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West Point Hosts First Marriage Ceremony for Homosexual Men

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Photo Credit: Mike Groll, APTwo West Point graduates were married Saturday in the military academy’s first wedding between two men.

Larry Choate III, class of 2009, married Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, before about 20 guests.

Choate, 27, taught Sunday school at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel and said he always thought of it as the place he would get married if he could.

West Point hosted two same-sex weddings of women in late 2012, more than a year after New York state legalized gay marriage. But Saturday’s wedding was the first time two men wed at West Point.

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States Get Sued for Enforcing ‘Gay Rights’

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Photo Credit: WNDLawsuits against Christians – sometimes even churches – have become common when they refuse to support non-Christian events, such as same-sex weddings. But now those defendants have started to fight back, filing lawsuits against state officials who are trying to coerce them to violate their faith.

WND reported in May when a Washington state florist sued Attorney General Bob Ferguson for allegedly trying to violate the state and federal constitutions’ religious freedom provisions.

And this week the Christian Institute in the United Kingdom profiled an Iowa couple suing their state’s Civil Rights Commission for the same reason.

“They have filed their own complaint saying that if the commission forces them to go against their beliefs and host gay weddings this would be a violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act,” the Institute reports.

At issue is a claim against the Mennonite couple, Dick and Betty Odgaard, who own and operate the Gortz Haus Gallery, an old church building that is used for a variety of private events.

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NJ Becomes 14th State to Recognize Gay Marriage (+video)

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Photo Credit: MYFOXNY.COMSome couples in New Jersey had waited decades. At the stroke of midnight the moment arrived as New Jersey became the the 14th state to legalize gay marriage.

The celebrations came three days after the state Supreme Court rejected Gov. Chris Christie’s request to delay the start of the nuptials while he appealed a lower court’s ruling on same-sex marriage.

Weddings were held in several cities and towns across the state in the first minutes of Monday morning, as soon as a court order requiring the state to recognize gay marriage went into effect.

Peter Connell and David Calle have been together 13 years and were among those toasting their commitment at midnight. Now official they say the historic day was made even better when Christie announced Monday morning that he is dropping his appeal in the legal case.

My9 New Jersey

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Exxon to Offer Benefits to Married Same-Sex Couples

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Photo Credit: David Duprey/AP

Photo Credit: David Duprey/AP

Exxon Mobil Corp. said on Friday that it will begin offering benefits to legally married same-sex couples in the United States starting next week.

The company says it will recognise “all legal marriages” when it determines eligibility for health care plans for the company’s 77,000 employees and retirees in America.

That means if a gay employee has been married in a state or country where gay marriage is legal, his or her spouse will be eligible for benefits with Exxon in the United States as of 1 October.

Exxon, which is facing a same-sex discrimination complaint in Illinois, said it was following the lead of the US government. In June, the US supreme court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which had allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. In recent months, federal agencies have begun to offer benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

“We haven’t changed our eligibility criteria. It has always been to follow the federal definition and it will continue to follow the federal definition,” said an Exxon spokesman, Alan Jeffers, in an interview.

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Gay Inmates in California Can Get Married

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Photo Credit: derekskey

Photo Credit: derekskey

With the demise of Proposition 8 — the gay marriage ban — gay inmates in California can get married to their same-sex partners, the Associated Press has reported.

In an August 30 memo, state prison officials stated that due to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “effectively invalidated” Proposition 8, they “must accept and process applications for a same-sex marriage between an inmate and a non-incarcerated person in the community, in the same manner as they do between opposite sex couples.”

In case you didn’t notice the wording, there is a caveat in that statement…

While a gay inmate can marry a person who is not jailed, two gay inmates cannot get married.

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County Clerk Refuses to Follow Judge’s Order to Issue Marriage License to Lesbian Couple (+video)

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

New Mexico state law takes no definitive stance on gay marriage, and while multiple counties have started issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, one county clerk is refusing to do so even in the face of a judge’s order.

Sharon Shover, who serves in Los Alamos county, this week refused to follow a judge’s order to give a marriage license to two women. Shover, a Republican, is publicly standing up to the order, saying she believes the decision to change the definition of marriage should be made by the state’s Supreme Court or by the legislature, The Albuquerque Journal reported.

