Free Republic

Taiwan has rejected same-sex marriages, in a blow to the island's reputation as a rights trailblazer in Asia. The results in referendums come despite a high court ruling in March 2017 in favour of such unions. The court also gave parliament two years to amend laws or pass new ones. It is unclear how Saturday's voting will affect legislation. Meanwhile, President Tsai Ing-wen quit as leader of Taiwan's governing party after defeats in local elections. Her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is set to lose more than half of the 13 cities and counties it won in 2014, Taiwanese media...

A bishop of The Episcopal Church whose diocese is based in the capital of New York has announced that his churches will not perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. Earlier this year, the Episcopal Church General Convention passed a resolution allowing for congregations to perform gay weddings even in dioceses where leadership objects. The new policy is scheduled to take effect on the first Sunday of Advent, Dec. 2. This stood in contrast to a resolution passed by the General Convention in 2015 that allowed bishops opposed to same-sex marriage to maintain a ban on such unions within their diocese. Bishop William...

Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who received international attention for denying gay couples marriage licenses, lost her re-election bid Tuesday, according to local reports. Davis, a Republican, was about 700 votes behind her Democratic opponent, Elwood Caudill Jr., in her bid for a second term as Rowan County clerk. In the Democratic primary, Caudill beat David Ermold, the man whom Davis had refused to grant a same-sex marriage license, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Caudill, Rowan County's chief deputy property valuation administrator, had unsuccessfully challenged Davis in 2014 in the Republican primary. Davis switched party allegiances in 2015. “I want...

Homosexuality and transgenderism were flashpoints in a debate Tuesday night between a liberal Democrat trying to unseat a moderate veteran state representative in northern Massachusetts. State Representative Colleen Garry (D-Dracut) criticized challenger Sabrina Heiser, a member of the Dracut School Committee, for drawing the vast majority of her campaign funds from outside the district, which she charged comes from rich people trying to buy the seat to further their left-wing agenda.

I was recently confronted with a challenge about marriage at one of my events. The claim was that God permits same-sex marriage today because marriage is not clearly defined in Scripture. Adam and Eve were a monogamous heterosexual couple, but later in Scripture God allowed men to marry multiple women. This signals a trajectory in the Bible towards more openness of sexual expression and in the definition of marriage. Therefore, same-sex marriage should be allowed by Christians today. I don’t think the Bible permits same-sex marriage for a whole host of reasons, but I’ll only explain the ones I offered...

The Uniting Church in Australia's Assembly voted Saturday to change the denomination's definition of marriage and allow ministers to officiate weddings for same-sex couples. In a statement posted on the Church's website, Uniting Church in Australia President Deidre Palmer announced the changes that were made by the 265-member assembly that gathered in Melbourne, saying: "To honor the diversity of Christian belief among our members, we will hold two equal and distinct statements of belief on marriage." The first statement of belief regarding marriage is one that the Uniting Church has been following for a long time. "The existing statement of...

Bishop Michael Curry is using the attention he received while presiding over the Royal Wedding to lead a new anti-Trump protest. According to sources, Curry and other Chrisitan leaders will host a candlelight vigil to protest the “dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches” — crises that put “the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith” at stake. The event will kick off with a church service beforehand right in front of Lafayette Square, which is across the street from the White House. Who’s going?

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, support for same-sex marriage has increased substantially. Currently, more than six in ten (61%) Americans say gay and lesbian couples should be able to marry legally, while only about half as many (30%) are opposed. Strength of support for same-sex marriage has increased dramatically over the past decade, while strength of opposition has fallen in nearly equal measure. Today, Americans who strongly favor same-sex marriage outnumber those who strongly oppose it by more than a two-to-one margin (30% vs. 14%). In 2007,...

Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has died, a court spokesperson confirmed. He was 87. A liberal champion, Reinhardt was appointed to the bench by President Carter in 1980. He authored key liberal court opinions on hot-button topics ranging from abortion and marriage equality to assisted suicide and immigration. At the same time, the opinions made him a target of criticism from conservative corners — and of regular reversal from the Supreme Court.

(Photo: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)A wedding cake is seen at a reception for same-sex couples at The Abbey in West Hollywood, California, July 1, 2013.An evangelical judge who has refused to marry same-sex couples was handed down a three-year suspension without pay Thursday by the Oregon Supreme Court, the longest suspension in the court's history.Judge Vance Day, who was found to have broken several gun laws, and in 2014 refused to marry same-sex couples, will have 14 days to file a petition for the state Supreme Court to reconsider its decision.One of the main charges that Day was found guilty of concerned...

