Federal Court Strikes Down Defense of Marriage Act, Says Homosexuals are a Protected Class

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A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that gay Americans are a class of people who deserve the same kinds of constitutional protections as many other victims of discrimination.

The 2-to-1 ruling, by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, came as the panel struck down the federal law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex marriage. It is the first time that a federal appeals court has applied this level of constitutional protection — known as heightened scrutiny — to those unions. The case is now considered by some legal scholars to be the leading candidate for a Supreme Court review of the same-sex marriage issue.

Thursday’s decision was the second by a federal appeals court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act. Now the case, Windsor v. United States, could be considered by the Supreme Court, or the court could choose other cases in its pipeline concerning same-sex marriage. Those include an earlier decision on the act by the First Circuit in Boston and one from the Ninth Circuit overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriage. It could also decide to hear all of them.

“It’s an incredible moment in the struggle for gay rights in this country,” said James D. Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s project dealing with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

The new case was brought on behalf of Edith Windsor of New York City, who married her longtime partner, Thea Clara Spyer, in 2007 in Canada. When Ms. Spyer died in 2009, Ms. Windsor inherited her property. Because the Internal Revenue Service was not allowed, under the Defense of Marriage Act, to consider her a surviving spouse, she faced a tax bill of $363,053 that she would not have had to pay if the marriage had been recognized.

Read more from this story HERE.

Manager Who Posted Comments Critical of Gay Marriage on Private Facebook Account Demoted (+video)

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By Bob Unruh. A court trial is under way in the United Kingdom to determine if a Christian manager of a housing organization should be compensated for damages because his employer demoted and penalized him for stating his biblical beliefs on his private Facebook page.

Smith lost his managerial position and had his salary cut by 40 percent after his employer, Trafford Housing Trust, told him his private Facebook page posting, to which only he and his friends had access, violated its standards of conduct.

The case developed in February 2011 when Smith saw a news article titled “Gay church marriages get go ahead.”

He linked to the story and wrote, “An equality too far.”

One of his coworkers asked him to explain, and he responded: “I don’t understand why people who have no faith and don’t believe in Christ would want to get hitched in church. The Bible is quite specific that marriage is for men and women. If the state wants to offer civil marriage to the same sex then that is up to the state; but the state shouldn’t impose its rules on places of faith and conscience.” Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s a BBC update on the case:

Video: Ann Romney Says She’s Prolife but Mitt was a Prochoice Governor

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By Hugo Gye and Meghan Keneally. The wife of the Republican presidential candidate gave a passionate defense of the pro-life stance held by her and her husband during an appearance on daytime talk show The View.

Ann Romney said she will not be the one making the decisions but her husband, who is now running as a pro-life candidate in spite of serving as a pro-choice governor of Massachusetts.

‘The good news is, I’m not running for office and I don’t have to say what I feel. But I am pro life. I’m happy to say that,’ she said.

‘He could not have, on his conscience, creating human life for experimentation,’ she said in reference to Mr Romney’s decision against stem cell research during his time as governor.

‘That’s when he came out saying he was pro life. I think we all have to understand this is an issue that is so tender and there are people on both sides of the issue, with very good conscience, coming with a different opinion.’ Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s Ann Romney’s interview on the View:

Aerosmith Lead Singer’s Aborted Child’s Mother to Speak at Prolife Benefit

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American Idol judge and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will not be at the annual benefit dinner for the Life Legal Defense Foundation next month. But his one-time fiancé and mother of his aborted child will.

Julia Holcomb will relate the story of how her relationship with the rock star in the late 1970s resulted in an abortion that nearly destroyed both of them.

Holcomb began telling her story recently after Tyler’s comments about the abortion and his regrets over it surfaced in Walk this Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith, a book about Tyler’s life.

Holcomb’s own journey led her through pain, trauma, and abuse, but came full circle on the road to recovery that eventually returned her to the church. Today, she offers a passionate plea to end the sexual exploitation of young women and the tragedy of abortion. After decades of silence, Julia Holcomb is now a fierce advocate for respecting the life of unborn children and strengthening the sanctity of marriage.

