Free Republic

Leaders of the Florida Republican Party that supported the state’s 2008 ban on gay marriage were mostly silent Monday as throngs cheered South Florida couples given the right to wed.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has filed a petition appealing the legalization of same-sex marriage in Idaho to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the state’s case is the “ideal vehicle” to resolve the issue for the nation. “The time has come for this court to resolve a question of critical importance to the states, their citizens and especially their children: Whether the federal Constitution prohibits a state from maintaining the traditional understanding and definition of marriage as between a man and a woman,” Otter’s Washington, D.C. attorney, Gene Schaerr, wrote in the 41-page petition.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle has answered one of the state's big questions about gay marriage: Can all 67 counties issue licenses to gay couples who want to marry? Yes, they can, Hinkle wrote in an order released Thursday afternoon, "Reasonable people can debate whether the ruling in this case was correct and who it binds," Hinkle wrote. "There should be no debate, however, on the question whether a clerk of court may follow the ruling, even for marriage-license applicants who are not parties to this case." Hinkle also warned that clerk's who don't issue marriage licences could be sued:...

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin campaigned on socialist medicine. He promised to turn Vermont into a socialist paradise, complete with “free” healthcare for all. Last week he announced that socialist medicine was too expensive for Vermont. Not even Johnathan Gruber could save the single payer dreams of Vermont socialists. The fact is socialist single payer is too expensive for the people of Vermont. The state has an annual budget of $2.7 billion. Socialist single payer would have added $1.6-2.5 billion to the budget with the latter end of projections more likely. Doubling state expenditures means doubling taxes, with an 8% income...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is on a roll. First, his team insists Republicans can win the presidency without independent voters (we really must be failing to teach math in this country), and now he says he is an innovative start-up: On Fox News’s Special Report on Tuesday, host Bret Baier asked the senator how he’s handling the criticism. “You know, in some level, I’ll agree with what they said,” Cruz said. “I am not trying to play the rules of Washington. Because I think Washington’s broken — I think it’s profoundly broken — and I think the only answer is...

<p>WASHINGTON — Jeb Bush, who’s seriously considering a 2016 presidential bid, has sprinted to the front of the Republican field in a new McClatchy-Marist Poll.</p> <p>Former GOP nominee Mitt Romney remains on top, with Bush, a former Florida governor, a close second. Take away Romney, and Bush leads the field.</p>

A lawsuit is moving forward against a Washington State florist who refused to supply floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding ceremony based on her religious objection, which could put her at risk of serious financial loss and the loss of her business. Baronelle Stutzman, who owns and operates Arlene's Flowers in Richland, Washington, is being sued by the Washington State attorney general's office for refusing to supply flowers for a same-sex couple's wedding ceremony. Instead, she referred the couple to another nearby florist who could supply flowers for their wedding. The attorney general's office filed its lawsuit against Stutzman in...

Mitt Romney held meetings with donors in New York this week that left one attendee convinced he is running for president again in 2016. A member of Romney's inner circle who spoke to Business Insider said the former governor of Massachusetts traveled to New York City on Monday where he met with key financial backers of his past campaigns to lay the groundwork for a 2016 White House bid.

Listen to an audio version of this column Just in time for Thanksgiving, two more lawless federal judges, young ones who are Obama appointees, struck down state marriage protection laws in Mississippi and Arkansas. These are the latest examples of outrageous rulings by federal judges who have no jurisdiction in this area. The Constitution outlines the areas of very limited authority of the federal government and judiciary, and marriage is not an area in which they possess the rightful power to rule over the states. Therefore, this is a states' rights issue. Twisting the 14th Amendment to apply to degenerate...

This month, two developments have shaken the conventional wisdom that repealing President Obama’s healthcare law is an impossibility. First, Republicans scored a historic election victory, not only taking control of the Senate but likely winning the most House seats since 1928 — the year before Ernest Hemingway published A Farewell to Arms. Second, the Supreme Court took up another case on Obamacare, and if the justices rule against the administration, it would force a re-opening of the law. This doesn’t even account for the recently released videos of one of Obamacare’s main architects, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, conceding that Democrats...

