Free Republic

Spurred on by the Supreme Court's landmark ruling decriminalizing gay sexual conduct, both sides in the debate over gay rights are vowing an intense state-by-state fight over deeply polarizing questions, foremost among them whether gays should be allowed to marry. Even with most legislatures out of session until early next year, lively debates are already taking shape across the country, from Hawaii to Connecticut, Oregon to Alabama to Massachusetts. Potentially fierce battles over marriage and other rights loom in dozens of statehouses and state courts, as social conservatives — including the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee — try...

MONTREAL -- Swingers clubs will spring up across Canada because of a judge ruling their activities are not necessarily illegal, the head of a swingers group said yesterday. Municipal court Judge Denis Boisvert found five people guilty of swinging-related offences, but decided "contemporary Canadian society tolerates swinging and swingers clubs if the sexual acts take place in private." Jean Hamel, president of the 8,000-member Quebec Swingers Association, said Boisvert's ruling will have national significance. "I don't think more clubs will open in Quebec but I think it will open doors for other places in Canada, like Toronto." Judge Boisvert found...

You may not know how the town of Springfield, home to the Simpsons, was founded. In the late 1790s Jebediah Springfield and his partner Shelbyville Manhattan led a group of pioneers across the country to start a new community. They finally stopped at a beautiful spot atop a hill looking down on a lush valley: Jebediah: People, our search is over! On this site we shall build a new town where we can worship freely, govern justly, and grow vast fields of hemp for making rope and blankets. Shelbyville: Yes, and marry our cousins.Jebediah: I was — what are...

"Polygamy is the next civil-rights battle." That's the new battle cry of proponents of "Christian polygamy" who say their lifestyle is one step closer to being accepted after the Supreme Court's controversial decision last week invalidating state sodomy laws. A website set up for media to get information about the pro-polygamy movement enthusiastically hails the Lawrence v. Texas decision, quoting from the majority opinion that Americans now have "... the full right to engage in private conduct without government intervention." As WorldNetDaily reported, critics of the decision believe the court has usurped the role of lawmakers, establishing a far-reaching precedent...

A Texas man got 10 years' probation for offering to strangle a suicidal Wisconsin woman whom he met over the Internet, lawyers said on Friday. Frank Manuel, 55, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, and was ordered by State District Judge Carol Davies on Thursday to submit to a psychiatric evaluation and stay away from the Internet. Houston police arrested Manuel in January, after a woman he met in a suicide chat group reported his offer to strangle her during sex, then bury her in a grave in a state forest with a rose on her chest. The woman, with investigators...

Men whose sodomy case led to Supreme Court ruling keep low profile BY BRUCE NICHOLS The Dallas Morning News HOUSTON - (KRT) - The two men whose appeal led the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Texas' sodomy law have been invisible warriors, making brief appearances at the courthouse but otherwise working with their lawyers to keep their lives secret. Until Thursday's ruling, the public view of Tyron Garner, 35, who was unemployed when arrested in 1998, and John Geddes Lawrence, 59, a longtime medical technologist, consisted of a brief TV news clip in which they decried their arrest. Garner and...

I have a sneaking sympathy for Dick Gephardt. Hitherto the Democratic Party's most reliably unexciting presidential candidate, the former House minority leader went bananas the other day and said if the Supreme Court did something he didn't like he'd sign an executive order overturning it. Several conservatives did a bit of pro forma huffin' an' a-puffin' about why this makes Gephardt unfit to be president. But, speaking personally, I can't see why rule by Dick-tat would be worse in principle than the present system, whereby the nation's course for the decades ahead is effectively set by executive orders from Sandra...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican leader of the U.S. Senate said on Sunday he supported a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage. Reuters Photo Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed concern about the Supreme Court's decision last week to strike down a Texas sodomy law. He said he supported an amendment that would reserve marriage for relationships between men and women. "I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament, and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between, what is traditionally in our Western values has been defined, as between a...

BLAME THE GOP FOR PRO-SODOMY COURT DECISION By: Reed R. Heustis, Jr. June 27, AD 2003 With one stroke of the pen, [homosexuality] has triumphed at the Supreme Court. And guess what? Republican-appointed Justices are to blame. With a convincing 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court on June 26 overturned a 1986 case, Bowers v. Hardwick, which had upheld the legitimacy of an anti-sodomy law. Sodomites and perverts all across America are hailing the Lawrence decision as the biggest gay rights victory in our nation's history. Mitchell Katine, the openly gay attorney representing John Lawrence...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO  — Days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws against sodomy, Gay Pride parades (search) around the country offered gays and lesbians a chance to celebrate an historic victory they hope marks a new era of equality and respect.</p>

By ROBERT CROWE Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle From exotic drag queens strutting their stuff to colorful floats sporting gay and lesbian activists, the Houston Pride Parade on Saturday night attracted a large, festive crowd. While just as flamboyant as it has been during its previous 24 years, the atmosphere was charged by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that overturned Texas' sodomy law. "This is overwhelming and still seems a little unreal after all these years -- more than three decades of struggle -- that we're finally free in Texas and free all over the country," said Lee Harrington. A...

<p>In a gesture of gratitude for the Supreme Court's decision Thursday striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law, gay-rights activists lowered the huge rainbow flag that always flies over the city's Castro District and hoisted the Stars and Stripes in its place.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) --The Supreme Court's ruling striking down bans on gay sex also strengthens the constitutional underpinnings for legal abortion and other socially divisive issues, some legal experts say.</p> <p>The decision in many respects deals with the same issues as the court's 30-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling that provided for legal abortions. Emory University law professor David Garrow said the ruling "strengthens and enshrines" the court's thinking in the abortion case.</p>