“All of those who have been invisible will now be visible to themselves and the whole world.”
— Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie before signing marriage equality into law after lawmakers voted to legalize same-sex marriage in the Aloha State yesterday.
“One of my first loves was the political arena,” says Jeremy Moss, the openly gay president pro tempore of the Michigan Senate and Democratic nominee for Congress in Michigan’s 11th District.
“I remember in my household growing up, we had the news on and watched Peter Jennings every single night,” he says. “I was in a household that was very on top of current and newsworthy events in our state and in our country. I literally -- and this is no joke -- was the first grader that could name every president in the order they served.”
Moss recalls being six years old and captivated by the 1992 presidential debate at Michigan State University, which gave it a local connection for him. He watched Bush, Clinton, and Perot “making a pitch to America,” each hoping voters would choose his vision for the country.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a Catholic who is one of the high court's most doctrinaire conservatives, says in a new book that the court's decision extending marriage rights to same-sex couples was "perhaps the decisive point in our nation's turn against religious liberty."
Alito, who dissented in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case, made the claim in a speech at Catholic University of America (CUA) three years after the decision. The remarks were published in So Ordered, a collection of the justice's speeches that he says reflect his judicial philosophy and views of the United States.
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, is urging Catholics to pray, fast, and vote "no" on two ballot measures that would protect abortion rights and repeal the state's two-decade-old constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Burbidge addressed the measures in a September 30 video posted to the Diocese of Arlington's YouTube channel, shortly after early voting began for the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The first ballot measure, if approved, would guarantee access to abortion while allowing restrictions during the third trimester, "except when the patient's health is at risk or the pregnancy cannot survive."