Less than a year after legalizing same-sex marriage, Bermuda is reversing course, implementing a law that says same-sex couples can enter domestic partnerships but not marry. The British territory is believed to be the first jurisdiction in the world to reverse course on same-sex marriage after permitting it

A tight-knit Roman Catholic Church parish north of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota, is dealing with the fallout of its new priest's decision to dismiss three men from the church's musical ensemble because they are in same-sex marriages. The Rev. John Drees, who replaced his retiring predecessor at the Church of St. Joseph in Taylors Falls and the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Shafer in July, has explained that he had no choice but to dismiss the trio, as same-sex marriage goes against the teachings of the Church. According to a report in The Pioneer Press last week, the men have...

Almost half of us are okay with the idea of two people getting married to avoid inheritance tax. In a study carried out by Amarách Research for RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live, 48% of people said they would support two people getting married where the sole purpose is to avoid inheritance tax. […] The poll comes after two friends went on RTÉ’s Liveline on Friday afternoon and said they were marrying for tax reasons. The show heard from 85-year-old Matt, who told Joe Duffy that Michael O’Sullivan was his best friend and that he planned to leave him his house when...

Australia's "marriage equality" campaign triumphed in this month's referendum under the slogan "Let's Get It Done". In other words, it's inevitable, so why waste another five years arguing about it? Let's get it done, and over, and move on to transgender bathrooms or whatever's next. That's how "progressives" think about progress. As a certain author wrote long ago in a certain bestselling book: We assume that social progress is like technological progress: it can't be reversed. Just as you can't disinvent the internal combustion engine, so you can't disinvent women's rights. Just as the horse and buggy yielded to the...

An evangelical Christian couple from Alberta, Canada, said that their application to adopt a child was rejected by the government because they do not agree with gay marriage. The couple, who weren't named in the legal documents, have filed a discrimination case against Alberta, claiming that their religious views on marriage being a union between a man and a woman were targeted, CBC News reported. "The casework supervisor explained that our religious beliefs regarding sexuality were incompatible with the adoption process," an affidavit calling for a judicial review of the government's decision said. "The casework supervisor said this stance was...

A Christian student who was expelled from university after posting on Facebook in support of Biblical teaching on marriage and sexual ethics has today (Friday 27th October) lost his case in a judicial review of the university’s decision. Felix Ngole was studying for an MA in Social Work at Sheffield university. In 2015 he made comments using his personal Facebook account on the story of the American registrar Kim Davis who was imprisoned after conscientiously refusing to register same-sex marriages. Felix expressed his Christian beliefs on the issue and argued that: "same sex marriage is a sin whether we like...

Germany celebrates its first gay marriages on Sunday as same-sex unions become legal after decades of struggle, but campaigners say the battle for equal rights isn't over yet.Wedding bells will ring out in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and other German cities where local authorities will exceptionally open their doors on a Sunday to allow gay couple to say "I do" on the day the law comes into effect. Bodo Mende, 60, and his partner Karl Kreile, 59, who have been together since 1979, will be the first to tie the knot in the German capital. "It will be an emotional but...

A man charged with blowing up a van packed with gas cylinders outside the Canberra headquarters of the Australia Christian Lobby has committed suicide. Jaden Duong, 36, had been accused of loading the van with four bottles and ramming the offices of the anti-gay marriage group in December 2016. Officers were reportedly called to the scene of his 'non-suspicious' death around 4.30pm Sunday, the Canberra Times reports. In a statement ACT Policing said investigations are ongoing, with a report to be prepared for the coroner. Mr Duong was charged in April after allegedly driving a white van into the Australian...

July 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — For 12 years before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex "marriage" in 2015, I wrote and lectured extensively on why this development would be fraught with peril. I even recorded a three CD set on the topic for Catholic Answers in 2011. As the General Counsel for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) in California, I also campaigned extensively for the passage of Proposition 8. This State Constitutional Amendment passed with a majority vote in liberal California, as did similar ones in 30 other states. Yet, by a mere vote of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all of those state...

Rob Bell, who once enraged many evangelicals by questioning hell, is back with a new book that could re-ignite their fury. It’s called “What is the Bible?” And in it, Bell calls for the Bible to be read “literately, not literally.” In these polarized times, many Christians who claim to read the Bible are really more interested in cherry-picking verses to support their political or social points of view, Bell said in a phone interview with the Observer. “You can pull a verse out to justify almost anything,” he said. “When you read the Bible fuller and in-depth, suddenly you...