This case could end up being the Roe v. Wade of the same-sex “marriage” debate in our culture, the Baptist Press reports. Two homosexual couples are challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which bans gay “marriage” and which Californians passed with a majority vote in 2008. The plaintiffs argue that their 14th amendment right to “equal protection under the law” is being violated by Proposition 8. The New York Times reports about the first day of the trial, and a Baptist Press report implies that the California judge is likely to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. The case is likely to go all the way to the Supreme…

This is good breaking news from New Jersey. Governor Corzine had promised to sign a bill legalizing gay “marriage,” but the bill failed in the Senate before it reached his desk. “The state Senate rejected a same-sex marriage bill today, a major victory for opponents who contend that the measure would damage religious freedom and is not needed because the state already permits civil unions.” New Jersey’s Star-Ledger has the rest of the story here.

Democratic Representative Bart Stupak is fighting the good fight to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. According to the New York Times, he is prepared to vote against final passage if the bill gets abortion coverage wrong. Here’s an excerpt: ‘With final negotiations on a health care overhaul beginning this week, complaints about “the evil Stupak amendment,” as the congressman dryly called it over dinner here recently, are likely to grow even louder. The amendment prevents women who receive federal insurance subsidies from buying abortion coverage — but critics assert it could cause women who buy their own insurance difficulty in obtaining coverage. ‘Mr. Stupak insists…

In a nutshell, Douthat thinks Bush was better: “I think it’s worth comparing tonight’s speech, unfavorably, to George W. Bush’s address announcing the Iraqi surge. . . Obama was more comprehensive; Bush was much, much better. And now we have to hope that the President’s strategy is more successful than his speech.”

The New Yorker recently published a must-read interview with Jon Shields, the author of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, about the history of the organized opposition to abortion and its evolving relationship with American politics. Among other things, Shields says this: “The pro-life cause has indeed resonated in a liberal, rights-oriented culture far more than other “culture-war” issues. Even as attitudes toward gay marriage and gender roles have rapidly liberalized, abortion opinion has been remarkably stable since the early nineteen-seventies. The remarkable spread of social liberalism, therefore, has not left our nation any more pro-choice than it was in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided. There is…

Don’t believe everything you read. Especially the obfuscations of Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling in today’s New York Times. Their OP-ED is more of the tired, old, feminist propaganda that entirely misses the point of the abortion debate. They pillory congressional Democrats who supported the pro-life Stupak amendment to the healthcare bill passed last week. They charge pro-life Democrats with risking the “well-being of millions of women” and with undermining “reproductive rights.” Once again, the pro-death feminists show not one scintilla of concern for the unborn. They even complain that Democrat leaders are now using the term “pro-life” instead of the pejorative “anti-choice.” Here’s the bottom line. It is wrong…

On Monday, Chris Matthews interviewed Jim Cooper (Democrat Congressman from Tennessee) and Cecile Richards (President of Planned Parenthood). Neither Cooper nor Richards is being straightforward about the Stupak Amendment that was attached to the House’s healthcare reform bill on Saturday. Matthews is a liberal and is pro-choice, but even he won’t let them get away with it. Be sure to pay careful attention to Cooper and Richards’s rationale for rejecting the pro-life Stupak Amendment. Utterly false.