LEBANON, N.H. -- Can you discern, deep in the new Republican Party -- amid the conservative warriors and tea-infused crusaders -- a faint moderate heartbeat? Hardly anyone is asking that question this month, in the wake of the Republican tsunami that swept Democrats out of office and swept a Republican majority into the Senate chamber. But two unrelated events this month make the question worth posing, if only to explore the possibility and to understand the political landscape here in the state that only 15 months from now will hold the first presidential primary. The first of those events took...

According to BarackObama.com, President Obama's official website, Jon Gruber "helped write Obamacare." The post was written in 2012 and was about specific quotes from President Obama trying to tie Mitt Romney to ObamaCare by saying that "RomneyCare" was the model for the Affordable Care Act. In an act to hide the connection to Barack Obama after Gruber's quotes about the "stupidity of American voters" went viral, the article has been taken down by Organizing for Action. However, it was online as recently as August of this year, and a cached version still exists that clearly shows its original content. Here...

While Obamacare’s proponents continue to insist that the program presents no threat to Americans’ healthcare, new comments from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber demonstrate that Obamacare was designed to do just that. Gruber stated: You get a law which said healthy people are going to pay in, it made explicit that healthy people pay and sick people get money, it would not have passed…Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage and basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical to get this thing to pass. In other words,...

... 1. We are not “The Establishment” or “RINO’s”, and you are not “The Base”. We are THE Republican Party founded in 1854. The Tea Party is a MOVEMENT that began inside our party sometime between 2007-2009, and if anyone must be referred to as a “RINO”, it’s the members of this movement, because they seemingly have a strong dislike for most of what occurs within our party. In 1854, the Whigs that were against slavery didn’t solve the problem by calling the others WINO’s, they courageously founded the Republican Party. That is what a Republican does. We don’t run...

One way to look at Dubya’s claim that Jeb Bush is 50/50 about running is that that means Romney is 50/50, or close to 50/50, too. If Jeb says no, the door is open. And more importantly, even if it’s only open a crack now, Romney’s inner circle is working hard to kick it in. You guys need to stop resisting this. Embrace destiny. In the days after the election, a group of Romney supporters began circulating a memo that compared the success of his midterm endorsements with those made by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic...

Former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday criticized President Barack Obama over his policy in the Middle East and his attitude towards Israel. Romney, who spoke at the inaugural Israeli American Council National Conference in Washington, accused Obama of being “naive” and of “distancing ourselves from allies”. Commenting on reports that Obama had sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggesting cooperation against the Islamic State (ISIS), Romney was quoted by The Washington Times as having said, “I was frankly stunned that the President of the United States would write a letter of that nature, in effect...

Yesterday, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals struck a reverberating blow on behalf of natural marriage and the Constitution by upholding bans on sodomy-based marriages in its jurisdiction.It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this ruling.It means, for one thing, that the issue is now on the fast track to the Supreme Court. If the Court accepts a marriage case by January, a decision will almost certainly be issued by next June.From a constitutional standpoint, the 6th Circuit’s ruling is a model of sound jurisprudence. The ruling observes that the Supreme Court has already settled the question of the...

Friday on PBS's "News Hour," syndicated columnist Mark Shields pointed out, "among young Republicans, 61 percent of Republicans -- young Republicans under the age of 30 are in favor of same sex marriage." New York Times columnist David Brooks "applauded," the GOP for "doing absolutely the right thing in withdrawing" and letting the country have its way. Brooks said "I sort of applaud the minimalism here. Sometimes you let the country have its way and you don't try to determine the shape of the country, you sort of modestly step back and let the country figure out what it believes....

Remember when dissent was patriotic? When people like Hillary Clinton screeched that "we have a right to disagree with any administration?" Forget about it. That's so, like, 2003. You know, when George W. Bush was President. Things are different today. Now, criticizing a sitting president is wrong. Very wrong. Just ask Joe Scarborough, who on today's Morning Joe accused Leon Panetta of a "lack of character" for criticizing President Obama in his book and public appearances. View the video here.

If you care that consenting adults can get married, regardless of their genders or colors or sexual proclivities, you're not really a conservative. You use the term to describe yourself because you think some people will favor it, like when people on dating sites call themselves "adventurous." Real adventurers meet new lovers at zip-lining conventions, or even prayer marathons, not online in chat rooms. And real conservatives don't care what consenting adults do with their money or lungs or genitals if it does not intrude on the liberty of others. But worse than the "conservatives" who think your freedom ends...