This week Washington, D.C. became the second U.S. jurisdiction to lose the benefit of Catholic Charities’ adoption and foster care services over the issue of same-sex marriage. Early next month, barring Congressional or judicial intervention, the District of Columbia will become the sixth U.S. jurisdiction to authorize same-sex marriage. As the law developed last year, the Archdiocese of Washington, of which Catholic Charities is a part, endeavored to avoid a conflict between its social services and the new D.C. marriage law. The two major points of conflict involve the interaction …
While two brutal snowstorms pounded the Washington, DC, area, the government was busy wasting money to the tune of $100 million a day. Extreme weather conditions forced the government to close for four and a half days straight, costing tax payers $450 million in lost productivity, according to a Fox News report. Wondering how much $100 million really is for the government? Last spring, when President Barack Obama ordered his cabinet secretaries to cut $100 million in spending, Heritage’s Ken McIntyre took a look at what $100 million really means. …
As citizens in Maine and Washington state near votes on measures to protect traditional marriage, a subtheme of the debate on this issue is being raised anew: the harassment and intimidation of advocates of traditional marriage by their opponents on the issue. On Wednesday of this week, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 to preserve a stay on Washington state’s planned publishing of the names of citizens who signed the petition that put marriage-equivalent benefits for same-sex couples on the November 3 ballot. Washington’s law SB 5688 is controversial because …
File this away in the “I told you so” budget commentary section. Last April, legislators hobbled together nearly $5 billion in one-time funds to balance the budget–including about $3 billion in federal stimulus funds ($4.1 billion total if you count the 2007-09 supplemental). In their eagerness to gobble up as many dollars as the feds would offer, legislators (and Governor Gregoire) forgot two of the most fundamental life lessons in a world of scarce resources. First, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Second, if it seems too good …
The tens of thousands of Americans who traveled to Washington over the weekend to protest profligate government spending didn’t just exercise their constitutional right to peacefully assemble and ask that wrongs be set right. Taxpayers and voters also demonstrated a healthy understanding that the Constitution is on their side. “We want our freedom back,” Gary Brown, 53, of Greer, S.C., told The Washington Times. “The Constitution is the law of the land. We don’t need lawyers to interpret it. Get out of our lives.” Terri Hall, 45, of Starke, Fla., …
Here is a picture of the crowd in Olympia, Washington courtesy of Trent England. Not small.
