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• Marriage protection act passes | House bill strips federal courts of power over same-sex cases (The Washington Post)
• House backs bill to limit power of judges | The House of Representatives joined the fight over gay marriage on Thursday, approving legislation that would prohibit federal courts from overturning parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (The New York Times)
• House targets marriage validation | In a showdown on the role of Congress and the courts in defining marriage, the House voted yesterday to strip federal judges of the ability to rule on such cases, leaving the matter up to the states (The Washington Times)
• House passes ban on gay marriage rulings | Would bar decisions by federal judges on states' recognition (The Boston Globe)
• House okays gay marriage jurisdiction bill | Gay marriage opponents wanted more, but House Republicans gave them at least a symbolic election-year victory. Republicans passed legislation in the House on Thursday, 233-194, to prevent federal courts from ordering states to recognize same-sex unions that took place in other states (Associated Press)
• House votes to curb same-sex marriage | The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill to curb same-sex marriage on Thursday after rejecting concerns the measure may be unconstitutional (Reuters)

Same-sex marriage:

• 'Marriage' suit draws critics | A Florida conservative group yesterday filed papers to intervene in what is thought to be the first lawsuit by a homosexual couple to gain interstate recognition of their Massachusetts "marriage" (The Washington Times)
• Gay couple are first to get blessing by minister | A former soldier and his partner became the first same-sex couple to be blessed by a Church of Scotland minister, in a ceremony at a pub yesterday (The Scotsman)
• Minister gives gay couple his blessing | The minister was also keen to point out that the ceremony, conducted before a makeshift altar, bedecked in candles, did not mean the couple were married (The Herald, Glasgow)
• Kirk minister blesses gay 'wedding' | A Church of Scotland minister yesterday defended his decision to bless the union of a terminally ill former soldier and his partner at a gay wedding ceremony in a pub (The Times, London)
• Ahmadis warn against gay marriages | An appeal has gone to elders of religions in Ghana to see the solemnization of homosexual marriages in America as a challenge, to preach against this phenomenon from taking root in the country (Ghanaian Chronicle)
• Taking a stand where church and state collide | The Rev. Dawn Sangrey was one of two Unitarian Universalist ministers who performed weddings for gay and lesbian couples in New Paltz, N.Y., in March (The New York Times)

Marriage & divorce:

• Divorce plan puts children first | Fathers' call for automatic 50-50 contact time ruled out (The Guardian, London)
• Divorcing couples may no longer get legal aid | Injured patients could lose the right to legal aid to sue the NHS, and divorcing spouses on low incomes could be forced to borrow against family assets under government proposals to shave £41m off the £695m civil legal aid bill (The Guardian, London)
• Canada wants to cut definition of spouse from Divorce Act | Two Toronto women who split up just five days after they got married in June of last year have found the act does not provide for same-sex divorce because it defines spouse as ''a man or a woman who are married to each other" (The Globe and Mail, Toronto)

Abortion:

• Designer babies are not wicked: abortions are, though | Why is everybody making such a fuss about a couple of dozen parents who want to create new lives, at the expense of a few full-stop-sized embryos, when hardly anybody seems to notice the mass slaughter of highly developed foetuses that is going on every day of the week? (Tom Utley, The Telegraph, London)

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48