“The Life Legal Defense Foundation stands up for those who speak out to save innocent lives and prevent women from experiencing suffering as Julia Holcomb did following her abortion,” said Dana Cody, Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Billy Graham stops calling Mormonism a ‘cult’ to help Romney

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Evangelist Reverend Billy Graham has decided to no longer refer to Mormonism as a ‘cult’ following a sit-down meeting with Mitt Romney last week.

The 93-year-old Christian leader met with the Republican candidate for the first time at his home in North Carolina last week.

An article on Graham’s website defining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a cult – along with Scientology and Unitarianism -has been taken down following the meeting, as Graham said he ‘did not wish to participate in a theological debate’.

However the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association stopped short of calling it a change in their opinion of Mormonism.

A statement from the Billy Graham Association read: ‘We removed the information from the website because we do not wish to participate in a theological debate about something that has become politicized during this campaign.’

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: In Response to “Pandering” Debate Question, Kirstin Powers Says Women are “More than [Our Private Parts]”

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Kirstin Powers weighed in on the debate question last night that pandered to women voters. Powers told Megyn Kelly on America Live, “Actually we’re more than our vaginas, believe it or not”:

Another Obama Debate Falsehood: Planned Parenthood Does Not Provide Mammograms

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President Barack Obama has, once again, misled Americans when it comes to the issue of Planned Parenthood and what legitimate health care it does or doesn’t provide. During Tuesday night’s debate, Obama falsely claimed the abortion company does mammograms. It does not.

“There are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings,” Obama claimed.

When the Komen Foundation announced in February that it would no longer provide grants to Planned Parenthood—partly due to the fact that Planned Parenthood does not directly provide mammograms – its ideological and political supporters sprang into action. They decried Komen’s decision to eliminate funding for this imagined provider of mammograms. Planned Parenthood’s Executive Director, Cecile Richards, made the claim. So did President Obama. And an unsuspecting public was led to believe that such bold claims, by people who should know, must be true.

Planned Parenthood itself has admitted that it does not perform mammograms for women — something the Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity confirmed last year.

LifeNews.com and pro-life blogger Jill Stanek followed up with phone calls to various Planned Parenthood centers and confirmed they do not do mammograms.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: KISS’s Gene Simmons Endorses Romney, Says Obama is a “Piss-Poor President”

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Rock and roll star Gene Simmons lays into Obama in this AOL interview.

He states that “the country is so divided” and that he’s been “very disappointed” in Obama.

On the other hand, Simmons believes that Romney is much more qualified to be president because he knows how to run a business, create jobs, and rescued the Olympics.

Simmons concludes by saying that Obama is “a wonderful family man” but that’s “where his resume stops.”

The political discussion begins at about 1:15 in the below video clip:

Bus Driver Tells Pro-Life Student He Should Have Been Aborted

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A 12-year-old Wisconsin boy is haunted by the cruel taunt of his bus driver, who told him that his mother should have opted for abortion instead of bringing him into the world…

Debbie Ann Hartlaub said the 81-year-old bus driver had been harassing her son for weeks. She went straight to the bus company with her story and got the woman fired.

Joey [Hartlaub] told Fox that the incident occurred after he and his classmates were chanting ‘Romney! Romney!’ in the back of the bus.

‘She kind of yelled at us, and told me to come up front,’ Joey said.

Then, Joey explained himself, citing President Barack Obama’s pro-abortion politics as the reason for his support of Mitt Romney.

‘Well, maybe your mother should have chosen an abortion for you!’ the bus driver allegedly told the seventh grader.

Read more from this story HERE.

Deployed US Soldier Begins Sex Change

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She’s a lesbian, and almost everyone in her unit knows it.

She wears her hair cropped short and has a distinctly boyish appearance.

And she’s becoming manlier by the day, now that she’s started taking male hormones.

Call her Keith. That’s the name this 26-year-old specialist, now deployed to Afghanistan, plans to take when she completes a transition begun several months ago when she started giving herself testosterone injections every other week, under the direction of a civilian doctor who specializes in gender changes.

“It’s going well. My voice is deeper, I’m getting more muscle. I feel more energy. I feel more like myself,” she told Military Times in a recent interview via Skype from her containerized housing unit in Afghanistan.

Read more from this story HERE.