Free Republic

WHEN IRELAND VOTED overwhelmingly for the marriage equality referendum, we thought that when we have children everything is going to be equal. We were wrong. On Monday, Minister for Health Simon Harris signed regulations for the Children and Family Relationships Act. These will allow both names of some LGBTQ+ couples on their children’s birth certificate from May 2020. He said that it was a really important day and received a lot of good publicity but we are still excluded and unequal in the eyes of the law. This Act covers same-sex couples who use a non-anonymous donor through an Irish...

The Supreme Court’s recent decision not to take up challenges to state amendments banning same-sex marriage has had two significant effects – it has expanded marriage to 30 states and reignited the political conversation around marriage equality in the 2014 midterms. Since 2011, I have worked with Project Right Side to help Republican leaders navigate a radically changing electorate on the freedom to marry. While public acceptance of marriage equality has steadily increased, this moment may ultimately be looked upon as the point where Republican opposition to marriage equality began to fall in earnest. According to a recent poll of...

The "Republican war on women" is a fiction extracted from the imaginations of Democratic campaign strategists and endorsed by President Obama. But if the president is looking to help some oppressed people of the female persuasion, there's an opportunity at hand to wage a "war." Abolishing child marriage is wise, moral and good politics. Child marriage adds to the fragility of fragile states, where girls are often regarded as salable commodities. The kidnapping of 275 Nigerian schoolgirls in April by the Boko Haram terrorists to sell to waiting customers was unusual, but not unique. The child-marriage belt stretches from Africa...

This week the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on two of the most critical cases of our time. On Tuesday, March 26, attorneys will make the pitch both for and against California’s Proposition 8. This, of course, is the Golden State’s pro-marriage amendment. It maintained the timeless definition of natural marriage as between man and wife. Then, on Wednesday, March 27, the high court will consider the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by then President Bill Clinton. It, likewise, secured the definition of legitimate...