Shover’s move comes after First Judicial District Judge Sheri Raphaelson ordered her to issue the permit to the couple, Janet Newton and Maria Thibodeau. If the clerk refused, the justice said she would need to show up in court to argue why such an allowance was denied. Standing firm, Shover is slated to appear Wednesday to make her case.

Albuquerque’s KOB-TV has more:

“Piecemeal litigation in courts across New Mexico is not good governance. County clerks need a comprehensive and clear answer from the state of New Mexico addressing this issue,” Shover said in a statement. “We all need to be issuing the same marriage license and following the same laws.”

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Christian Bakers who Refused Cake Order for Gay Wedding Forced to Close Shop

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Photo Credit: https://www.sweetcakesweb.com/index.html

Photo Credit: https://www.sweetcakesweb.com/index.html

A husband-and-wife bakery shop team in Oregon were forced to close their shop doors and move to cheaper digs — their home — after gay-rights activists hounded them and drove away contract business because they refused for Christian reasons to bake for a same-sex wedding.

Aaron and Melissa Klein own and operate Sweet Cakes by Melissa. In the past few months, they’ve faced heated scrutiny — some in the form of physical threats — from those in the gay-rights crowd who decried their May refusal to bake for a lesbian couple who wanted to marry.

The Kleins cited their Christian beliefs of traditional marriage when they turned down that business gig, The Blaze reported. But the lesbian couple filed a complaint with the state, accusing the shop owners of discrimination.

Since, they’ve been hounded by vicious telephone calls and emails.

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Liz Cheney Blasted by Older Sister Over Anti-Gay Marriage Stance

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of one of ex-Vice President Dick Cheney’s two daughters, has taken to Facebook to blast her older sibling, Elizabeth.

Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Senate candidate, aired her views on gay marriage on Friday by saying it should be something for voters to decide on a state-by-state basis, and not a matter for ‘judges’ or ‘legislators.’

Mary Cheney, openly lesbian and married to Heather Poe since 2012, responded by posting on her personal Facebook page: ‘For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage.’

She continued: “Freedom means freedom for everyone. That means that all families — regardless of how they look or how they are made — all families are entitled to the same rights, privileges and protections as every other.”

‘For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage.’

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Gay Marriages Get Recognition From the I.R.S. in All States

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

All same-sex couples who are legally married will be recognized as such for federal tax purposes, even if the state where they live does not recognize their union, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.

It is the broadest federal rule change to come out of the landmark Supreme Court decision in June that struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and a sign of how quickly the government is moving to treat gay couples in the same way that it does straight couples.

The June decision found that same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits, but left open the question of how Washington would actually administer them. The Treasury Department answered some of those questions on Thursday. As of the 2013 tax year, same-sex spouses who are legally married will not be able to file federal tax returns as if either were single. Instead, they must file together as “married filing jointly” or individually as “married filing separately.”

Their address or the location of their wedding does not matter, as long as the marriage is legal: a same-sex couple who marry in Albany, N.Y., and move to Alabama are treated the same as a same-sex couple who marry and live in Massachusetts.

“Today’s ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax-filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said. “This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing status will not change.”

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Clashing Claims – Church, State, and Free Enterprise

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

The Supreme Court of New Mexico yesterday ruled that the First Amendment does not protect a photographer’s right to decline to take pictures of a same-sex commitment ceremony — even though doing so would violate the photographer’s deeply held religious beliefs. As Elaine Huguenin, owner of Elane Photography, explained: “The message a same-sex commitment ceremony communicates is not one I believe.”

But New Mexico’s highest court, deciding an appeal of the case, ruled against Elane Photography, concluding that neither protections of free speech nor of free exercise of religion apply.

Elaine and her husband, Jon, both committed Christians, run their small photography business in Albuquerque, N.M. In 2006, she declined a request to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. In 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled that the business had engaged in illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation by declining to use its artistic and expressive skills to communicate what was said and what occurred at the ceremony.

The commission ruled this way according to New Mexico’s human-rights law, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations (“any establishment that provides or offers its services . . . or goods to the public”) on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation — among other protected classes.

Elane Photography didn’t refuse to take pictures of gays and lesbians, but only of such a same-sex ceremony, because of the owners’ belief that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. New Mexico law agrees — it has no legal same-sex civil unions or same-sex marriages. Additionally, there were other photographers in the Albuquerque area who could have photographed the ceremony.

Read more from this story HERE.