted as saying there are no ideologues in a financial crisis just as there are no atheists in a foxhole. For decades, seasoned financial titans argued against the most egregious social engineering pork while erecting “lego” financial houses structurally outfitted from the same genre of ‘engineering’ blueprints. As recently as...

Sarah Palin’s baby shower included a surprise guest: her own baby. He had arrived in the world a month early, so on a sunny May day, Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, rocked her newborn as her closest friends, sisters, even her obstetrician presented her with a potluck meal, presents and blue-and-white cake. Most had learned that Ms. Palin was pregnant only a few weeks before. Struggling to accept that her child would be born with Down syndrome and fearful of public criticism of a governor’s pregnancy, Ms. Palin had concealed the news that she was expecting even from her...

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada. In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.” The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses. In a videotaped...

"...As the pendulum swings, public response has been telling. While there was vociferous outrage over James Watson’s views as expressed to The Times, few editorials have lined up in support of the realism of Neil Turok’s quest for the African Einstein. To be fair, the bar has been set quite high. Nevertheless, Turok’s aim squarely brings to the discussion forum the issue of universal Homo sapien cognitive capacity. Both Turok and Watson suggest that within our lifetimes in the next decade or so, scientific discoveries and technological measures will provide support for their divergent predictions. Who is correct? Richard Lynn...

The Ranting Rev is back, trailing malodorous clouds of sulfurous new controversy, imperiling the Obama campaign at its very core. The Obama promise of “a more perfect union” directly contradicts the Jeremiah Wright insistence on unbridgeable racial difference and distinction. Nothing makes this pastor-protégé conflict more obvious or more significant than Wright’s crackpot theories on education and his fiery insistence that the different “brains” of black kids and white kids require totally different educational approaches. In his Detroit NAACP speech on Sunday night, Dr. Wright cited (and somewhat distorted) the controversial work of a professor at Wayne State University named...

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice’s comments to the Washington Times on Senator Obama’s race speech included several not commonly heard observations which bear reflection. While acknowledging that many blacks call themselves African-American, Dr. Rice said that they should not be viewed as immigrants. According to a transcript of the interview released by the State Department, Dr. Rice explained, “We don’t mimic the immigrant story. Where this conversation has got to go is that black Americans and white Americans founded this country together and I think we’ve always wanted the same thing.” The Secretary’s statements reminded me of a conversation which...